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“Cody has a shiny exterior, but when you dig deeper, it’s not very pretty.”
That’s what a Kansas City police officer said when asked by a Record reporter in April what he would tell Marion City Council members about Gideon Cody, then a candidate for top cop.
Video released Monday reveals the frustation experienced by 98-year-old Marion County Record co-owner Joan Meyer during during a nearly two-hour search of her home Aug. 11 by Marion police and Marion County sheriff's deputies.
Meyer, still reeling from the effects, died 24 hours later of sudden cardiac arrest. An official coroner's report lists the anxiety and anger she experienced as a contributing cause of her death. After the Kansas Bureau of Investigation intervened, the search was ruled unjustified five days later.
Two days before his mother’s funeral, Marion County Record editor and publisher Eric Meyer asked whether full-time employees — all women — could gather ’round.
“I need some womanly advice,” he said.
At a home he rents on a country road four minutes from the Record office he raided Friday, Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody refused to comment Thursday about the Kansas Bureau of Investigation taking over a case that led him and nearly his entire staff to seize computers and cell phones from the newspaper and the homes of its co-owners and a city council member.
“No comment — KBI,” he told a reporter.
We are so incredibly thankful for the outpouring of support we are receiving from around the nation and world.
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Computers, cell phones, and other electronic equipment grabbed by police during a raid Friday on the Marion County Record office and the home of its owners were released Wednesday under an agreement between the Record’s lawyer and the director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
A warrant for the search had been obtained by Marion police chief Gideon Cody with assistance from county attorney Joel Ensey.
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation has taken over a case that led to police and sheriff’s deputies seizing computer equipment and cell phones Friday morning from the Record office, the home of its co-owners, and the home of Marion’s vice mayor.
Although Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody applied for search warrants for the raids — condemned by the Record’s attorney and organizations such as Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press as illegal — the KBI confirmed that as of Monday, it was serving as the lead agency.
They sent pizza, offered computers, volunteered to edit copy and do research, increased advertising, and bought subscriptions to the 154-year-old Record.
Thousands of people from around the world pledged support for Marion’s second-longest operating business — its newspaper — after police officers and sheriff’s deputies seized computer equipment and personal cell phones Friday from the Record newsroom, the home of its owners, and the home of Marion’s vice mayor.
Joan Meyer spent each of her almost 10 decades of life in about a six-block radius in Marion, but she was a worldly woman who had an impactful newspaper career, a vigilance with words, a powerful sense of propriety and equally unflinching opinions.
On Friday, police raided the offices of the Marion County Record, her family’s longtime newspaper, and the home she shared with her son, Record publisher Eric Meyer, over an investigation the paper conducted for a story that it decided not to run.
The following is a sampling of the hundreds of emails and messages the Record has received since police raided its newsroom Friday.
The free world is with you.
— Jeremy Ainsworth
This kind of Third World interference with journalistic freedom is intolerable.
— Eric Jaderborg
What happened to you is shocking and revolting. But you are not alone.
— Dan Bigman
Your situation is just the latest affront to a free press in America.
— John Swan
Freedom of the press is paramount in this U.S. political climate. Stay strong.
— Su Ronneburger
We just saw the story published in the San Jose Mercury News about your 1st Amendment fight, and want you to know that we will continue to watch — and stand with you to protest this moral injury — as this unfolds.
— Betsy Cawn
We are living through dark times, and yet it’s the public’s right to know what’s going on that motivates us.
— Cynthia Astle
Thanks for your service to your community and the state.
— Larry Shepard
I applaud the Marion County Record for continuing to be one of the newspapers that matters. You print about your community and your state. You focus on local stories that matter, even if some wish it kept in the background. Continue what you do.
— Janet Horner
I am a U.S. citizen, but have spent my career in Germany, where awareness of the signs of rising fascism is high. I am a big supporter of local journalism, because democracy begins (and often ends) at home.
— Jane Berger
It doesn’t seem possible that a police department can - and did - raid a newspaper office, confiscate equipment and files. What is going on in the United States?
— Darrell Pendergrass
This type of un-American behavior cannot go unchecked and I’m certain the vast majority of the American public feel this way.
—David Smith
I am outraged at the apparent breach of your First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom of the press. I encourage you and the paper, to pursue holding all of those responsible accountable for their illegal actions.
— Andrew Dahlberg
Please know that law-abiding people are standing with you at this time.
— John M. Kalinowski
I fully believe in the free press and in which your reporters are warriors in search of truth, wherever it leads them.
— Laura Kinder
Millions of people support a free press, and speaking truth to power is now more important than ever.
— Trent Keeling
I have nothing more valuable to offer than my moral support for you and your newspaper, but I very much hope that this expression can be added to what I trust and hope is a very large number of comparable statements.
— Tom Hemnes
City and county officials have largely remained mum about a police raid Friday on the Record newsroom, the home of its co-owners, and the home of vice mayor Ruth Herbel.
City administrator Brogan Jones said he wasn’t in the office Friday.
Citing recent events in the city, Burns police chief Joel Womochil resigned a week ago.
His letter, which he gave to each city council member and read aloud during the Aug. 8 city council meeting, did not specify what events he referred to.
Jose Faus wants to meld Peabody’s history with its present in a mural he’s creating at Peabody Market.
Faus, a Kansas City artist, started painting Aug. 4 and said he would be done toward the end of the month.
Three Peabody houses in the county tax sale Thursday were bought by a Cheney 18-year-old as his first foray into property ownership.
Aidyn Escalante, who graduated high school this year and plans to attend Wichita State University — though he might take a year off for the real estate adventure ahead of him — said he plans to rehabilitate all three houses, live in one, and likely sell the other two when they are ready.
Hillsboro council members Tuesday set rates for the limited number of out-of-city residents who get trash service from the city.
Hillsboro stepped up in to fill part of a gap left by Waste Connections’ abandonment of county customers near Hillsboro.
County treasurer Susan Berg said Saturday’s tax sale brought so much money, she could not remember a more successful sale.
“I think overall it went very smoothly,” Berg told commissioners Monday, adding that advance registration had helped. There were 40 people who registered early.
Centre school district has hired Janine Foth as director of a new day-care program.
She will begin training this fall in anticipation of the day-care building opening by the end of October.
It’s not unusual to see Flaming’s Plumbing, Heating, and Air Conditioning utility trucks out and about in Marion County and a wide area beyond that.
A business that started 50 years ago with two people and a rented truck now employs 10 people and has eight trucks and several supply trailers to meet customers’ needs.
Services for Record vice president, associate publisher, and columnist Joan Wight Meyer, 98, who died Saturday at her home in Marion, will be 10 a.m. Saturday at Valley United Methodist Church in Marion.
Pastor Ron DeVore will officiate. Interment will be at Marion Cemetery. Relatives will receive friends from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday at the church.
IN MEMORIAM:
Delbert MellottIN MEMORIAM:
Richard SardouIN MEMORIAM:
Phyllis Wingfield
Five new teachers at Marion schools had new teacher orientation Friday.
Shyla Harris, who will teach middle and high school vocal music, said this is her second year as a teacher. Last year she taught at Leon, but she wanted to come home to Florence, where she grew up and where her family still lives.
Finding bus drivers is proving to be less of a test for Marion County school districts this upcoming school year.
Some districts relied on other staff, including teachers, last school year to help fill the gap for routes.
As A journalist, I’m incensed by government violating the First Amendment by raiding a constitutionally protected newsroom.
As a citizen, I’m incensed by government violating the Fourth Amendment by searching for things it could have obtained simply by asking — particularly when the only way it knew about them was because the target had revealed them and offered, without any response, to cooperate.
ANOTHER DAY IN THE COUNTRY:
Barbie's worldGUEST COLUMN:
They finally fired the cannonLETTERS:
Sympathy,
Thanks,
Gratitude,
Support
Tabor College has named Ian Thomson dean of student life and promoted Frank Johnson to provost.
Thomson formerly was head women’s soccer coach at Independence College and returned to Hillsboro in 2014. He served as sponsor of student government and Fellowship of Christian Athletes in Independence.
A benefit concert at Hillsboro Senior Center Sept. 3 will raise funds to support the center. Featured will be baritone Michael Nansel, who is married to Hillsboro High School graduate Tonja Seibel.
Nansel has performed in opera houses across North America and Europe, with over 80 roles to his credit. He will perform sacred, standard, Broadway, and opera after the center’s noon meal.
Flint Hills Counterpoint will celebrate its fourth anniversary from 1 to 8 p.m. Sept. 9 with a day of music, art installations, and a film premiere of “Reclamation Meridian” by Cyan Meeks with music by Susan Mayo, accompanied live by the Switchgrass String Quartet, at the Flint Hills Counterpoint Pole Barn Stage.
More information is available from call Susan Mayo at (316) 258-2342.
The children of Marjory (Collett) Talbott, who grew up on a farm in Marion are requesting cards for her 90th birthday. Her parents were Henry and Ethel (Higgins) Collett.
Cards may be mailed to Marge Talbott, 3130 N Parkdale Circle #101, Wichita KS 67205.
The children of Stacey and Carla (Fike) Collett are requesting a card shower for their 50th anniversary Aug. 26. Cards may be sent to 205 E Welch St, Marion KS 66861.
Jason Wiebe Dairy took third place for its raw milk jalapeno cheddar at the 40th annual American Cheese Society competition. The dairy is family-owned and has been making cheese with milk from its herd of 120 mixed-breed cows for more than 20 years.
Peabody’s Come Home for Christmas committeewill serve a fundraiser meal from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Sunday in the basement of the Peabody United Methodist Church.
On the menu are sloppy joes, pasta salad, baked beans, chips, and dessert. Donations will be accepted.
A supply drive for the Hub, a youth center in Peabody, will run through the end of the month.
Toiletry items, paper towels, napkins, plastic silverware, paper plates, plastic cups, hand soap, five-gallon trash bags, bottled water, cans of soda, and bags of chips and snacks may be dropped off at yellow boxes at the Peabody Township Library, Family Dollar, A Little off the Top, ManeStreet Beautique, and the Hub.
Registration forms for vendors who want to display at Peabody Fall Festival are available at the city building or area businesses or by email at peabodyfallfestival66866@gmail.com. The festival will be 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Oct. 7 at Peabody City Park.
MEMORIES:
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45,
60,
75,
110,
145 years ago