Dale Hogg

In an abundance of caution due to the pending winter weather, the Barton County Commission meeting for Tuesday has been canceled, county officials announced Monday morning. Items on the agenda will move to the Tuesday, Jan. 16, regularly scheduled meeting.

In case no one noticed, they can now buy liquor in Great Bend earlier than they could this time last year.

The City of Great Bend Public Works Department announced Thursday morning the receipt of a $58,802.25 grant totaling for the traffic signal battery back-ups project. This comes through the Kansas Department of Transportation’s Innovative Technologies Program.

The Great Bend City Council will meet Monday night and the Barton County Commission will meet Tuesday morning, and both plan virtual meetings.

Aaron Raney, owner of Iron Therapy Training, is a man on a mission.

The Great Bend City Council Monday night held a work session to discuss the fate of the former Police Station. - photo by Tribune file photo

Tourism is a big deal for Barton County, an excited Great Bend Convention and Visitors Bureau Director Christina Hayes told the City Council Monday night. She had received the most recent Tourism Economic Impact Report from Kansas Tourism, and it contained promising information and helped solidify the importance of promoting the community to lure more visitors.

Pictured left to right are Great Bend Convention and Visitors Bureau Director Christina Hayes; Stefanie Herter from Jefferson Elementary School; Mayor Cody Schmidt; Monica Villabos Medrano from the city’s Front Door facility; and Amamda Gaddis from the CVB. - photo by BY DALE HOGG Great Bend Tribune

As a follow-up to its tour of the former Great Bend Police Station and Municipal Court building at 1217 Williams St. at its Jan. 2 meeting, the City Council Monday night after its agenda meeting held a work session to discuss the fate of the aging structure. The Police Department and Municipal Court are now relocated in the new Justice Center at 12th and Baker.

There’s a commonly held belief that small, rural Kansas communities are evaporating from the windswept plains, plagued by a dwindling, aging population, and haunted by pressures of a modern world. Don’t tell that to the residents of Chase, population 390 in Rice County, and Pawnee Rock, population 190 in Barton County. Long dismissed, even mocked, […]