Rozel

Students mourn death of torch-toting teacher

Students in Pawnee Heights are mourning the death of Jay Artaz, the coach and teacher whose fight against cancer inspired hundreds to come out to watch him carry the Olympic torch in January.

Artaz died Monday in an Oklahoma City hospital of non-Hodgkins lymphoma a week after a bone marrow transplant. He was 47.

“We don’t have any more tears,” said Lindsay Binder, a senior at Pawnee Heights High School. “We’ve been crying pretty much the whole day.”

Artaz was nominated to carry the torch for his devotion to students and the courage he displayed when the disease returned last year after 13 years in remission.

Binder and most of the students at one of the state’s smallest schools climbed onto buses before dawn Jan. 11 for the three-hour trip to Wichita for the torch run.

FORT SCOTT

High school teacher faces criminal charges

A Fort Scott high school teacher accused of secretly videotaping underage girls while they were tanning at his home has been charged with sexual exploitation of a child.

Randy Carter made his first appearance in court Wednesday, a Bourbon County District Court clerk said.

Carter was charged with six counts of sexual exploitation of a child, three counts of attempted sexual exploitation of a child, all felonies, and 13 misdemeanor counts of eavesdropping.

He was being detained on $50,000 bond. His preliminary hearing was set for April 5.

Carter has been a teacher in the Fort Scott school district for more than 10 years.

He has been suspended with pay during the investigation.

Lakin

Missing mother now presumed dead

Kearny County authorities now classify the disappearance of a young western Kansas mother as a probable kidnapping and homicide.

Det. Darrell Walters said authorities may file charges any day against a suspect in the disappearance of Stefanie Welch of Lakin.

“There’s a couple pieces of information we need, and we’ll be ready to charge (someone),” Walters said. “I have no idea when we’ll get it, but we’ll have a fairly good circumstantial case.”

Authorities believed from the start that Welch, 24, was probably kidnapped and killed, but they had to classify her as a missing person, Walters said.

That was until last week, the one-year anniversary of her disappearance. She was reported missing Feb. 28, 2001.

Welch was last seen when she dropped off her two small sons at day care. Later that day, her car was found abandoned in a trailer park with her jacket, wallet and hundreds of dollars inside. Her keys were missing.

After Welch vanished, her estranged husband, Brian Welch, took custody of the children.

LYONS

KBI to investigate report of inmate’s rape

Rice County authorities have asked the KBI to investigate a rape allegation by a jail inmate.

The woman reported she was the victim of a nonconsensual sexual act by a male inmate on Monday, Rice County Sheriff Steve Bundy said.

The female inmate was examined by a doctor to collect evidence of rape and then transferred to the Barton County Jail “to ease her anxiety,” Bundy said.