Gunmen tie up workers at electronics store

Two men armed with handguns tied up employees at a Lawrence electronics store Monday night during a possible robbery, Lawrence Police said.

Officers responded at 10:11 p.m. to Rex TV, 2800 Iowa, after an alarm at the store was tripped, Sgt. Catherine Born said. They found three employees at the store bound with duct tape.

Police searched the area for two suspects, described only as men wearing red hooded sweatshirts. They were both armed with handguns, Born said.

The store was still open at the time the suspects entered the front door. They left through the back door, but police didn’t know whether they fled on foot or in a vehicle. Police also were unsure whether anything was taken.

No shots were fired and no one was injured, Born said.

Former Kansas House speaker McGill dies

Overland Park — Pete McGill, the former Kansas House speaker who established the state’s first large lobbying firm, has died.

McGill died Sunday at his home in Overland Park after a long illness. He was 81.

McGill, a Republican from Winfield, was first elected to the Kansas House in 1960. He was defeated in a re-election bid in 1964, but regained his seat two years later and served until January 1977.

He was speaker of the House for four sessions, 1973 through 1976, and established his lobbying firm after leaving office.

Ron Hein, a veteran Topeka lobbyist and former state senator, described McGill as a statehouse institution.

“He’ll be remembered as the grand master of the concept of contract lobbying in Kansas,” Hein said. McGill was still lobbying into his late 70s, Hein said.

In 1978, McGill ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House from the former 5th Congressional District in southeast Kansas. He served as state campaign chairman for former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, and for President George W. Bush in the 2000 campaign.