PILSEN, Kan. (RNS and NPR) — Nestled between rolling prairies and wind turbines about 60 miles north of Wichita, the rural farming community of Pilsen has no post office, gas station or stoplight. What it does have is the Chaplain Kapaun Museum and St. John Nepomucene Church, which draws a couple hundred visitors here each month — a number that is likely to grow significantly in the coming years.

The visitors come because of the Rev. Emil Kapaun, a Catholic priest and Korean War hero who’s under consideration by the Vatican for sainthood. Earlier this year, Pope Francis named Kapaun “venerable,” bringing him one step closer to canonization. The road ahead is long, but it could bring big changes to his hometown.

On a recent Friday afternoon at Kapaun’s museum — housed in the rectory where he lived as a young priest in the early 1940s — volunteer tour guide Melissa Stuchlik flipped through the museum’s guest book, filled with names from Kansas, Texas, California and beyond. In the church next door, more than a dozen young men gathered for Mass after making a 75-mile pilgrimage on foot in Kapaun’s honor.

Stuchlik says the journey to Pilsen is a spiritual experience for many visitors.

“There’s something special about driving away from the commotion of the city,” she said. “It’s focusing.”

As an Army chaplain in World War II and the Korean War, Kapaun didn’t carry a gun. But President Barack Obama, while awarding him a posthumous Medal of Honor in 2013 for his bravery on the battlefield, said the priest wielded the mightiest weapon of all.

“A love for his brothers so pure,” Obama said, “that he was willing to die so that they might live.”

Kapaun dragged injured soldiers to safety during the Battle of Unsan. As enemy forces closed in, he allowed himself to be captured so he could continue to care for his men. In the Korean prison camp where they were held, that meant stealing food and medicine to keep them alive and tending to the sick — just as much as it did offering spiritual guidance to men from a wide range of faiths. Kapaun reportedly prayed not only for his fellow prisoners of war, but also for the guards who held them captive.

After falling ill and being denied medical attention, Kapaun died in the camp in 1951 at the age of 35.

As Stuchlik walked a tour group through the Pilsen church, she pointed out the crucifix Kapaun carried as an altar server and the baptismal font in which he was baptized. Both would become second-class relics if — or as Stuchlik says, when — Kapaun is named a saint. Relics are objects venerated by the church due to their connection with a saint, including physical remains and personal artifacts. They serve as tangible points of connection with the holy.

“We’ve had kids (from) as far as South Korea come to be baptized in our baptismal font,” Stuchlik said.

Visitor numbers have picked up in Pilsen since Kapaun was declared venerable. Stuchlik says adding more tours requires keeping the church open every day, meaning higher air conditioning bills in the hot Kansas summer. But it’s nothing compared to what could happen later — the relics of saints can draw tens of thousands of pilgrims to holy places each year. That could mean big changes for Pilsen.

“I think it would be a lot of bed and breakfasts popping up all over the place,” Stuchlik said. “We joke about the McDonald’s and the Hyatt.”

She says there’s a lot for the town to gain — and maybe lose.

“Because right now, if you sat outside on our front porch, you would hear the quiet and the peacefulness. And we’d want to keep some of that.

“But,” she added, “there will always be a place in Pilsen for Father.”

The Vatican declared Kapaun a Servant of God in 1993, beginning a formal investigation into his cause for sainthood. But his cause began to look rosier in 2021 when his remains — thought to be lost in a mass grave in Korea — were identified in an unmarked grave in Hawaii. His body now lies in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Wichita.

The next step on the path to sainthood is beatification, which could jump-start an effort to build a shrine to Kapaun.

“Beatification is really the step where things start to change,” said Scott Carter, coordinator for Kapaun’s cause for sainthood. “I think there’s a great desire to have a shrine to Kapaun.”

Shrines, which are often churches, house relics and artifacts of those venerated by the church. They serve as pilgrimage sites — sacred destinations for Catholics seeking to deepen their connection with their faith through a physical journey.

It’s not clear yet whether Kapaun’s would be in Pilsen, about 3 miles northeast of the farm where he grew up, or elsewhere in the diocese, such as Wichita.

Two hours south, the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City wrestled with a similar question after the Vatican beatified Oklahoma martyr and priest Stanley Rother in 2017.

The shrine’s executive director, Miguel Mireles, said leaders determined Rother’s small Oklahoma hometown of Okarche wouldn’t have been able to support the number of visitors the shrine would draw.

“Part of the deal with building a shrine is that you have pilgrims coming on pilgrimage from all over, and you have to have amenities for them,” he said. “They need a place to stay, they need a place to eat.”

Rother’s shrine was built in Oklahoma City and opened to the public in 2023. Last year, around a quarter million people visited.

“Now, there’s more folks that are looking at investing in (hospitality) businesses around us because there’s more demand.”

Mireles says the shrine brought a new, large-capacity church to Oklahoma City’s substantially Hispanic south side, which was struggling with overcrowding in its existing churches. And it served as a new anchor to the city’s growing Catholic community.

“It’s an exciting time to see the church alive, here in our home,” he said.

But sainthood — and a busier Pilsen — could be decades away. The Vatican will next investigate potential miracles attributed to Kapaun’s intercession from heaven. Catholics believe saints can bring prayers to God on their behalf. One confirmed miracle is needed for beatification and a second is needed for canonization as a saint.

“Most of the time, these are medical miracles,” said Scott Carter, the coordinator for Kapaun’s cause for sainthood at the Catholic Diocese of Wichita. “Because we’re able to look for evidence of an actual problem, to show that there’s a change that happens and that change can’t be explained through medical intervention.”

Saints and stories of their miracles perform two key functions in the church, according to Carter. They serve as examples for Catholics on how to live the gospel in today’s age. And they offer solace during times of hardship.

“It reminds us,” he said, “that God has not left us alone.”

One potential miracle attributed to Kapaun involves Chase Kear, a former college athlete who nearly died in a pole-vaulting accident in 2008. Sitting in his parent’s living room in Colwich, Kansas, the memory of the fateful track practice still brings him to tears.

He was 14 feet in the air when, he says, he realized he’d lost control. He flew past the landing mat and landed head-first on the hard track, fracturing his skull from ear to ear.

“All I remember was a white flash,” he said.

After being airlifted to the hospital, Chase was put into a medically induced coma. But it didn’t stop his brain from swelling. Doctors told his mom, Paula, that they’d have to remove part of his skull.

“They told us that he has a better chance of dying on the table than living through the surgery,” she said.

Chase did live through the surgery. And, despite doctors removing around 10% of his brain, he started walking, then talking. He graduated college and got a job; got married and had kids. Paula says he’s defied every doctor’s expectations.

“They cannot explain it,” she said. “And they, every one of them, have said that he is a miracle.”

Through it all, his family and church community prayed. One constant they repeated was the Father Kapaun Prayer, asking him to intercede for Chase’s healing.

Stuchlik thinks Kapaun’s work has continued in the years since his death. Many who live in Pilsen and many who visit have stories of their own.

“They know that Father has touched their lives,” she said. “And we know he touches ours.”

Regardless of what happens next with Kapaun’s cause for sainthood, Stuchlik is excited for his story to continue to spread — and for what it could mean for her community. Including, she says, for its potholes.

“Hopefully, as we get more traffic into Pilsen, we’ll be more of a priority,” she said. “It’d be great if we could get the roads a little less bumpy.”

A broadcast version of this story originally aired on NPR and appears here through a partnership between NPR and RNS.

Kristin Ridgway knows the feeling all too well. The former middle and high school English teacher has been in classrooms as a 16-year-old student stumbles through words when reading out loud. 

“As a teacher, your heart just breaks,” she said, “because as a secondary-level English teacher, you have no idea how to help that kid.”

Middle and high school teachers assume children can already read. When they can’t, Ridgway said, they might offer the student more books or easier books to read. Maybe they just don’t call on the student again. 

More practice seems like the right approach, but it isn’t the best approach. Teachers should instead encourage students to break down the word and sound it out — at least, that’s what the Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling program, or LETRS, tells them to do. 

LETRS is an online course that uses science-backed methods to teach the teachers. 

One example from Edina Public Schools in Minnesota shows a teacher breaking down the word “ship.” She encourages students to sound out the “sh” then the “i” and then the “p.” That teacher also points out how “fell” and “well” have similar constructions, but changing the first letter creates a new word. 

“Enforcing the notion that sounding out words is not for babies,” said Ridgway, now a secondary curriculum coordinator with the Shawnee Mission School District. “I encounter words all the time in my world that I don’t know, and I sound it out even as an adult.”

The COVID-19 pandemic rocked Kansas schools and throttled educational advancement. So the federal government gave states millions of dollars to combat learning loss. Kansas used that money on a variety of programs, including LETRS. But the Trump administration is now clawing that funding back. 

For Kansas, that means $22.6 million in cuts to funding that was meant to bridge the learning gap. 

Federal Secretary of Education Linda McMahon told the state in a letter that Kansas ran the risk of losing this money when it didn’t spend the funds before the Sept. 30, 2024, deadline. The agency wants to use the funds until March 28, 2026. McMahon said the federal government previously approved an extended deadline, but that approval doesn’t matter. 

“Extending deadlines for COVID-related grants, which are in fact taxpayer funds, years after the COVID pandemic ended is not consistent with the department’s priorities and thus not a 

worthwhile exercise of its discretion,” McMahon said. 

The largest cuts include: 

• $7.6 million for LETRS and the Kansas math program. 
• $6.6 million for a data-tracking program that monitors students’ progress so teachers can help those who are falling behind. State assessments don’t start until third grade, so it can be difficult for schools to track progress until then. 
• $3.6 million for teachers to find “high-quality instructional materials” so students who fell behind have the best resources to catch back up. 

The pandemic is still affecting students even though disaster declarations ended years ago, advocates said. 

The Education Recovery Scorecard, a partnership between Harvard and Stanford universities, said 98% of Kansas students are in districts with average reading skills below 2019 levels. The scorecard also ranks Kansas 36th in reading recovery. 

More students fell behind during the pandemic. Remote learning meant less instructional time and fewer students staying focused in class, the Annie E. Casey Foundation found. It also said that 30% of students in 2021-2022 were chronically absent. That’s almost double pre-pandemic numbers. 

David Hurford, executive director of Center for Reading at Pittsburg State University, said 40% of fourth graders are below the basic reading level. 

“Forty percent of children below the basic level is terrible with a capital T,” Hurford said. “No doubt whatsoever.”

That’s why cutting LETRS funding is a bad idea, education advocates say.  

Hurford said schools haven’t been using the science of reading to teach students. Teachers taught students “based on ideas that we just created.” 

Some teaching methods assume students who are less intelligent would read poorly and need assistance, but that’s not always true. Other methods have students read a word then look at a picture of that word, like flashing a photo of a fox when reading it. That’s not as effective. 

The science of reading has advanced, Hurford said. And LETRS brought standardized, science-backed education into the classroom.

The state can request the funding be returned from the federal government, and it already has. As of early April, 15,000 Kansas educators have taken or are enrolled in the program. Teachers currently enrolled in LETRS can finish their lessons, but the state won’t fund new spots until it is told whether federal funds will be reinstated. 

The money was supposed to identify children who were falling behind and connect them to the best resources available to catch up. That effort is now $22 million short. 

“Our part of it is to spread literacy as much as possible, at any age, as early as possible and (to as) many as possible,” Hurford said. “If you cannot read in our society today, you are at a marked disadvantage to realize the American dream.”

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In a video on her store’s Facebook page in late March, Oak Grove shop owner Jill Easley announced she would be closing her storefront earlier than planned — later that day.

Easley decided to shut down her store in downtown Oak Grove after more than eight years on South Broadway. She relocated her business to a different vintage store in Blue Springs.

“Such a blessing to be in downtown Oak Grove for the last eight and a half years,” Easley told her Facebook followers. “I have truly enjoyed getting to know each and every one of you, hearing a little bit about your life and your story, and I will miss that the most out of everything that has happened in the last eight years. I will miss all of you.”

“Closing” was written in large letters above the shop’s door in late February, after Easley made the call to move the store. She said a lack of foot traffic made it difficult to reach profit margins in her store, which stocked home goods, jewelry and more.

While the store is in the center of the town of nearly 10,000 and sits on the town’s main thoroughfare, it also happens to be along a state highway. Route F, known as South Broadway through town, connects U.S. 50 to Interstate 70 and is a popular route for tractor-trailers as they traverse the area.

The Missouri Department of Transportation has authority over the highway and made the call to expand it to mostly five lanes in 2011. Through the downtown district, the highway shrinks to three lanes as drivers pass by a handful of retail spaces, insurance offices, hair salons and other service businesses.

“There’s just not a lot of foot traffic,” Easley told The Beacon. “That is one issue with having this be such a thoroughfare.”

“It makes me sad,” she said. “I know there’s just not a lot of shopping down here and out this way. But then it makes it too easy to shop on Amazon.”

Easley was a member of Oak Grove’s Chamber of Commerce and part of a group of small-business owners who wanted to start up a downtown revitalization project.

The group worked on staging events to encourage people to shop downtown. Ultimately, without lots of community buy-in, they struggled to get the effort off the ground.

“We were like, ‘You know what, we own these businesses down here. This should not be our responsibility,’” she said.

Oak Grove’s dilemma

The shop owners weren’t alone in their aspirations for downtown.

Oak Grove Mayor Dana Webb has been looking for ways to make it more welcoming to pedestrians since she was elected in 2020.

“I think we got the expansion several years too early,” Webb said of the project, which she wishes had more beautification measures built-in during the time of construction. “I don’t think our town was big enough at that time for it.”

Oak Grove advocates had previously explored joining Missouri Main Street Connection, a nonprofit that provides resources to towns across Missouri that want to launch revitalization efforts. But they ran into the same problem back then: a lack of community buy-in.

A few years later, the group of business owners approached Webb to see if their efforts overlapped with the city’s priorities. But between complicated building leases and the highway, the group ran into roadblock after roadblock.

“Businesses need eyes,” said Kennedy Smith, the former director of National Trust for Historic Preservation’s National Main Street Center and a current researcher at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. “They need traffic and visibility, so if cars are going through downtown at 40 miles per hour, people aren’t going to see anything.”

The speed limit drops as cars travel through the heart of Oak Grove. Slower traffic can reduce some crash risk and improve pedestrian safety.

“There’s just so many what-ifs,” Webb said. “I hope someday that they have engineers, a team or a board, somebody that starts to look a little bit ahead for pedestrians.… If you go to other states or other countries, you see people walking. We don’t see people walking here. If you do, it’s odd.”

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, a pedestrian hit by a vehicle traveling 32 miles per hour has a 25% risk of death. That risk increases to 50% when the vehicle is going 42 miles per hour. The World Health Organization recommends that the maximum road travel speed should be about 20 miles per hour in areas where bicyclists and pedestrians share the space.

“The key thing is that the interests of transportation engineers and people who are interested in healthy, vibrant downtowns are not necessarily the same thing,” Smith said.

Beautification projects, like adding trees, flowers or benches, were the first projects Webb brought to MODOT for its approval. She also wanted ways to make sidewalks feel more enclosed and less noisy for pedestrians, in an effort to limit perceived exposure to traffic and large trucks.

The city first asked if it could plant trees along the sidewalks throughout downtown. That plan was rejected due to driver safety considerations — if Oak Grove wanted trees, they had to be under 4 inches in diameter in case a car crashed into them.

Then, the city asked if it could put trees in large pots. That was also rejected for safety. They returned with other requests: shrubs, flowers or benches. They were all turned down.

“MODOT sometimes views a road going through a town as getting people from A to Z,” said Matthew Randall, the city administrator in Oak Grove. “When you live in the town, the road is your town. It’s integral to your city.”

They’ve had luck with some projects, while others haven’t gotten off the ground as quickly as they would like, Randall said.

“Just being downtown, the heavy commercial traffic and tractor-trailers definitely have a negative impact on the experience,” Randall said.

How MODOT works with Missouri cities on projects

MODOT’s area engineers are integral links between communities and the state. They help coordinate projects and maintain infrastructure across Missouri. Usually, they are the ones who make the requests to MODOT on behalf of cities for the projects they want to pursue.

“There’s a number of places where the state highway may function more as the main street of a community,” said Eric Schroeter, the deputy director and chief engineer at MODOT. “We have to balance all of that out – not only is it somebody’s main street, but it’s also a link in a transportation system that has to help people get places, and goods and products move around as well.”

MODOT is in charge of the seventh-largest highway system in the country, but ranks 48th nationally in funding per mile. MODOT only pays for projects that relate specifically to their domain. Everything else falls to the cities.

Officials in Oak Grove and other Missouri towns are thankful for MODOT’s collaboration and the easy access they have to their area representatives. Lebanon, Missouri, launched its downtown revitalization project officially in 2019. The town’s main street intersects with state Route 5.

“The highway intersection, it can be a little dicey,” said Sarah Angst Stewart, the executive director of Downtown Lebanon. “It’s not dangerous, it’s just a little more challenging for a person who is not used to walking near semi trucks blowing by.”

Lebanon has been working with MODOT over the past decade to improve walkability throughout downtown. The public works department meets with the state on a monthly basis to talk about future projects and address concerns as they arise.

“There are challenges involved with having a highway where there are pedestrians,” Angst Stewart said. “MODOT has put an effort into making sure that it is more pedestrian friendly.”

Since putting a concerted effort into downtown revitalization plans, the mix of businesses in downtown Lebanon has started to shift.

“This is probably every rural downtown. It’s the cheapest rent because it’s a lot of stuff packed close together, in older buildings that haven’t had a lot of love and attention,” she said.

But the exact opposite has started to happen in Lebanon. What was once a downtown that was heavily saturated with insurance companies, accountants and attorneys is now home to new retail and dining.

“It’s really cool to see. I don’t know if it’s finally the right time,” Angst Stewart said. “What’s happening is this resurgence of small-town downtowns. Where do you find that real community? It’s downtown.”

In the four years that Lebanon has invested in having a director for the downtown district, the area has doubled its taxable sales from $5 million in 2019 to $10 million in 2023.

“By just focusing on it, that is a lot of tax revenue that can then go back to our local economy and fund things like our police, fire and capital improvements,” she said.

Up north in Chillicothe, the town has reaped the benefits of long-term planning and making a name for its history. The city is the home of sliced bread, which was invented there in 1928. U.S. 65 runs north-south through Missouri and is Chillicothe’s main street.

“Highway 65, or Washington Street, is the heart of that artery that fuels our town,” said Amy Supple, Chillicothe’s tourism director. “(People) get to travel right through the heart of our community, so they’re not bypassed. It’s not an exit sign that they see.”

In the early 2000s, business owners, the tourism organization and the main street organization put their heads together to find ways to diversify downtown. What resulted was a 30-year strategic plan, and the organization set short-term priorities to reach long-term goals.

A long-term plan is crucial for investment in infrastructure, said Chris Hess, the executive director of the Pioneer Trails Regional Planning Commission, which coordinates efforts across Johnson, Lafayette, Pettis and Saline counties in Missouri.

“Funding follows planning,” Hess said. “The knee-jerk reaction for funding does not end well very often. We’re thinking about what can drive the economics. Do we see a population boom coming up? Is there potential for expansion in this area?”

That’s part of what Oak Grove is trying to assess. The city’s population is growing. In 2010, the town had about 5,000 residents, according to the census. Today, the town is pushing toward a population of 10,000.

For now, Oak Grove has negotiated with MODOT that the city will take control of the parking spaces that line the downtown district. And they’ll keep trying to work with the state to make the area more inviting to potential visitors, despite its popularity for commercial truck drivers.

“We haven’t really talked to them in detail about that aspect of the pedestrian versus the car versus the connectivity,” Webb said. “Because we’re pretty much just stopped at the driver effect.”

The post Revitalizing a rural downtown is difficult enough. It’s even harder when the state owns the main road.  appeared first on The Beacon.

After weeks of uncertainty, two tribal colleges have been told they can hire back all employees who were laid off as part of the Trump administration’s deep cuts across the federal workforce in February, part of a judge’s order restoring some federal employees whose positions were terminated.

Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas and Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute, widely known as SIPI, in New Mexico lost about 70 employees in mid-February amid widespread staffing cuts to federal agencies. While most of the nation’s 37 tribal colleges and universities are chartered by American Indian tribes, Haskell and SIPI are not associated with individual tribes and are run by the federal government.

About 55 employees were laid off and 15 accepted offers to resign, according to a lawsuit filed last month by tribes and students. The colleges were forced to cancel or reconfigure a wide range of services, from sports and food service to financial aid and classes. In some cases, instructors were hired by other universities as adjuncts and then sent back to the tribal colleges to keep teaching.

Related: Interested in more news about colleges and universities? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter.

It was not clear this week when and if the workers would return, whether the employees who resigned would also be offered their jobs back, or if the government would allow colleges to fill vacancies. Both colleges said some employees had turned down the offers.

The Bureau of Indian Education, which runs the colleges, declined to answer questions except to confirm the laid-off workers would be offered jobs with back pay to comply with a judge’s order that the government reverse course on thousands of layoffs of probationary employees. But the agency also noted the jobs would be available “as the White House pursues its appeals process,” indicating possible turmoil if an appeals court reinstates the layoffs.

Both colleges said the bureau also has refused to answer most of their questions.

SIPI leaders were told last week that the positions were being restored, said Adam Begaye, chairman of the SIPI Board of Regents. The 270-student college lost 21 employees, he said, four of whom decided to take early retirement. All but one of the remaining 17 agreed to return, Begaye said.

The chaos has been difficult for those employees, he said, and the college is providing counseling.

“We want to make sure they have an easy adjustment, no matter what they’ve endured,” Begaye said.

Related: How a tribe won a legal battle against the federal Bureau of Indian Education and still lost

The chairman of Haskell’s Board of Regents, Dalton Henry, said he was unsure how many of the 50 lost employees were returning. Like SIPI, Haskell was forced after the layoffs to shift job responsibilities and increase the workload for instructors and others.

Haskell was reviewed by accreditors in December, and Henry said he was worried how the turmoil would affect the process. Colleges and universities must be accredited to offer federal and state financial aid and participate in most other publicly funded programs.

Henry declined to discuss his thoughts on the chaos, saying there was nothing the college could do about it.

“Whatever guidance is provided, that’s what we have to adhere to,” he said. “It’s a concern. But at this point, it’s the federal government’s decision.”

The Bureau of Indian Affairs declined to make the presidents of the two colleges available for interviews.

Tribal colleges and universities were established to comply with treaties and the federal trust responsibility, legally binding agreements in which the United States promised to fund Indigenous education and other needs. But college leaders argue the country has violated those contracts by consistently failing to fund the schools adequately.

In the federal lawsuit claiming the Haskell and SIPI cuts were illegal, students and tribes argued the Bureau of Indian Education has long understaffed the colleges. The agency’s “well-documented and persistent inadequacies in operating its schools range from fiscal mismanagement to failure to provide adequate education to inhospitable buildings,” plaintiffs claimed.

Related: Tribal college campuses are falling apart. The U.S. hasn’t fulfilled its promise to fund the schools

Sen. Jerry Moran and Rep. Tracey Mann, both Kansas Republicans, said before Trump took office that they plan to introduce a bill shifting Haskell from federal control to a congressional charter, which would protect the university from cuts across federal agencies such as the Bureau of Indian Education.

“[F]or the last few years the university has been neglected and mismanaged by the Bureau of Indian Education,” Moran said in a written statement in December. “The bureau has failed to protect students, respond to my congressional inquiries or meet the basic infrastructure needs of the school.”

The February cuts brought rare public visibility to tribal colleges, most of which are in remote locations. Trump’s executive orders spurred outrage from Indigenous communities and a flurry of national news attention.

“We’re using this chaos as a blessing in disguise to make sure our family and friends in the community know what SIPI provides,” said Begaye, the SIPI board president.

The uncertainty surrounding the colleges’ funding has left a lasting mark, said Ahniwake Rose, president and CEO of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, which advocates for tribal colleges. But she added she was proud of how the schools have weathered the cuts.

“Indian country is always one of the most resourceful and creative populations,” she said. “We’ve always made do with less. I think you saw resilience and creativity from Haskell and SIPI.”

Contact editor Christina A. Samuels at 212-678-3635 or samuels@hechingereport.org.

This story about tribal colleges was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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The Trump administration has canceled orders for truckloads of food — including cases of milk, eggs, cheese, chicken and fruit — that had been slated for Missouri and Kansas food pantries and hunger outreach groups beginning in April.

As part of an ongoing campaign to slash the federal budget, the U.S. Department of Agriculture pulled the plug on $500 million worth of government commodities designated for food banks nationwide.

Caught in the fray were scheduled deliveries to Harvesters, the food bank that serves the Kansas City area and helps supply food to area food pantries, community kitchens and shelters. The organization got word on March 25 that orders coming to both Kansas and Missouri had been called off. 

For Kansas, Harvesters said canceled commodity orders included 4,176 cases of foods like canned vegetables and soup, along with 11,736 packages of items like containers of eggs, packages of cheese and cartons of milk. The organization had not learned details about what orders to its Missouri service area had been called off, but officials said the entire state is destined to lose 45 truckloads of shelf-stable and perishable commodity food.

Karen Siebert, public policy and advocacy adviser at Harvesters, said no explanation came with word of the canceled shipments, which had been slated to arrive between April and August. It’s possible some of the food was already en route, she said. 

Siebert hopes the orders can be reinstated if they are shifted to a different federal funding source — one that hasn’t been slashed by the Trump administration. But any shipments that are lost, she said, will be a blow to people who rely on food pantries.

The high-protein staples that come from the U.S. government aren’t easily replaced by donations or other sources.

“It’s some of the best food that we receive,” Siebert said. “I heard someone here call it ‘center of the plate food.’ … It’s a really healthy, important resource for families.”

The canceled shipments represent only a portion of the food Harvesters is expecting from the federal government. And Harvesters is less dependent on government shipments than food banks in other parts of the country. About $7.6 million of its $27.3 million in 2024 revenue came from government programs. Meanwhile, $18.6 million came from private support.

But at a time when the cost of food and other basic needs continues to increase, any loss of government support will be felt. News of the canceled deliveries comes as Congress seems poised to cut safety-net programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which gives low-income Americans money to buy food.

Harvesters distributed 60 million pounds of food in 2024, down from the 77 million pounds it distributed in 2021 during the height of COVID-19, but still more than the 53 million pounds it distributed in 2019, the year before the pandemic. 

The food bank operates in 27 Missouri and Kansas counties, working with 489 food pantries, 69 school pantries, 54 community kitchens and dozens of other programs that connect those in need with food.

Epidemic of food insecurity

Food insecurity is a growing issue nationally.

Feeding America, an organization that focuses on hunger, estimates that in 2023 more than 47 million Americans, including one in five children, were experiencing food insecurity, meaning that they didn’t have the money or other resources necessary to get enough food. That was a 38% jump from 2021.

Organizations that work to mitigate hunger said the problem is only growing. Even before federal aid cuts, food banks and other hunger organizations were struggling to keep up, Siebert said.

“It’s not like it’s easy now,” she said. “We are just nervous about what’s coming down the pike.”

The cuts affecting Harvesters, involving commodities purchased through a program overseen by the secretary of agriculture, come on top of $1 billion in cuts the Trump administration made to federal funding that was designated to help schools and food banks buy fresh food and meat from local farmers. 

Thomas Smith, chief business officer with The Kansas City Food Hub, a cooperative association of small urban farmers, said many of his organization’s members increased production based on a belief that those federal programs would provide a reliable market. One farmer sold meat to school districts in Kansas, for example, while others sold produce to food banks. 

The programs, set up by the Biden administration to help bolster local food production markets during the COVID pandemic, supported farmers and brought a nutritious food source to hunger outreach programs. Eliminating the programs, Smith said, will be devastating.

“We’re going to lose some of the few small farmers we have,” he said.

A Kansas program modeled after the federal farm-to-food-bank program has also been eliminated, Siebert said. During recent budget negotiations, state legislators eliminated $900,000 that would have funded the program next year.

Other Kansas City-area hunger outreach groups are also seeing federal funding go away.

Double Up Food Bucks, a program administered by the Mid-America Regional Council, hasn’t lost federal funding yet, but two grants that were up for renewal have been put on hold. Donna Martin, the program’s director, said most of the program’s budget is at stake, but the government isn’t explaining anything, including whether funding will return.

The program, which reached about 180,000 people in 2023, gives people in Missouri and Kansas who receive SNAP benefits matching funds to spend on fresh produce at farmers markets or grocery stores. Like many food assistance programs, Double Up Food Bucks doesn’t just support people in need of food. It also puts money in the pockets of local farmers and grocers.

Cultivate KC, which promotes urban farming and runs a program to help immigrants become farmers, has already seen several of its 14 federal grants frozen, said Brien Darby, the organization’s executive director. 

Federal grants provide three-quarters of Cultivate KC’s funding, but right now the organization is sitting on $80,000 in bills that haven’t been reimbursed under those federal grants. Darby said the organization has enough funding to make it until June. After that there will have to be changes if federal dollars aren’t restored.

Darby is trying to remain hopeful. Cultivate KC has joined other farming organizations in a lawsuit filed last week against the Trump administration.

“It feels like we’re in a time right now where that’s the best way to keep the government accountable,” Darby said.

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After several years of sustained – and in some cases, explosive growth – farm real estate values in the U.S. are showing signs of slowing. 

Key ag states such as Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska saw double-digit percentage increases between 2021 and 2022, driven by high commodity prices and strong investor interest. 

However, the most recent USDA data suggests that the growth rate is stabilizing in several key ag states:

Kansas farmland values surged by 22.8% in 2021-2022, before dropping to 13.6% in 2022-2023, and further slowing to 8.0% in 2023-2024. The per-acre price in Kansas rose to $2,970 in 2023-2024.

Iowa’s rate of increase dropped from a peak of 19.7% in 2021-2022 to 4.2% in 2023-2024.  The per-acre price in Iowa rose to $9,420 in 2024.

Nebraska saw a sharp rise of 18.6% in 2021-2022 but has since cooled to 10.7% in 2022-2023 and 6.8% in 2023-2024. The per-acre price in Nebraska rose to $4,110 in 2024.

California’s farmland value increased 12.2% in 2020-2021 before slowing to 2.3% in 2023-2024. The per-acre price in California rose to $13,400 in 2024.

Wisconsin, a top dairy producer, peaked at 10% that same year, and had a 0% gain between 2023-2024. The per-acre price in Wisconsin rose to $6,120 in 2024.

Minnesota saw a 15.6% from 2021-2022 compared to a 5.6% increase from 2023-2024. The per-acre price in Minnesota rose to $6,450 in 2024.

Oklahoma’s growth peaked at 12.1% in 2020-2021 and 11.2% in 2021-2022, with growth slowing to 6.3% in 2023-2024.

The data shows Oklahoma’s decline was less dramatic than in most key ag Midwest states, but the trend suggests a broader cooling in the farm real estate market. The per-acre value in Oklahoma rose from $2,950 in 2021 to $3,720 in 2024.

The average price per acre across the U.S. in 2024 ranged from roughly $1,000 in parts of the Mountain and Appalachian regions to well above $10,000 in coastal states​.

From 2018 to 2023, farmland values soared in key ag states — Kansas saw a staggering 60% increase, Oklahoma jumped 53%, and Nebraska climbed 48%, according to an analysis of USDA data. 

Several factors contributed to the sharp increases beginning in 2021. A tight supply of available farmland, high commodity prices and growing investor interest fueled competition in the market. Local farmers, who have traditionally driven demand, are now competing with institutional investors, hedge funds, and pension funds for available land.

Some experts warned that a sustained slowdown was inevitable due to high-rising interest rates and higher operational costs. 

Who owns the land? 

According to the American Farmland Trust, more than 40% of U.S. farmland is owned by individuals over age 65, raising concerns about the future of land ownership. The AFT estimates that 300 million acres of farmland —, more than one-third of the 880 million acres of farm and ranch land in the U.S. — will change hands in the next 20 years.

A 2020 report from AgIS Capital, a Boston-based agricultural investment firm, found that institutional investment in farmland grew from $2.3 billion to $11.7 billion over the last decade. However, the report notes that large investors still control only a relatively small share — less than 2% — compared to individual landowners.

A July 2024 report by Investigate Midwest found that between 2017 and 2022, the U.S. saw a decline of 141,733 farms, with 80% of those closures involving operations generating less than $2,500 in annual sales. However, USDA data reveals a more nuanced shift: while the country lost 10,537 farms with annual sales between $100,000 and $499,999, the number of farms earning over $500,000 increased by more than 26,000.

Why are institutional investors buying up land? Because farmland is seen as a safe investment. Land tends to hold its value well, especially during economic uncertainty. It’s also an inflation hedge, meaning that as prices rise, farmland usually becomes more valuable, according to a May 2024 report by Financial Times. 

Additional factors contributing to this shift include government incentives for wind and solar energy and population growth in rural towns driving the conversion of farmland into residential properties. Projections by American Farmland Trust indicate that 18.4 million acres could be lost to development by 2040, further tightening supply.

The post Farmland values lose steam after years of rapid growth appeared first on Investigate Midwest.

Kansas has money to help mental health centers offset their losses from treating uninsured patients. But those funds are failing to meet the demand as more uninsured Kansans seek help.

The mental health care business is already not very profitable. But it is even harder for centers like the Wyandot Behavioral Health Network in Kansas City, Kansas, to sustain its programs because 40% of its patients have no insurance.

The health network can’t turn people away for inability to pay. So when someone without insurance needs a psychiatrist, a specialized and expensive staff position, Wyandot offers that care even though Medicaid reimbursement rates don’t pay them enough for the visit. 

“It’s just a money loser,” said Randy Callstrom, executive director of the Wyandot Behavioral Health Network. 

Mental health centers in Kansas say the number of patients who don’t have insurance to cover the cost of their visits is rising. That’s hurting their bottom lines and forcing these community centers to pull money from other parts of the budget to cover basic costs. The state does reimburse centers for these costs, but providers say that funding is stagnant. 

“Our cost is continuing to go up considerably every year,” Callstrom said. “So those grant dollars that we received are not really covering the level of care that they once did.”

Kansas lawmakers are trying to fix that, though. The budget, which has passed the House, includes a $6 million funding increase to help centers treat uninsured Kansans. That money would help centers like Wyandot.

The Senate could still change that, but the request for additional funding has already passed the House when plenty of other proposed funding increases have been shot down. 

Patrick Schmitz, president and CEO of the Lawrence mental health center Bert Nash, said this is a perfect storm. Mental health needs are increasing and coverage is being reduced.   

There’s an increase in mental health issues across the country.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from 2023 found that 40% of high school students persistently felt sad or hopeless and 20% have seriously considered suicide. In 2011, only 28% felt hopeless and 16% considered suicide. 

The Kaiser Family Foundation reported that 23% of adults were getting mental health care in 2022, an increase from the 19% of adults getting help in 2019.

Schmitz said he’s seeing more private therapists not taking insurance. Some patients may have insurance, but won’t hit their deductible by going through therapy, so they are paying out of pocket. 

“We have to provide care,” he said. “So we put them on a sliding fee schedule, or find some other ways for them to be covered so they can get the care they need.”

And pandemic-era programs that expanded Medicaid coverage ended. 

At Bert Nash in Lawrence, a failure to expand state support would threaten future raises for staff. It would mean equipment would be replaced less often and services won’t expand. The Wyandot center said building repairs — like a leaky roof — could get put off in addition to stagnant wages. 

Centers have dealt with similar situations before.

Callstrom remembers when reimbursement rates were stagnant. That meant there was a decade-long period where staff rarely got raises. Those reimbursement rates were changed and the center could afford to give some staff raises of up to 40%. 

Schmitz said he knows there are times where clinics lose money in the mental health care business. But serving more people who are unable to pay for services through insurance isn’t sustainable, unless the legislature acts. 

“The dream that we have in terms of expanding behavioral health care in Kansas will be halted,” he said. 

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Takeaways

1. One-third of rural lawyers are older than 60. Some are putting off retirement because there is nobody to replace them. 
2. Attorneys aren’t going to rural Kansas because of financial, practice and cultural reasons, a report found. 
3. A 35-person committee proposed 10 fixes to this problem.

Kansas judges in rural counties struggle to find qualified attorneys to represent defendants in cases where the right to a lawyer is guaranteed. 

“We are approaching a constitutional crisis,” said Kansas Supreme Court Justice Keynen “K.J.” Wall. 

Forty-seven rural counties are legal deserts, or areas without adequate access to legal help. One-third of rural attorneys are also over 60 years old. If they all retired, 87 counties would lack adequate legal representation. 

The attorney shortage is so bad older lawyers put off retirement because if they go, then their neighbors might have no legal representation. Some cities and counties are struggling to hire as well. 

Those findings come from a report released Friday by the Kansas Rural Justice Initiative. That 35-member committee was created in 2022 by the Kansas Supreme Court. The committee studied access to lawyers in rural Kansas and suggested solutions. 

Why this problem is so bad 

Financial, practice and cultural issues are three major barriers to legal aid, the committee found. 

Before 1980, about one in four attorneys graduated with student loan debt. That debt averaged around $12,000 — or $48,000 when adjusted for inflation. Since 1980, 93% of attorneys are graduating with $125,000 in debt. 

These young lawyers want a steady job to pay off that debt. Larger firms in urban areas pay more, the report said, and rural practices might offer pay based on the number of cases a lawyer handles. If work is slow, those younger attorneys lose out on money and can be crushed by debt. 

Add those money woes to poor child care options, limited jobs for spouses and scarce housing. So attorneys are opting for larger cities where these problems may be more muted. 

Wall said attorneys also want mentorship. Law students worry that going to rural Kansas would mean less support from more senior lawyers. 

Marla Luckert, chief justice of the Kansas Supreme Court, said she knew the rural attorney shortage was a problem, but the report found that it was even worse than she thought. 

She said there are solutions though, and the state judicial branch is committed to fixing this problem. 

Fixes for attorney shortage 

The report outlined 10 recommendations. Wall said the key recommendations are tuition assistance, student loan help and creating a rural attorney network. 

An attorney graduating now has two and half times as much student loan debt as an attorney who graduated before 1980, when adjusted for inflation. Wall wants the state Legislature to create a program that cuts the cost of college in exchange for that attorney working in rural Kansas. 

Similar programs already exist for veterinarians. Wall said the rural vet program has successfully placed many veterinarians in rural communities. 

The rural attorney network would help connect prospective employees with firms looking to hire. 

Other recommendations include:

• Creating a permanent committee to study and monitor rural justice initiatives. 
• Partnering with the Kansas State Department of Education to promote civics classes and outreach programs in rural school districts. 
• Encouraging rural law outreach programs at Kansas universities. 
• Creating a professional organization for rural attorneys to “collaborate on issues relating to the recruitment and retention of attorneys in rural Kansas.”

The rural justice committee had two state lawmakers on it. Sen. Elaine Bowers, a Concordia Republican, said the Legislature is prepared to act on these issues. 

“We don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” she said. “We have models that we’re going to start from. So I’m looking forward to the introduction of legislation.” 

The post Kansas nearing ‘constitutional crisis’ as small-town lawyers become a scarcity appeared first on The Beacon.

A snowstorm that swept western Missouri last year left a patient waiting on critical medication they needed to ward off seizures.

That patient ended up in a hospital to deliver a dose of the drug.

Now, with an increasing number of rural residents relying on mail service to get their prescriptions — and the U.S. Postal Service set to cut some services to more remote areas — medical professionals worry about the consequences.

“What I’m concerned about from a rural health standpoint,” said Tessa Schnelle, the director of pharmacy at the Cass Regional Medical Center in Harrisonville, Missouri, “is some of the things that we even see now with mail order becoming more exacerbated.” 

The USPS didn’t meet its delivery goals in Missouri this year. Now, to save more than $3.5 billion a year, the Postal Service announced a “Regional Transportation Optimization” plan that would centralize service around regional hubs like Kansas City and St. Louis. 

Instead of twice-a-day pickup and drop-off at local post offices, the USPS is planning to reduce those services to once a day. 

The Postal Service says the plan could mean an additional day in transit for some mail. Medical professionals in Missouri say that slowing the mail could threaten the ability of their patients, particularly in rural areas, to get timely delivery of prescriptions that are critical to their health.

Postal Service officials promise that deliveries should still reach mailboxes within current delivery times. But after delays and spotty service, Missourians fret that things will get worse. 

Goals for delivery time lowered

The change in services comes as many Americans embrace mail-order prescriptions and as rural pharmacies close their doors. 

Between 2018 and 2023, retail pharmacies in rural communities decreased by nearly 6%, a study from the RUPRI Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis found. It’s a nationwide trend in rural and urban areas: pharmacies in urban areas declined by 3.4% over the same time. 

New 2025 delivery target information published by the Postal Service found that it fell short of its fiscal year 2024 delivery goals. The 2024 targets called for delivering a single piece of first-class mail within two days after it’s dropped in a collection box 93% of the time. Actual deliveries hit that mark 86.9% of the time. 

Now, the Postal Service lowered the targets to 87% for the budget year that started in October. 

In Missouri and Kansas, the percentage of mail that met the two-day first-class mail delivery goal fell to 85.9% in 2024 from 90.4% in 2023. 

“The Postal Service has … decided that the best way to achieve targets is to lower them,” Steve Hutkins, a retired English professor wrote on his Save the Post Office website. “Expect things to get worse before they get any better.” 

The Missouri Farm Bureau and U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley criticized the proposal, saying USPS is prioritizing urban customers over rural ones. 

How could the USPS plan impact patients? 

The slowdown and missed targets trouble Schnelle as she works to support her rural patients.

An additional day in processing medication could present challenges for patients whose insurance companies don’t refill medications before a certain time. That makes it less likely that a patient would be able to call in their prescription early if they are anticipating delays in the mail. 

“I don’t see it being a positive impact for patients,” Schnelle said. 

And worries persist that more medications might go bad if deliveries take longer. Many medications are sensitive to temperature changes that could make them less effective, Schnelle said. 

The Missouri Rural Health Association said it is too early to tell how much the plan may impact service, but the group’s executive director has concerns given service disruptions she’s seen over the past few years. 

“I’m not sure if this is necessarily the answer to make service delivery better,” said Heidi Lucas, the group’s executive director. (Lucas sits on The Beacon’s board of directors.) “If medication is lagging and not in a climate-controlled environment for a couple of days as it awaits delivery, that could be a massive problem.” 

USPS is currently making the case for the plan to the Postal Regulatory Commission, which doesn’t have total power to veto the changes. The commission is expected to release a nonbinding opinion on the plan in January. 

Most prescriptions delivered through the mail are sent first-class. A top Postal Service official told the commission in October that single-piece first-class mail would be slowed the most by the changes. That means that 68% of first-class mail volume in rural communities could see potentially slower services. 

The plan comes as USPS started to walk back some other consolidation proposals in September for Florida, California and Tennessee, which would have slashed some operations at local offices. 

That walkback was considered a win by the American Postal Workers Union, which criticized the “chaotic implementation of changes” to the USPS. 

The union said despite the reversal in California, Florida and Tennessee, it’s advocating for mail to be processed locally. 

“The union has consistently advocated that mail generated in a local area, for delivery in the local area, should stay and be processed and sorted in the local area,” the APWU wrote in a press release.  

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Platte County will vote on a new sales tax Nov. 5 to help fund mental health services for children. 

Backers of the quarter-cent tax include mental health service providers, who argue the money is needed to meet the growing needs in Platte County. The tax dollars would support mental well-being for children up to 19 years old. 

The measure would create the Children’s Services Fund of Platte County to hold an estimated $5 million in annual revenue the tax would create. The fund would be run by a nine-person board appointed by the Platte County Commission. 

The board would disperse the money to local agencies that apply to use the funds. 

Why does Platte County need a tax for kids? 

If the tax is approved, the average Platte County resident could expect to pay an additional $20 in sales taxes a year. 

Backers of the campaign include Synergy Services and Beacon Mental Health. They point to a 2023 needs study from the Northland Community Foundation, which found that the Northland has a mental health provider shortage. The provider-to-patient ratio is 840 to 1 in Platte County, compared to 430 to 1 statewide. 

“We can use those resources not just to provide immediate treatment, but we also do a lot of prevention with that,” said Tom Petrizzo, the CEO of Beacon Mental Health, during an April county commission meeting. “With those funds, we do a lot of evidence-based prevention programs that help kids who are feeling that isolation, maybe think about hurting themselves. We do that in the schools. We do it in the community.” 

The funds would operate like similar sales taxes in Jackson and Clay counties. Jackson County voters first passed the tax in 2016 and renewed it in 2022. 

Similar sales taxes for mental health programs have drawn criticism.

The Show-Me Institute, an anti-tax think tank, pointed to a similar tax and fund in Lafayette County, which was embroiled in scandal after a review from the state auditor’s office found that the fund was using favoritism to distribute the money and questions arose about whether the money was being spent properly. 

After Platte County providers failed to convince the three-person county commission in April to put the sales tax on the ballot, they organized and collected the signatures themselves. 

The group needed about 4,500 signatures to qualify for the ballot. The measure was approved just days before the deadline, after confusion in the courts over who was allowed to certify the measure for the November election.  

The commissioners expressed concerns over how the money would be used and how effective it would be in resolving mental health issues that children are facing. 

“We cannot turn over to the government responsibility of caring for the mental health of all our children,” Commissioner Joe Vanover said in April. “Passing this tax would be a major step away from personal and family responsibility and a major step towards collective responsibility.”  

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