photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World photo

The site for a future Rally House sportswear store at 2000 W. 23rd Street is shown on the evening of Nov. 18, 2021.

Some news and notes from around town:

• Plans have been filed for a sportswear retailer to take over the large, vacant space at 23rd and Iowa streets where the Cork & Barrel liquor store previously was located before it moved to 23rd and Ousdahl. Rally House has filed plans with City Hall to occupy the 11,000-square-foot space at 2000 W. 23rd St.

So, one type of game-day store is taking the spot of a different type of game-day store. (A liquor store is a game-day store for me, if for no other reason than to buy supplies to wash off the crimson and blue body paint.)

If you are not familiar with Rally House, it sells all types of collegiate and professional sports T-shirts, jerseys, hats, gifts, sports-themed home decor and other such items. It has kind of had a presence in Lawrence for many years. Rally House is the parent company of Kansas Sampler, which operates a location at 921 Massachusetts St. in downtown. The big question I don’t have an answer to (well, nonbody paint related, anyway) is whether the new Rally House will take the place of the existing Kansas Sampler in downtown. I put a call into the Kansas Sampler, but was directed to Rally House’s corporate office in Johnson County. I’m waiting to hear back from an official there. I’ll update this space if I hear more.

Rally House has had a more definitive presence in Lawrence recently with the opening of a Rally House store inside Allen Fieldhouse. There is a small Rally House store that focuses on KU gear just inside the main entrance to Allen Fieldhouse and a slightly larger one on an upper floor that is open only on basketball game days.

The company continues to be based in Johnson County, but has grown significantly since it opened in the 1990s under the Kansas Sampler brand. The company launched the Rally House brand several years later, and it now operates in 12 states.

• I’ll leave it up to you whether you want to consider this a rally, but there are some numbers that show a bit of a comeback for voting in Douglas County. Kind of.

As you hopefully know, there was an election earlier this month for a host of City Commission and school board positions across the county. The county clerk certified the results of those elections on Monday, which means we now have the official voter turnout numbers. The countywide rate was 22.2% voter turnout, which actually was down a bit from the 2019 municipal and school elections. Those elections produced turnout of 24.5%. I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to get the body paint out for those numbers.

On the other hand, they do still represent a bit of a comeback. This was the third set of elections held since the state changed the law regulating the timing of municipal and school board elections. They previously were held in the spring, usually in early April. There were some years the elections were scheduled for the day after the NCAA Basketball National Championship game, which led some in Lawrence to wonder what would happen if we threw an election and no one came. In those few years, however, the Jayhawks didn’t make it to the title game, so we’re left to guess on that scenario.

Now, the elections are held in early November, just like presidential and gubernatorial and congressional races are held. Those races are held in the even-numbered years, while city and municipal elections are held in the odd-numbered years. (I would argue there is nothing odder than Congress, but…) I did a little digging on turnout numbers for the general election before and after the switch. In the three elections since the switch, turnout for the municipal and school elections in Douglas County has averaged 23.3%. In the three elections prior to the switch, Douglas County turnout averaged 14.6%.

When state lawmakers made the change, they argued it would increase voter turnout because voters are used to coming to the polls in November. The numbers indicate that might be true for the general election.

As we reported earlier this year, though, that isn’t the case for the primary elections. Primary elections for municipal and school board elections are now held in August. Before the law changed they were generally held in February. Turnout for those primaries stink in either month, but this year’s August primary hit a new low of 10.1%.

While the turnout for the general election is better, it still generally stinks compared with the turnout for state and federal elections that happen in the even-numbered years. Those general elections usually produce turnout in the low 60% range in Douglas County, although the most recent presidential election topped 70%.

Would our city commissions and school boards look different if 70% of people turned out to vote instead of about 20%? I don’t know, and chances are we won’t find out because you never hear any talk of putting all the races on one ballot to create a mega election year.

• Since I’ve mentioned collegiate activity today, I might as well pass along news I have about the one item that is more expensive than a collegiate-branded T-shirt: dormitory room and board fees.

I reported earlier this month that KU has filed plans with the Kansas Board of Regents to increase its on-campus room and board fees by about 2.5% next year, making it the largest increase in some regards in the state system.

The Regents at their meeting on Wednesday didn’t act on the KU request or those from any of the other state universities. That vote will come at a future meeting. But it sure didn’t sound like the Regents would balk at KU’s proposed increases. Rather, Regents gave some indication that they were concerned other universities weren’t calling for much of an increase next year.

Regent Jon Rolph, who owns a restaurant group in Wichita, said universities easily would see a 10% increase in their food prices, which will have a big impact on the costs of their dining plans. Kansas State and Wichita State both are proposing no increases for their housing and dining plans next year, while Fort Hays is proposing just a 1% increase.

Some Regents expressed concern that the schools would spend down their housing and dining reserve funds to unhealthy levels. Housing and dining programs, by state policy, are supposed to be self-supporting and not rely on state funding.


”We have some universities holding their food service increases to zero, and I’m having a hard time understanding how they are going to do that,” Regent Mark Hutton said. “I think we all want to keep it at zero, but we also have to be concerned about solvency.”