Joe McKinstry by Alan Hoskins
A coach with seven years of experience as an assistant coach at the collegiate level is the new assistant men’s basketball coach at Kansas City Kansas Community College.
A 1999 graduate of Oak Park High School, Joe McKinstry joins head coach Kelley Newton at the helm of the Blue Devil basketball program.
McKinstry comes to KCKCC from William Penn University in Oskaloosa, Iowa, where he played four years and been assistant coach the last seven years.
“Joe McKinstry’s background and experience will be a great asset in moving our program forward,” Newton said. “That experience will help me as coach and our players in becoming better players. We feel very fortunate in getting a coach with his experience.”
“I’m excited for the opportunity and happy to be here,” McKinstry said. “I know there will be a definite transition to community college and I can’t wait to get started helping build the program with Coach Newton. Being from the area and with two daughters here, I’m delighted to be back here.”
A point guard at William Penn, McKinstry finished his four years of competition as No. 5 on the all-time assist list and in the Top 10 in assists, steals and made 3-point shots. William Penn was an NCAA Division III member his first season, then moved to the NAIA Division II.
“We were 2-30 in the first year of the NAIA and by my senior year, we won 20 games for the first time in 23 years,” McKinstry said.
McKinstry became a full-time assistant after earning a degree in physical education in 2006. In his seven years as assistant, William Penn won two Midwest Collegiate Conference championships and gained the NAIA Division II national tournament four times, finishing as national runnerup in 2013 and reaching the Elite Eight this past season.
Students attended a debate camp recently at Kansas City Kansas Community College. (KCKCC photo) by Kelly Rogge
Kansas City Kansas Community College is holding a week-long debate camp to help high school debaters prepare for the upcoming season.
The camp, which started Aug. 4, is free for high school students and is held by the KCKCC Debate Team with support from the Division of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, the vice president of academic affairs office and the vice president of financial and administrative services.
The goal is to teach high school students about the debate topic they will be debating in the coming school year. Offered as a free alternative to more expensive summer institutes, some costing as much as $3,000, students from all over the Kansas City area attend the camp. In the past, some have come from as far away as southern Missouri and southern and western Kansas.
“It helps students who may not be able to afford more expensive residential camps,” said Darren Elliott, coach of the national-champion KCKCC debate team and director of the debate camp. “Over the course of the week, one to two dozen students from area high schools will attend various lectures.”
In addition to Elliott, KCKCC Assistant Debate Coach Scott Elliott serves as a lecturer for the camp. This year, he is giving the topic lecture because he is considered an expert in the field of this year’s high school topic – “Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its non-military exploration and-or development of the Earth’s oceans.”
Elliott received his law degree from the University of Texas while he was assisting with environmental law and ocean policy.
High school students attending the camp will have the opportunity to listen to a variety of lectures during the week including all aspects of ocean policy.
Lectures are delivered by both Darren Elliott and Scott Elliott as well as members of the KCKCC Debate Team, and other college and high school coaches.
For more information on the KCKCC debate program or the high school debate camp, contact Darren Elliott at 913-288-7295 or by email at [email protected]. Students attended a debate camp recently at Kansas City Kansas Community College. (KCKCC photo)
Scott Morgan, left, is a Republican candidate for Kansas secretary of state. Samantha Poetter, right, represented incumbent Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach at a recent candidate forum at Kansas City Kansas Community College. (Staff photo)
As primary Election Day rolls around Tuesday, Aug. 5, some would-be voters have been left in registration limbo.
That situation was pointed out by Scott Morgan, a Republican primary challenger to Secretary of State Kris Kobach, at a candidate forum July 30 at Kansas City Kansas Community College.
Morgan said about 19,000 Kansans, which may have grown to 24,000 last week, were on a suspension list for voter registration. Some of them have not provided all the documents proving their citizenship that are now necessary to register.
They have until Monday (today) to turn in their citizenship documents to the local election office, and they also may text the documents to the election office, according to Samantha Poetter of the secretary of state’s office.
Kobach, who lives in the Piper area of Kansas City, Kan., was not present at the candidate forum at KCKCC. He was represented by Poetter.
Poetter said she was a child of immigrants and that protecting the vote in Kansas by requiring voter identification and citizenship requirements was important. She also said business services have been improved in the secretary of state’s office, and that Kobach is working together with other departments to make the office a one-stop shop for businesses.
She said Kobach has reduced the size of the agency by 14 percent; returned $20 million to the state general fund; and cut expenditures by 11 percent in the secretary of state’s office.
Morgan, of Lawrence, grew up in Shawnee, Kan., has worked for Sen. Nancy Kassebaum and Sen. Bob Dole, and represented the U.S. Senate on the Federal Election Commission; was chief counsel for Sen. Dole’s presidential campaign; and was chief counsel for Gov. Mike Hayden. He was a candidate for Congress in 1990. He also started a small publishing business, and has served two terms on the Lawrence school board.
He said secretary of state is largely a clerical position, but it is elected because the secretary of state is the chief election official.
“I believe that right to vote is so fundamental and so dear to all of us that I get very nervous when the government starts telling me that we need to limit it to protect it,” Morgan said.
He said he did not support the new requirements requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.
“I think those go against the grain of what it means to be Kansans,” Morgan said. “For 150 years we have had good, clean elections.”
Voter fraud has not produced the kind of problems that require additional restrictions on registration, he believes.
“We can’t get Kansans to vote in Kansas elections, I’m not sure why illegal immigrants would want to do that,” he said. “So I want to make sure that we protect that right to vote.”
Morgan also said the secretary of state’s job is full-time and mentioned Kobach’s working on other projects all around the country that had nothing to do with being secretary of state. Poetter said Kobach works more than 40 hours a week in the secretary of state’s office and has only been out of state twice since she started working in the office.
Kobach, who grew up in Topeka, Kan., was a professor of constitutional law before becoming secretary of state. He is the co-author of the Arizona illegal immigration law and also has worked on other states’ immigration laws. He worked in the personal office of U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2001 during the Bush administration.
Poetter said if people want to vote, they will vote, and the office is trying to make it easier. Those who were born in Kansas don’t have to prove their citizenship, she said. Providing proof of citizenship and voter identification are important, she said.
She said the 19,000 people on the suspension list are in the process of being registered. Their registration is not thrown out, they are still in the process, and all they need to do is provide their citizenship document, she said.
People who are 17 years old, or a felon, or who don’t check the boxes correctly on the registration form also may be on the suspension list, not just those who are having to prove their citizenship, she added.
Morgan said during a 15-year period, from 1997 to 2012, out of 10 million people who voted, about 235 people may have had some allegations of fraud. Now, because of worries about voter fraud, there are 19,000 Kansans who just can’t vote, according to Morgan.
“I think that is a fatal flaw in the system,” Morgan said. “That, to me, is a far bigger problem,” he said.
Morgan said everyone in Kansas needs to have a sense of trust that everyone is going to treat them fairly, regardless of their party.
“It is hard for a lot of people to register,” he said. Because of the “clunky” online registration system, many try to register online and it doesn’t work, he said.
“This right is so basic of a foundation to everything else that we hold dear that we start playing with it at our own expense,” Morgan said. “The fear we have is not of those who threaten us by illegal aliens voting, it is by Americans and Kansans who don’t vote because they find it too difficult and too confusing.”
