Month: March 2022

Obituary: Robert ‘Butch’ Matz

Robert “Butch” Matz

Born March 4, 1952, in Kansas City, Kansas, Robert “Butch” Matz died on March 6, 2022.

He is survived by his wife of 44 years, Sue Pierson Matz, son Joshua, granddaughter Marlie, brother Fred Matz (Ann), sister Mary Cobb (Bill), and many beloved nephews, nieces, in-laws and friends. He thought of Josh’s friend Cody Canseco as his second son.

Preceding him in death were his parents Fred and Kathryn Matz, brothers Jack Steele, Bobbie Steele and Gilbert Matz, sister Shirley Bennett, nephews Tommy Burns, Billy Bennett, David Steele and Shawn Steele and great-nephew, Kyle Trambley.

Matz, 70, was a member of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Grandview, Missouri, and demonstrated his faith by always helping others. He was very hard-working, dedicated to his family and home, and was very proud of the man Josh had become. Butch “Papa” adored Marlie and showed his orneriness by teaching her many pranks. He was known to visit hardware stores on a daily basis. He was a fun-loving guy and an avid fan of the Kansas Jayhawks and Kansas City Chiefs and loved anything to do with airplanes. He had wanted to join the Air Force as a young man, but physical injuries prevented service.

He was a 1970 graduate of Argentine High School, where he was very active on the football and track teams. He later played softball on the church league team.

Arrangements are at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Grandview, Missouri, on Saturday, March 26, with visitation at 10 a.m., service at 11 a.m., and a reception and meal following the service.

The family suggests donations to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, or to a church or charity of the donor’s choice.

Kansas COVID-19 case numbers, hospitalizations slowing as weather warms up

Medical experts encourage vaccinations to maintain low caseload

by Noah Taborda, Kansas Reflector

Topeka — For the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, some Kansas hospitals are seeing low to no COVID-19 patients in critical care units as case numbers statewide appear to be in a lull.

Case numbers across the state continue to decrease from the spike in omicron variant cases in mid-January, easing the burden on many overwhelmed hospitals. For example, Ascension Via Christi in Manhattan reported earlier this month they no longer had any COVID-19 patients in their intensive care unit for the first time since 2020.

In Topeka, Stormont Vail reported nine total COVID-19 inpatients. The University of Kansas Health System still has 75 COVID-19 patients, but only 1 in the ICU because of the disease.

Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevention and control for KU Health, said if the status quo were to remain, Kansas is trending in a good direction as the weather gets warmer.

“We are building up good individual immunity, and I hope community or population immunity as well,” Hawkinson said. “But we also know that the virus is continuing to circulate. Overall cases have been going down, hospitalizations have been decreasing, and so have deaths. So those are all good things, but we may be in a lull right now.”

According to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, as of March 17, there are 29% of ICU beds available in reporting Kansas hospitals. The reduction in patient traffic comes as daily case numbers have dropped into and sometimes below the hundreds statewide, as opposed to the peak of the omicron surge where new patient counts were in the thousands every day.

Reporting from KDHE indicates 115 new COVID-19 cases, 4 new deaths and 45 new hospitalizations between Friday and Monday. That brings the total since March 2020 to 769, 333 cases, 8,150 deaths and 19,894 hospitalizations.

Vaccine rates also continue a slow climb statewide. Currently, 73.9% of Kansans have received at least one dose and 60.7% are fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among adults, the fully vaccinated rate is 71.5%.

Hawkinson once again encouraged Kansans to pursue full vaccination. He said while further research and guidance are still needed, recent reports indicating the Johnson & Johnson vaccine remained durable and effective during the delta variant surge is an encouraging sign for those who received the shot.

“It adds to this story that we know is true, that these vaccines continue to protect against hospitalizations, severe disease and death,” Hawkinson said.

With the BA.2 variant of COVID-19 surging in foreign countries, Hawkinson said now is the time for people to ensure they are well prepared. The so-called “stealth omicron” variant now accounts for 75% of coronavirus cases globally but only 23% of cases in the U.S., according to the CDC.

Karin Porter-Williamson, director of palliative care at the KU Health System, said her division is focused on helping families and patients deal with the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of COVID-19. She said case numbers spiking last year after a tame summer where restrictions were dropped was a gut punch to many people’s mental health.

With similar conditions this year, she is preparing her staff just in case.

“Right now, we’re, we’re in another lull that hopefully will be sustainable,” Porter-Williamson said. “We’ve worked to develop skills of resiliency, just to keep coming to work and doing our best job. We need to be able to adapt and just do the work that is in front of us the best that we can.”

Kansas Reflector stories, www.kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
See more at https://kansasreflector.com/2022/03/21/kansas-covid-19-case-numbers-hospitalizations-slowing-as-weather-warms-up/

Historian tells of Sumner High School

Chester Owens

by Murrel Bland

Chester Owens Jr. received a telephone call in about 2005 (he can’t recall the exact date) telling him that many artifacts of Sumner High School were about to be destroyed. He quickly rescued these historic items, storing many of them in the basement of his home.

This is one of several stories that Owens told Sunday afternoon, March 20, at a quarterly meeting of the Wyandotte County Historical Society at the Wyandotte County Museum in Wyandotte County Park, Bonner Springs. About 50 persons attended.

Today, there is a history room at Sumner Academy of Arts and Sciences displaying many items including the rescued artifacts.

Owens, a dedicated historian of Sumner High School, came to Wyandotte County with his family from Ashdown, Arkansas, in 1946. He became a sophomore at Sumner.

Owns told of how Sumner became the only segregated high school, by law, in Kansas. On April 12, 1904, a very popular white youth, Roy Martin, was shot and killed in Kerr Park. Charged and convicted was Louis Gregory, a Black youth. Throughout the years, Black historians have argued that Gregory was trying to defend himself. The white community was up in arms. The solution was to segregate schools—all Black students would attend Northeast Junior High and Sumner High School.

Kansas Gov. E.W. Hoch was reluctant to sign the bill that made Sumner a segregated school; he did it only after being assured Sumner would be of the same quality as other buildings in the Kansas City, Kansas, School District. The law also guaranteed that Sumner faculty members would be paid as well as their white counterparts. These factors attracted faculty members from all over the United States.

The name of the high school was chosen honoring U.S. Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, an abolitionist.

Owens told several prominent graduates, faculty members and administrators of Sumner. They included:

• William Foster, president of the American Bandmasters Association and board member of the John Phillips Sousa Foundation.
• Fernando J. Gaitan Jr., senior U.S. Court Judge for the Western District of Missouri.
• John McClendon, first Black head coach of any professional sport.
• Leon Brady was band director at Sumner. His jazz band raised $25,000 from private sources so the band could attend international competition in Paris—they called the event “Sumner in Paris.”
• Col. Vernon Coffey was appointed as the U.S. Army aide to President Richard M. Nixon.

The Historical Society named Owens the “Historian of the Year.”

Murrel Bland is the former editor of The Wyandotte West and The Piper Press. He a member of the Board of Trustees of the Wyandotte County Historical Society.