WRITER: Austin Hornbostel

Restorative justice conference on tap later this week at Haskell; full list of speakers and performers available

A restorative justice conference will take place at Haskell Indian Nations University later this week, and the full list of speakers, panelists and performances for the two-day event has been announced. As the Journal-World reported last month, the City of Lawrence, Explore Lawrence, the Mennonite Central Committee, the Topeka Center for Peace and Justice, the organization Life Comes From It and mediation and ...

Haskell Cultural Center and Museum to open to public for first time since 2019

It’s been more than four years since the Cultural Center and Museum on Haskell Indian Nations University’s campus has been fully open to the public, but that streak will soon come to an end. The campus center has been open by appointment only through Haskell’s Office of the President since 2019, when the grant funding its operations expired. It’ll now be making a return to hosting regular weekday hours ...

Heartland announces 'significant' expansion to psychiatry and behavioral health services, including new 8,000-square-foot building

Updated at 1:15 p.m. Friday, June 2 Heartland Community Health Center announced a $3 million expansion project to its psychiatry and behavioral health care services Friday, including plans to break ground on an 8,000-square-foot building designated to house those services. According to a press release issued Friday morning, Heartland plans for a new building to be located directly east of its current facility ...

Officials behind 1,000-acre solar project north of Lawrence aiming to submit application later this summer; project team plans to open field office soon

Savion, the Kansas City energy company behind a proposed 1,000-acre solar energy facility just north of Lawrence, still has yet to file an application with Lawrence-Douglas County planners for the project, but on Thursday the leaders behind it said they plan to do so later this summer. The company — in partnership with Evergy, which would build, own and operate the facility if an application were approved — ...

Former Haskell library director is first-ever Indigenous recipient of library society's highest honor

Marilyn Russell is just the 32nd recipient of the highest honor bestowed by the Art Libraries Society of North America, but she can count herself among even more elite company in that already top-notch group. Though Russell, a former library director at Haskell Indian Nations University, had been retired for about a decade, she received the society’s Distinguished Service Award last month in Mexico City. The ...

Douglas County Commission will not meet for next 2 weeks

The Douglas County Commission won’t be meeting again until midway through June. Typically, commissioners take a week off from meeting during months that have five Wednesdays, meaning there is no meeting set for May 31. But county leaders also will not meet the following Wednesday, June 7. As for that meeting, Douglas County Administrator Sarah Plinsky told the Journal-World Tuesday that it was called off ...