On September 2, 2025, the Pratt City Commission held its required public hearing to be able to pass resolution 090225 levying property taxes above the revenue neutral rate. The hearing is required by law whenever the property tax rate is to be raised, even though this particular increase really just allowed the mill levy to rise with inflation. After the hearing was concluded, the resolution was passed.
On Wednesday, August 27, a group of 20-24 men and women known as Empowered Pratt Citizens (EPC) came together to demonstrate at the Avenue of the Flags with the theme “Workers over Billionaires.” Many were dressed as “workers.” There were those dressed in bright orange construction worker vests, one in a clergy robe, lots of denim, sweatshirts, hard hats, cowboy hats, and baseball caps were present, as well. Signs included comments like “Raise the Taxes on Billionaires,” “Support Immigrants with Kindness & Caring,” “Love Your Neighbor,” and “America Needs Immigrants.” The recognition of their messages by truck drivers passing through town and local drivers going about their business brought handwaves and shouts of joy from the protestors.
The Pratt County Health Department is asking people to note that September is National Preparedness Month. This year’s theme is Preparedness Starts at Home.
It was a foggy morning on Labor Day, but that didn’t stop Terry and Taylor Williamson (and friends) from providing kids with a bird’s-eye look at Haviland from a seat in a small airplane on September 1 at Fly-In Day.
Jesse Nathan, a poet whose voice rises from the Kansas prairie and reaches far beyond, has been named the winner of the 2025 Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award in Poetry for his collection, Eggtooth. The $1,000 award will be presented on Friday, September 19, at 4 p.m. in Room 120 of the Plass Learning Resources Center (1731 Plass Ave) on the Washburn University campus just ahead of the annual Kansas Book Festival. Nathan will be present to give a reading from the book.
For more than 27 years, Misty Beck, director of the Pratt Performing Arts Club at Pratt Community College has been providing community music in a variety of ways to the Pratt area public. Her dedication to building community, and family, has not gone unnoticed.
Feel the squish of the grapes in the time-honored tradition of grape stomping as you help celebrate the grape and farm winery industries in Kansas. The Kansas Department of Agriculture will host the 19th annual Kansas Grape Stomp on Saturday, September 6, at 1:00 p.m. in Gottschalk Park at the Kansas State Fair in Hutchinson.
St. John-Hudson USD 350 welcomed back students for a new school year on Thursday, August 21, with an exciting blow-up Tiger at the entrance. A new year, new superintendent, and new promise on the horizon for this district was celebrated with a back-to-school ice cream party that afternoon and a Tiger Pride Night on August 25. Now school supporters will put their heads together to find a way to pas a rising school bond issue on the upcoming November 4, 2025 election.
The T & W Meat Co. is a family run business with three locations in Kansas: Kingman, Preston, and Pratt. On Friday, August 29, employees at the Pratt location served free burgers and sausage dogs to commemorate 10 years of the store’s location in that town.
MANHATTAN, Kansas — Four Kansas State University students traveled to Taiwan August 8-16, 2025, to represent Kansas in the Taiwan Agricultural Youth Exchange Program. The bilateral exchange offers students an opportunity to explore Taiwan’s agricultural industry and deepen their understanding of economic ties between Kansas and Taiwan, particularly through agricultural exports.