Friends wish postmaster a happy retirement

Longtime Lawrence Postmaster Bill Reynolds, below, laughs at his friend Jim Mullins, Lawrence, who dons a George W. Bush mask for fun at Reynolds’ retirement party. Friends and colleagues gathered Friday at the post office at Seventh and Vermont streets to wish Reynolds well. He had worked for the U.S. Postal Service for more than 35 years and had served as Lawrence postmaster since 1986.

Courts

Lawyer in murder case wants statements tossed

Leavenworth — A lawyer representing Raymond Boothe, a Missouri man accused of stabbing his 11-year-old developmentally disabled son and leaving him to die on the Kansas Turnpike, said Friday that he would ask the Leavenworth County District Court to suppress statements Boothe made after his arrest in Lawrence.

Gary Fuller also said he would challenge the constitutionality of the state’s laws on prosecuting the mentally ill. The motion will be filed within 30 days.

At Boothe’s April 16 preliminary hearing, Leavenworth County detectives testified he had confessed to dragging 11-year-old Levi Boothe into a ditch alongside the turnpike, stabbing him several times and flinging the boy back onto the turnpike.

Boothe’s jury trial is scheduled to begin Dec. 1 in Leavenworth.

Gasoline prices

Pump Patrol seeks deals

The Journal-World has found a Lawrence-area gasoline price as low as $1.66 at Citgo in North Lawrence, as well as Citgo, 2005 W. Ninth St., Zarco Phillips 66, 900 Iowa; and Site Service Station, 946 E. 23rd St.

If you find a lower price, call Pump Patrol at 832-7154. Leave the business address and price.

Politics

Presidential debate decision still pending

Lawrence promoters should learn in early November whether the city will be host to a 2004 debate between presidential or vice presidential candidates.

Clenece Hills, president of the Lawrence Sesquicentennial Commission, said she had talked with Rory Davies, one of the members of Commission on Presidential Debates who toured Lawrence in June. Davies indicated the debate commission would meet in mid- to late September to decide if it would need to tour sites again, then make a final decision by early November.

If selected, the debate would be at Kansas University’s Lied Center.