Kansas set a 38-year low for highway fatalities in the year 1983. The 403 deaths recorded since the state counted 302 fatalities in 1945 when due to wartime there were not nearly as many autos on the roads and streets.

Local teachers seemed unlikely to get pay hikes in 1984 as high as the nearly 9 percent Gov. John Carlin was calling for. Much depended on state aid to the schools.