Bush taps KU law grad for high-level Army post

A 1991 graduate from the Kansas University School of Law has been nominated by President Bush to be assistant secretary of the Army.

Valerie Baldwin, 43, a native of Wichita, would oversee financial management of the Army.

Baldwin currently works for the subcommittee on military construction of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Appropriations.

She has a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a bachelor’s degree from Wichita State University.

Vermont-to-Mexico Monarch journey logged

Three monarch butterflies affixed with tiny tags last summer in Vermont have turned up 2,400 miles away in Mexico, the Vermont Institute of Natural Science has confirmed.

The three were among several hundred monarchs tagged last year in Vermont as part of an effort to track their migration to their wintering grounds in El Rosario, Mexico, said VINS naturalist Bryan Pfeiffer.

The Vermont butterflies tagged and recovered were the second, third and fourth monarchs ever found to have traveled all the way from Vermont to Mexico; the first was in 1999.

The VINS tagging effort was done in cooperation with Monarch Watch, based at Kansas University.