Faces and places

Sarah Bloxsom has been promoted to regional marketing director for Kansas Secured Title. She coordinates marketing efforts for a company region that includes title and closing operations in Douglas, Jefferson and Shawnee counties.

Bloxsom has a bachelor’s degree from Kansas University in communications with an emphasis in business communications. She joined Kansas Secured Title as a closing agent in 2002.

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Among the more than 400 professionals attending the Kansas Optometric Assn.’s Fall Eyecare Conference in Wichita were several Lawrence doctors, including Brent Crandon, Steven Flory, Thomas Lutz, Charles Pohl and Arthur Queen.

The seminar offered sessions on new pharmaceuticals, diabetes treatment and management, contact lenses, trends in cataract and refractive surgery, anterior segment grand rounds, dry eyes, custom ablation and refractive surgery grand rounds. The doctors received 14 hours of continuing education toward the 24 hours required for maintaining licenses.

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Sherri Brown, Bill Waldron and Erica Young have joined Landplan Engineering in Lawrence.

Brown is an invoicing clerk, responsible for billing. She earned an associate’s degree in business from Labette Community College, and has 16 years of accounting and administrative experience.

Waldron is a survey crew member and provides expertise in use of global positioning systems. He has an associate’s degree from Fort Scott Community College and five years of land-surveying experience.

Young, a landscape architect, has a bachelor’s degree in landscape architecture. She serves as staff planner, providing technical assistance, research and graphic support. Among her current projects in Lawrence: a planned fire station and residential development in western Lawrence.

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The Best Lawyers in America released its new listings of the nation’s legal “top lawyers,” for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America. The list includes James Logan, James Oliver, John Peck, R. Douglas Reagan and William P. Trenkle Jr., all Foulston Siefkin attorneys in Overland Park. Logan, who serves as of counsel, is a former professor and dean of law at Kansas University. Peck, special counsel, is a law professor at KU.

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Karen LaForce, a certified massage therapist at WhiteStone Wellness Center, recently completed training in the Myokinesthetic System, a soft tissue therapy designed to treat the nervous system by way of the muscles to relieve pain. LaForce uses the therapy to address headaches, neck and shoulder pain, thoracic outlet syndrome, carpal tunnel syndrome, low back pain, sciatica and plantar fasciitis.

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The Douglas County Extension Council recently elected new members for its program development committees: David Bunker, Doug Gaston and John Bradley, agriculture; Annette Larson, Cheryl Hunsinger and Rachel Purvis, family and consumer sciences; Jana Dunbar, Twilla Brown and LaDonna Wilson, 4-H youth; and Bruce Flanders, Andrea Zuercher and Chris Durflinger, economic development. The members will participate in the Extension Council’s annual meeting at 7 p.m. Dec. 1 at the Douglas County 4-H Fairgrounds. During the meeting, the council members will elect nine individuals to serve as an executive board.

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Jan Kraus-Stone, formerly of Genne’s Beauty Salon, has joined Head to Toe Nail and Beauty Salon, 1410 Kasold Dr., Drive No. 8.

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Sunflower Bank has announced the relocation of Larry Almstrom to Lawrence as a commercial and residential lender. Almstrom served as president of Sunflower Bank in Junction City for more than 10 years, after seven years as a vice president at First National Bank and Trust in Junction City and the previous 17 years as a banker in McPherson.

Honors and awards

Betty Wade is Employee of the Month for Jayhawk Area Agency on Aging Inc., where Wade has worked for more than four years as supplemental services coordinator .

The agency advocates on aging issues, builds community partnerships and implements programs within Douglas, Shawnee and Jefferson counties to help seniors live independent and dignified lives.

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Connie Lindell, Lawrence, received the 2004 Secondary Business Teacher of the Year Award from the Kansas Business Education Assn. during the organization’s annual conference in Wichita.

Lindell has been teaching business education at Santa Fe Trail High School in Carbondale for the past 26 years, where she also is adviser for Future Business Leaders of America.

Coming events

The Twilight Chapter of American Business Women’s Assn. will have its monthly dinner meeting Monday at the American Legion in Lawrence. Networking starts at 6 p.m. and the dinner meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. Curtis Clinkinbeard, of the Kansas University Small Business Development Center, will be the guest speaker. For more information or to make reservations, call Connie Torneden at (913) 845-2500 or e-mail conniet@firststateks.com.

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Members of the Lawrence Technology Association will meet at 11:45 a.m. Thursday at the Hereford House, Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive. Members of the Lawrence public schools’ robotics team will discuss their participation earlier this year in a national robotics competition, and demonstrate the robot that they had entered in the competition. Cost for the luncheon meeting is $15 for association members and $20 for nonmembers. To make reservations, contact Peggy Williams by e-mail at pwilliams@ittc.ukans.edu, by voice mail at 864-7354 or by fax at 864-0387.

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The 2004 Kansas Rural Policy Symposium will be Dec. 2 at Kansas State University. The symposium, “To Entrepreneur or Not To Entrepreneur? That Is the Kansas Question,” will examine entrepreneurship as an economic development strategy and analyze the effects of the recently passed Economic Growth Act.

Keynote speaker will be Erik Pages, president and founder of EntreWorks and member of an evaluation team for enterprise facilitation in Kansas.

For more information click on www.ksu.edu/kcri/rps, or call the Kansas Center for Rural Initiatives at (785) 532-6868 or the Huck Boyd Institute for Rural Development at (785) 532-7690.

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The 2004 Kansas Chamber Legislative Summit will be Thursday at the Ramada Inn Downtown in Topeka, serving as the first gathering of the 2005 “business caucus” in preparation for the 2005 legislative session.

The meeting will address several questions considered key for the legislative session, including:

  • How do Kansas business conditions measure up against other states?
  • What is the situation nationally with business taxes?
  • What do Kansans statewide think about the issues?
  • How are we going to find answers to the health care cost crisis?
  • What is The Kansas Chamber planning for the 2005 Legislative session?

To review the agenda click on www.kansaschamber.org/forms/_advo2/26_1.htm. To register, click on www.kansaschamber .org/kscchw/hw.dll?page&file=04summit.