Biosecurity center director named by KSU

Kansas State University has selected retired Army Col. David R. Franz, a former United Nations weapons inspector, to lead the school’s new National Agricultural Biosecurity Center.

The $50 million center, scheduled to open in about two years, is expected to attract top scientists because of its high-security laboratories.

Through a collaboration between the two institutions, Franz has been named chief biological scientist at the Midwest Research Institute in Kansas City.

Franz, who earned a veterinary degree from Kansas State, will remain based in Frederick, Md., where he is vice president of the chemical and biological defense division of the Southern Research Institute. The arrangement will allow Franz to continue working on national-level advisory committees. He will travel regularly to Kansas City and Manhattan.

Guard unit placed on alert status

About 20 Kansas Army National Guard soldiers have been put on alert for possible mobilization as part of the U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Brig. Gen. Jonathan Small, acting adjutant general, said the members of 105th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment were notified Thursday. The unit’s headquarters are in Topeka, with a detachment in Oklahoma.

Small said it was too early to know where and when the unit would be mobilized.

The unit provides news coverage, escorts for news organizations and related duties.

Diversion accepted in child’s heat death

A Valley Center man who inadvertently left his 22-month-old daughter in a sport utility vehicle last summer will not be charged in her death.

William “Joe” Dillman signed a diversion agreement with prosecutors Thursday, the day his trial was scheduled to start, said Georgia Cole, spokeswoman for the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office.

Under the deal, a misdemeanor charge of child endangerment will be dropped in a year if Dillman does not break the law in that time.

Dillman’s daughter, Alyssa Nicole, was left in the sport utility vehicle for eight hours on July 14, when the temperature reached 109 degrees.