Anti-abortion group calls for grand jury
Diane Carroll | Special to the Lenexa Centennial
A coalition of anti-abortion groups is circulating a petition calling for a grand jury to investigate whether Planned Parenthood of Overland Park is complying with state abortion laws.
Operation Rescue President Troy Newman of Wichita, who announced the petition drive, said the coalition had reason to believe that Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri and its Comprehensive Health clinic might be violating the law.
“There’s too much controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood at this point,” Newman said in a telephone interview. “I think an independent grand jury can get to the bottom of it.”
Planned Parenthood President Peter Brownlie could not be reached, and no one else from the organization returned phone calls Oct. 2.
Newman said he thought the required number of signatures — about 3,500 from registered voters — could be collected in a few weeks. The goal is to get more than 5,000, he said. The petition would have to be certified by the Johnson County Elections Office and approved by district judges.
The petition calls for a grand jury to investigate whether Planned Parenthood performs illegal late-term abortions, whether it fails to report child abuse or whether it takes part in the illegal trafficking of fetal tissue.
It also wants a grand jury to determine whether Planned Parenthood provides “false information in order to induce government action or inaction,” whether it fails to comply with parental consent
requirements, whether it fails to enforce the required 24-hour waiting period and whether it fails to follow the required standard of care in providing medical advice.
Besides Operation Rescue, the “Life Is for Everyone (LIFE)” coalition is supported by Concerned Women for America and Women Influencing the Nation. All of the groups, which are national, have members in Johnson County, Newman said.
Tim Golba of Lenexa, who said he would serve as the coalition’s spokesman, said no one was accusing Planned Parenthood of wrongdoing at this point. The goal is to make sure the organization obeys the law, he said.
Golba, a former state director of Kansans for Life, said abortion opponents got excited about convening a grand jury after a grand jury was seated in the county during the summer to investigate obscenity.
Also, he said, they were encouraged to see that a grand jury is being convened in Wichita to investigate abortion doctor George Tiller. That jury is to begin its work Oct. 30.
Coalition members are talking with church leaders in Johnson County, Golba said, to see whether any are interested in providing information about the petition drive to their parishioners. The coalition has
prepared inserts for church bulletins for church leaders who want them, he said.
Kansas is one of only six states that provide for a residents petition to compel a county to convene a grand jury.
The process has not been invoked much in Kansas until recently. The grand jury that adjourned Tuesday in Johnson County was the first to be seated in the county since 1989.
A grand jury’s 15 members meet in secret. Each grand jury sits for three months. The time can be extended by the presiding judge.

London calling: SM West band will perform in annual parade
Aaron Cedeño | Staff Writer
There are New Year’s parties, and then there is the New Year’s party.
For the sixth time, the Shawnee Mission West band will be part of the latter.
Every year on New Year’s Day, nearly a million people pack the streets of London with 200 times that tuning in on TVs across the globe as the London Parade weaves a two-mile course through the heart of the city.
“The New Year’s Day Parade and Festival in London, for those of you new to it, is, I say without fear of contradiction, the greatest event of its kind in the world,” said Robert Bone, the event’s executive director.
Bone and Lord Roger Bramble, Queen Elizabeth II’s personal representative to the event, traveled across the Atlantic on Sept. 26 to extend a personal invitation to the band to perform in the 2008-09 event. The appearance would be the band’s sixth, making it the group with the most performances in the event’s 22-year history, Bone said.
“We are simply delighted that you’re contemplating coming back to us again, and we think that that’s a significant tribute to the people involved in education at Shawnee Mission West, and indeed, the district as a whole,” Bone said at the invitation ceremony. “In that, there is clearly an understanding of the enormous value of young people traveling overseas.”
Band director Bill Thomas is entering his second year with the program. He said that it always had been tradition at SM West for the band to go on a group trip once every three years, and that the London trip had been well-received by parents and students. So much so, in fact, that when he asked the band parents last year if they wanted to consider another destination, they declined.
“In 15 years, we’ve gone five times,” Thomas said. “I asked the parents when I came in, ‘With the change in leadership, now is the time. Do you want to do something different?’
“They loved it, they enjoyed what had been going on in the past, and they said, ‘Let’s keep doing it.’”
Thomas understood it was no small honor to be invited personally by Bone and Lord Bramble. SM West always has had an excellent reputation in music, and Thomas said the group’s six invitations were a tribute to that reputation.
“When you consider that (the event coordinators) pull from literally all over the world, from Japan, Australia, and all of those countries right there in Europe itself, I mean I was shocked to hear that,” Thomas said of his reaction upon finding out that the West will be the event’s most-frequent performer. “It just makes it a little extra special, I think.”
Bone said the students would be welcomed in London with open arms, and Thomas felt that the trip would give them the opportunity to see in person the things they’ve studied about in class for years.
“I think that’s going to be really neat,” Thomas said. “I’ve gone on two other European trips, and it’s always amazing to watch the kids just interact with people from a foreign country.”

Small nonprofit makes big strides
Aaron Cedeño | Staff Writer
Dan Soliday has seen firsthand how much a grass-roots, community effort can help the less fortunate.
His time spent as a pastor in the inner-city of Fort Worth, Texas, showed him that, but it also taught him other things — lessons that Nazarene Compassionate Ministries, Inc. now puts to good use.
“As a pastor, you can’t just say, ‘Oh, we’re only going to read the Bible,’” said Soliday, the CEO of NCMI. “It doesn’t make sense. You have to say, ‘If we’re going to really be a part of this community, we’ve got to be a part of solving these issues and poverty and whatever else is happening here.’
“With people in the church, we decided to start doing some things in that area that were successful,” he continued. “What we started to realize is that we needed some structure to do this better.”
NCMI, which is affiliated with the Church of the Nazarene and based in Lenexa, aims to provide that structure with a network of more than 200 grass-roots nonprofit organizations across the globe — many not unlike the one described above.
Soliday said that while larger organizations were necessary parts of the process, the grass-roots organizations often were in the best place to “serve people who have fallen through the cracks or the safety nets in communities.”
NCMI works to obtain funds primarily through non-Nazarene channels, such as the U.S. government, and use them to help end poverty around the world. Soliday said the organization procured nearly $12 million in resources in the last year, though a portion of that money will be allotted during a three-year span.
The purpose of NCMI wasn’t to start local nonprofits out of thin air, but rather to provide structural and, through contact with larger organizations, financial support to those that already have strong local bases.
“What’s happening is that now national groups are seeing the strength of these grass-roots organizations that are actually very creative in helping their communities,” he said. “What we can do is provide some scale for those national funders.”
Soliday said the group recently secured a partners initiative grant from USAID, the government organization responsible for a large portion of the country’s foreign aid, worth nearly $9 million. It will be applied toward HIV/AIDS programs in Ethiopia and Zambia. What NCMI does, he said, is try to find a way to solve the problem without simply throwing money at it. NCMI finds ways to make the beneficiaries self-sustainable and viable after the money is gone.
“Our tagline reads that we’re ‘challenged by faith to end poverty,’” he said. “We really believe that we are called to eliminate and work towards the elimination of poverty.
“We’re going to be here for the long haul.”

City to study park system
Aaron Cedeño | Staff Writer
These days, it seems like everything in Lenexa is growing, and the city’s parks are no exception.
“What we’re looking at is, we’ve got quite a few things on our parks and rec horizon: Centennial Park, a potential civic center, Black Hoof Park,” said Bill Nicks, parks and recreation director.
Lenexa has 28 parks open with another six either under construction or in the planning stages. Black Hoof Park is being built on a 160-acre site that includes the 35-acre Lake Lenexa. The park will open later this year.
Because of this growth, city staff notified the City Council at its Sept. 25 study session of a proposed park study. Nicks said the study was similar to one done in the planning department a couple of years ago and will help make sure the city is prepared to take on the new parks and the needs they’ll create.
“It’s to take a look-see at future growth and make sure that we’re ready to take on those responsibilities,” he said.
Nicks said he felt confident in the park system, citing the results of a DirectionFinder survey that the department conducts every couple of years to gauge the feelings of Lenexa residents. The results, he said, always were positive.
“I’m pleased that the residents of Lenexa think we do a good job,” he said. “I think that’s the true measure of it.”

Daughters of the British Empire encourages membership
Aaron Cedeño | Staff Writer
The Daughters of the British Empire has been in Kansas since 1947, but its roots stretch back much further. Started in 1909, the organization is dedicated to supporting and maintaining four assisted-living centers throughout the country, supporting local charities and the community and providing a social outlet for women of a common background.
“It is important to keep in touch with your roots, and maybe that’s another piece of it,” said Lynda Krupp, the organization’s state president and a Lenexa resident. “It’s nice to be able to sit together with a group and have a social hour, and actually know what each other are talking about all the time.”
The organization boasts a membership of nearly 4,000 women in 31 states. Kansas has seven chapters — six in the Kansas City area and one in Topeka-Lawrence — and approximately 120 members, Krupp said. Membership is through invitation only, though state organizer Pam Atwell said an invitation wasn’t difficult to come by.
“We usually have booths at various things, or we meet people,” she said. “We get to talking to them and invite them to come along to a meeting.”
A prospective member must be of British or British Commonwealth ancestry, though it doesn’t matter how far back that ancestry is traced.
Ann Robards, a former state president who now resides in Missouri, said the group gave her the opportunity to make many new friends all over the country.
“It’s a wonderful society,” Robards said. “It started off really going gung-ho right before World War I. These ladies would raise money to send to the troops.”
The organization, which is working to obtain its 501c3 nonprofit status, dedicates the bulk of its funds today to supporting the aforementioned assisted-living centers, which the group built. The largest of these centers is in Brookfield, Ill., and is home to more than 300 residents. The organization also is active in its communities, with 20 percent of the funds it raises going to local charities.
The British Faire is the biggest of these fundraising events each year and will take place Nov. 10 at the Lenexa Community Center. Admission is $3 for adults and $1 for children under the age of 12. Traditional British tea will be served from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. for an $8 admission to the event. Krupp said the Faire will feature a variety of goods and antiques for sale as well as entertainment acts with a British theme, such as Celtic bands and Scottish dancers.
“(The Faire is) our main fundraiser every year,” Robards said. “We’ve been doing that since 1983.”
Amid all the fundraisers and social events, however, the theme Krupp mentioned of remembering one’s roots resonates deeply with the organization’s purpose. Atwell said it was a trend of youth everywhere to neglect their heritage until it was nearly too late to fully enjoy it; this is one of the reasons the organization always seeks young women to join.
“I think when you’re in your 30s and 40s, you start thinking about it, and at that point some of your relatives are dying off and you’ve lost that link,” she said. “I would say that just in general, younger kids don’t pay attention to their heritage.”
Thankfully, Robards said, the organization can help provide that link.
“You can go almost anywhere in the United States, pick up a phone and know somebody,” she said. “That’s wonderful.”

Proper pool drainage urged
Aaron Cedeño | Staff Writer
With the onset of fall, the time for swimming pool owners in Lenexa to drain their pools, cover them and close them down until spring has arrived.
Before they start the process, however, the city wants to make sure the water being emptied into city storm drains has been treated properly.
Chlorine is an essential part of any pool owner’s utility closet as a powerful disinfectant that helps keep water clean, but it can have harmful effects on the environment if mixed with natural water sources.
“Our storm sewer inlets all drain directly to streams, for the most part,” said Rob Beilfuss, water quality specialist for the city.
This is an issue because just as too much chlorine can make swimming pools difficult for people to swim in and enjoy, even a small amount can harm animal and plant life native to Lenexa’s natural water bodies.
Lenexa prohibits the discharge of chlorinated pool water into the city’s storm sewer systems. Beilfuss said pool dechlorination could be achieved through a couple of avenues.
“We want people to dechlorinate their pool water prior to discharging, and they can do that by letting the pool sit open and uncovered for a period of about four days, exposed to sunlight,” he said. “They can also buy dechlorination chemicals as an additive if they want to speed that process up.”
This natural process poses a problem for pool owners during the height of swimming season, causing them to have to dose their pools with chlorine repeatedly while their pools are in use. Now, however, sunlight’s natural tendency to break down chlorine can be used as an advantage.
Owners also need to make sure that backwash from their pools’ filters is not being drained into storm sewers, as filter backwash contains a high concentration of chlorine and can be especially harmful.
For more, visit the Rain to Recreation program’s site at www.raintorecreation.org.

Rotary names SM Northwest’s Van Rose its Outstanding Master Teacher
Aaron Cedeño | Staff Writer
When the father of one of his former runners asked if it would be OK to nominate him for the Rotary Club of Johnson County’s Outstanding Master Teacher Award for 2007, Van Rose didn’t believe anything would come of it.
Well, surprise, Mr. Rose, because something did come of it.
“I guess he must have written some really nice stuff or something,” Rose said.
Rose will be honored at the club’s October meeting as the recipient of its 2007 award. As a math teacher and cross country/track and field coach for 39 years at Shawnee Mission Northwest, he’s seen thousands of students come through his doorway and step onto his track. Rose said he understands the importance of being a good role model for those students because the example of one of his own teachers sent him down the educational path in the first place.
“The math teacher that I had my junior and senior years at Shawnee Mission West was a guy named Dick Trigg, and I had him in two different classes,” Rose remembered. “He really seemed to enjoy what he was doing. You catch onto that, and there was a passion there. I think you see that in a lot of teachers; you see a passion.”
Hoping to teach for another “five or so” years, Rose said he used many of the same principles in his teaching no matter the subject, be it how best to pace oneself on the course or how best to tackle an algebra problem.
“You view every test as a competition,” he said. “I want my runners to do really, really well, just like I want my students to do really, really well. I’m not going to go out there and trip my runners, or tell them the wrong way to go. It’s the same thing with my students.”
Rose said educators looking to enter the field today go through a more extensive evaluation period, with more student teaching and observation, than he had to do. But he feels more training is important.
“The programs have changed now,” he said. “Kids come out of college and get a better look at the profession than I had, so that’s helpful. You’ve gotta see all of this, the whole spectrum.”
At times, Rose said, it was easy to grow frustrated with what he saw as wasted potential from some of his most talented students. He said that students always could work harder, and that the students who put in the most work, even if they weren’t the smartest or the fastest, often excelled. The most gratifying aspect of his job, he said, was coming back into contact with those students and seeing firsthand the kinds of people they’d become.
“You see kids that are really, really successful, in all areas of life,” he said. “Not just doctors and lawyers, but guys that are just living really, really good lives.”

Versatility makes Ravens’ Weber valuable
Tod Palmer | Sports Editor
Tony Weber started in the midfield a season ago for the Olathe Northwest boys soccer team.
That’s his favorite position.
It’s the primary position he plays for his club teams and where he feels most comfortable.
But this season, Weber, a senior, has played anywhere but the midfield for the Ravens.
Toward the end of his junior season, Weber began picking up goals and assists regularly. With forwards Jonathan Herrera and Jaipal Singh lost to graduation, it made sense for Northwest to move him up top.
With continuing defensive struggles plaguing a young Ravens bunch, though, Weber is switching positions once again and moving to defender.
“It’s useful to have a player that has such versatile skills and abilities,” Northwest coach Mark Sheldon said. “You can play him basically anywhere. Tony’s one of the better athletes on the team and, as a soccer player, he’s very technical and very skilled.”
Many players would be put off by changing positions and roles so often, but Weber isn’t that kind of player.
Quite the contrary, he almost enjoys playing all over the field.
“I don’t mind because that’s actually what college coaches like to see,” Weber said. “They like to have players that can play multiple places and are able to do different things. I’m comfortable playing basically everywhere, and it helps me understand the game more.”
As far back as elementary school, Weber practiced several positions, he said.
But coming into the season, he still wasn’t sure he’d enjoy playing forward — especially trying to replace the school’s all-time leading scorer, Herrera, and Singh.
“I’m not as fast as those guys, so I was a little worried taking over at forward,” Weber said. “I like being in the midfield more because I like to control the ball, and I was used to setting up those guys.”
But really, where Weber plays is irrelevant to him as long as Northwest wins.
Halfway through the season, the Ravens are 4-4 overall and 2-3 in the Sunflower League.
Weber hopes moving back to defense will provide the spark a young and inexperienced Ravens squad needs — even if he will miss scoring the occasional goal.
“Glory doesn’t mean that much to me as long as we win,” Weber said. “Obviously, it feels good to score goals, but I’ll just do whatever’s best for the team.”
That comes as no surprise to Sheldon, who is pleased to see that Weber has emerged as a vocal leader on and off the field and that he leads by example during practice and games as well.
“It gets me kind of stressed out because I’m used to playing with guys who know how to play at the top level in high school,” Weber said. “With all the new guys, it’s a little stressful, but I’m just trying to help them along.”
So what about trying goalkeeper?
“Hopefully, I won’t have to worry about that, but it’s not out of the realm of possibilities if we don’t have a goalkeeper,” Sheldon said.
Weber, of course, would do it if asked.
“If coach needs me, I would,” Weber said. “But Andre (Pei) is a better goalkeeper than I am.”

— Contact Tod Palmer at 764-2211, ext. 140, or todpalmer@theolathenews.com.

Kolich, 27-0 Thunder make waves
Garth Sears | Special to the Lenexa Centennial
At the end of every practice, gathered in a huddle, the St. James volleyball team makes its intentions clear.
“One... two... three... STATE!”
The chant would sound empty — every team thinks it can win state, after all — but St. James is 27-0.
As the wins pile up, a state championship is no longer a hope, but an expectation.
At the forefront of this senior-less team is left-side hitter Kelly Kolich, who leads in aces and kills and is second in digs.
“We got a lot better. You can tell the difference from last year,” Kolich said. “We’ve grown since then, and we’ve come together as a team.”
To Kolich, a junior, perhaps the best part of having no seniors is being able to take a more active role.
“I get to step up and take a leadership role, which I enjoy,” she said.
Kolich isn’t the only one who has grown. It seems the team has improved across the board.
“We play so well together as a team; you can’t beat a team that gels together this well,” Kolich said. “I love how everybody on this team respects each other.”
It has worked, too. The Thunder just concluded a Wellsville tournament, where they played six teams and won nearly every game in a blowout. They scored the game-winning 25 points every time and, of the 12 sets played, held opponents under a double-digit score half of the time.
St. James also went 3-0 at the Olathe East quad, sweeping three Class 6A schools with relative ease.
“Our goal is to go to state and win state,” Kolich said. “That’s what we’re going to shoot for. That’s what I hope for, pray for.”
St. James has a few matches before it gets its chance to start climbing the ladder to state.
It will play Eudora, the team that knocked the 30-10 sophomore-filled St. James team out of state last year.
“Yes, we want to play them very badly,” Kolich said.
And Lansing, a game St. James expects to be tough.
St. James learned it will be a host for substate this year, and if it wins three rounds at home, it will go to the state tournament.
Once there, St. James have the chance to make its season’s goal a reality.

Enna looks to continue success
Andy Marso | Sportswriter
Ending his tenure as head soccer coach at Shawnee’s Maranatha Academy was one of the most difficult things Rick Enna ever had to do.
Through 12 years of coaching, Enna said, the Eagles players and their parents had become like family. But his immediate family still came first, and he had promised his wife that when his children were of high school age, he would leave the job that had consumed so many of his evenings.
“We made the decision that our kids would be going to St. James (Academy),” Enna said. “In doing that, my wife and I made the decision that, if I wasn’t going to be coaching them, then I was going to retire from coaching at Maranatha after the fall of 2007, so we could be part of their high school experience.”
Enna wanted at least to be able to attend his children’s soccer games. But St. James athletic director Andy Tylicki offered him a little more.
“It just so happened that right around Christmas last year, I received a call from (Tylicki), who asked if I might be interested in coaching there,” Enna said. “It was pretty much a clear sign, I think from above, that maybe I needed to stay in coaching. I had the opportunity to stay involved at another wonderful school, and it was the school my kids were going to be attending.”
That was how Enna, one of the top small-class coaches in the history of Kansas soccer, ended up at St. James this year, leaving the empire he had built at Maranatha.
Maranatha was a tiny, unaffiliated team when Enna took over. In the years that followed, he ushered it into the Kansas State High School Activities Association and then built it into a perennial contender for the Class 1-4A state title.
The Eagles won the title in 2004, with Enna coaching a squad that included two of the top prep players in state history, Jon and Alec Lemmon.
Jon Lemmon still has the state high school record for career points, and Alec Lemmon, his younger brother, has the career assists record. They’re now two of the top players at MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe.
Maranatha finished fourth at state in Enna’s final season, and a third Lemmon brother, Taylor, was only a freshman. The future was bright for the Eagles, but Enna gave it up for the chance to coach his children and build up a St. James program still in its infancy.
“It was very difficult for me to leave the Maranatha community because they were like family to me, and I’m still a huge supporter of that school,” Enna said. “But I believe I have a strong calling to be a part of the St. James community and to help develop that program, which will have a lot of Maranatha influence.”
One thing Enna brought from Maranatha was a love for tough scheduling, which he believes makes his teams battle ready come playoff time.
With that in mind, he scheduled his first game as St. James’ head coach against national soccer power Saint Thomas Aquinas on Aug. 24. The young Thunder, still without a senior class, fell to the powerful Saints 6-0.
Enna chuckles when the game is brought up, perhaps remembering similar outcomes early in his Maranatha career.
“My philosophy is to get our kids ramped up pretty quickly,” he said. “We’ve certainly taken our lumps, but I think the brand of soccer we’re playing and the way our kids behave on the field as Christian student-athletes has been wonderful. ... Win or lose, I think our program is moving in the right direction.”
So far, St. James’ first year playing Enna’s usual brutal schedule has been a mixed bag. The Thunder is 4-7-1 but has earned victories against bigger schools like Atchison and Missouri’s Ruskin.
The Thunder has struggled to score, though junior Mike Hermansen leads the team with five goals. Matt Straub, another junior and last year’s leading scorer, has provided some offensive punch as well.
Anthony Smith has been a solid goalie for the Thunder, but Enna may move him to forward because he’s also one of fastest players on the team and could help the offense.
St. James is solid defensively. Sophomore Mike Huppe has been a stalwart on the back line and a team leader.
The team is still very young, with five freshmen starters. But assistant coach Jeremy Aranda, who also teaches at St. James, has helped the Thunder adjust to Enna’s arrival, and there’s a palpable buzz surrounding the program.
“Every one of our kids shows every day excited to play,” Enna said. “They’re excited about what’s going on.”

— Contact Andy Marso at 764-2211, ext. 138, or amarso@theolathenews.com.