From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for July 24, 1988:

• As a result of this year’s drought, Gov. Mike Hayden announced this week that 11 Kansas counties had been declared disasters by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Richard Lyng. Farmers in those counties (which did not include Douglas County) would be eligible for emergency loans because of the designation. All of the counties in Missouri and two in Nebraska had also received the disaster designation. Farmers in those areas who had suffered at least 30 percent crop losses because of the drought could apply for Farmers Home Administration emergency loans. Qualifications included ownership of a “family-sized farm” and inability to get credit elsewhere. The loans, at 4.5 percent interest, could be used to buy feed, seed, fertilizer, or livestock, or to meet interest and depreciation payments.
• A local task force was proposing a plan to ensure health care access to the community’s poor. A free health clinic had been ruled out as “too expensive and not as cost-effective,” according to one group member, and local physicians had also told the task force that they would rather provide free care in their own offices. The plan now was to set up a referral service for low-income people who needed to see a physician or dentist or to purchase a prescription. The process would include screening to assess the client’s level of need and then, if found eligible, setting up an appointment with a participating health-care provider. The hope was that enough physicians would participate that none would become overloaded.