Month: April 2021

No. 9 team visits KCKCC on Tuesday

by Alan Hoskins, KCKCC sports information

The road doesn’t get any easier for Kansas City Kansas Community College baseball. After dropping a doubleheader to No. 5 Johnson County Saturday, the Blue Devils play host to No. 9 Cowley County in a doubleheader Tuesday starting at 1 p.m.

Johnson County (27-1) broke open a close game in the late innings for a 7-4 first game win and then needed just seven innings for a 15-4 nightcap win Saturday. The wins kept JCCC (11-1) a game ahead of Cowley (10-2) for the Jayhawk Conference lead.

Fourth in the Jayhawk at 5-5 and 10-8 overall, the Blue Devils are at Cloud County for a non-conference doubleheader Thursday before resuming Jayhawk play against Highland next week.

KCKCC trailed 3-2 in the sixth inning of the opener only to have the Cavaliers go long ball. Jackson Galloway doubled, Brevon Lee tripled and Nate Stevens homered for a 6-2 lead. The Blue Devils got two runs back in the bottom of the sixth on singles by Jaylon Johnson, Cole Silbowski and Cole Dawson and a Raymond Paniagua sacrifice fly.

Jay Long (4-0) got the pitching win, allowing four hits and an earned run in 4.1 innings while Sebastian Velez (1-2) took the loss, allowing six runs on seven hits. Dawson and Paniagua each had two hits for the Blue Devils, who had nine hits but left 11 runners stranded.

JCCC scored six runs in the second inning and five in the seventh to close out the 15-4 nightcap win.

The Cavaliers took a 2-0 lead on a Quinton Hall home run in the first inning but the Blue Devils went ahead 3-2 in the bottom of the inning. A double by Silbowski, single by Dawson scored one run; Caleb Adams singled in another and Brendyn Bard’s sacrifice fly put the Blue Devils in front.

The Cavaliers regained the lead with a 5-hit, 6-run sixth inning highlighted by Wyatt Morgan’s go-ahead two-run homer and a two-run double by Noah Cook. The Cavaliers finished with 19 hits off three KCKCC pitchers.

Austin led with four hits including a two-run homer in the seventh. KCKCC was limited to nine singles including two each by Silbowski and Paniagua.

Column: Missing an old friend

Window

Opinion column

by Mary Rupert

I am missing an old friend, Debra DeCoster, who died March 26.

Debra, 62, was a staff writer for the Kansas City Hispanic News for the past 16 years. I first met her when I was asked to edit her freelance stories many years ago at the Kansas City Kansan. She also was a freelance writer for the Star and other publications. Her stories won many awards in different contests through the years.

Some years ago, Debra and I served on the board of the Kansas City Press Club, and she served in many different officer positions, including president from 2010 to 2012.

I remember her mainly for her support of local journalists through her many years of volunteer work with the Press Club. She did quite a lot of volunteer work for the Press Club when she was on the board.

For several years, Debra also helped as a panelist at local candidate forums in Wyandotte County, another volunteer position.

I was always glad to see Debra when we occasionally were at the same events. The last time I saw her was March 5, 2020, at the mayor’s speech in Argentine, before a lot of events shut down.

Debra was a very kind person, and also volunteered with Operation WildLife, helping injured animals. This, I believe, tells us more about her life than a lot of other information. To quote William Wordsworth, “The best portion of a good man’s life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.”

To see Debra’s obituary, visit https://www.maplehillfuneralhome.com/obituaries/Debra-Decoster/.


To reach Mary Rupert, editor, email [email protected].

Kansas total tax collection for March outperforms estimates

The total tax collections for March in Kansas outperformed estimates by about $52.3 million or 9.7 percent, according to the governor’s office.

There was $590.1 million total received in March in tax collecttions.

“While this revenue growth is encouraging, we must continue practicing fiscal responsibility – particularly as we’re getting a clearer picture of how federal and state tax legislation could impact the state’s ending balance,” Gov. Laura Kelly said. “We cannot risk passing any tax bill that would put Kansas back into a self-inflicted budget crisis, and jeopardize our COVID-19 recovery efforts.”

With the late start of tax season and refunds going out in March, individual income tax collections were lower than the estimate by $4.8 million, or 1.9%, with $255.2 million collected. Corporate income tax collections were $25.3 million, beating the estimate by 26.7%, or $5.3 million.

Consumer spending has not slowed down as both retail sales tax and compensating use tax collections were more than estimated. Retail sales tax collections were up $19.2 million for the month, with $194.2 million collected. Compensating use sales tax was $2.6 million more than the estimate with $42.6 million collected.

The Consensus Revenue Estimating Group will meet later this month to reassess future estimates and consider the impact COVID-19 related federal legislation has on revenue numbers.