For whatever reason the deadline to file your taxes this year has been moved back three days. Instead of April 15 it is April 18. Now I have seen this happen when the 15th would fall on a weekend, but a Friday? Well, the reason is April 15 this year is Emancipation Day. I guess that is a legal holiday in the DC. Maybe one of these days we can emancipate ourselves from Washington.

That gave me an idea. You know I am always full of ideas. How about we move the deadline back by three days every year. Shoot, why not more in some years.

Better yet, let’s treat it like leap years. You only have to pay taxes every fourth year. Washington doesn’t really care how much money they have. They just keep borrowing and running up the debt. They probably wouldn’t even know it wasn’t there. 

It wouldn’t keep them from spending, but it would allow us to keep our money more often.

Prep thoughts

Another coach is leaving Great Bend. This time basketball coach Chris Battin is heading south to Pratt High School. This could be a move good for both parties. I know Coach Battin is well like by his players, students and fellow faculty. He will be missed at the high school. But a new start might perfect for him coaching. 

For Dave Meter and Great Bend High, it is an opportunity to bring in a fresh face and a possible shot of new life into the program. There is a good group of seniors next season that should entice some quality coaches to show interest.

Let’s hope for a win-win here for both Battin and Great Bend. After all, I lived in Pratt for several years and that is where my wife graduated high school. Good luck Coach.

Former athlete/coach update

Kurt Kohler hasn’t strayed far from Cougar Country. The former Barton volleyball coach and athletic director has been running the Fort Hays State volleyball program for seven years now – with some very good success. This past season, Fort Hays went 21-14 and posted the most wins in the MIAA in school history. 

The 20-win season was just the fifth in the 22 years since the program went NCAA D-II. He also guided the Tigers to 20-plus wins in 2012. He is currently fourth on the all-time wins list at the school and should move into second place this upcoming season.

Around Campus

Camp Hope and Barton. They seem to go hand-in-hand. Of the many outside entities the college helps to sponsor, Camp Hope is by far one of the best. For the past two years the week-long camp for children with cancer has taken place on campus. This year it will return to Camp Aldridge.

Prior to the summer camp, the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society will host a 5K walk or run Saturday May 7 with all proceeds going to Camp Hope. The course will start and end here on campus. Groups will be split between 16-up and 15-under. Registration is just $10 and you get a shirt if done before April 18. 

Kathy Boeger will set up if you give her a call at 620-792-9203.

And finally

NACE came to the Barton campus the past couple days and with it my best friend from my childhood – Jerry Senger. It was nice to see Jerry and catch up on things. He lives in Tonganoxie now so I do see him from time to time but it is never enough.

He is one of those friends even if you don’t see for a year or two it is like you never missed a beat. And while we are both completely different people than we were in high school, that bond from those days never leaves. We go back all the way to second grade when he first moved to Glen Elder. 

We immediately became best friends. I still know the phone number he had in Glen Elder. Don’t know hardly anyone’s phone number now, but I still remember his old one.

We competed against each other in just about everything – from sports to girls. In the sports aspects, we were pretty evenly matched. It seemed, though, in the girl aspect, he had an advantage. He was tough competition since he already had a mustache in eighth grade.

I wouldn’t have called us troublemakers but we were definitely rambunctious. We probably caused our parents their fair share of grief at times.

When we weren’t getting into trouble, we played cards. A lot of cards. Not poker – real card games. Pitch was the favorite – 4-hand, 10-point was the staple. We also played hearts, spades, cribbage and a variety of other card games during our high school years.

We really haven’t spent much time together the past 15 or 20 years. We have each gone our separate ways, acting more like the family-oriented adults we are supposed to be – for the most part anyway.

We always say we are going to see each other more and keep in better contact. But we get caught up in our lives and time passes.

Many people have friends just like Jerry. Those that have moved away and you just don’t see enough of. Perhaps we should go out of way a little more to keep in contact with them. After all, how hard is it make a phone call? To take a weekend every once in a while and get together?

Hopefully one of these times when we part and say let’s keep in better touch, it will truly happen.