Soon our area ornamental trees will be displaying their fall leaf color. Maples are preferred by many. There are numerous maples to select from for the landscape. However, some are not well suited to our growing conditions. Early fall coloration because of poor site factors and environmental…

Shea’s column fine until the wheels came off

As the situation in Afghanistan continues to unravel following multiple bombings outside of the Kabul airport that resulted in multiple casualties, including the first combat deaths of U.S. service members in 18 months, I express my deepest empathy and eternal gratitude to the family members…

Some of the most common questions we hear as U.S. Department of Agriculture employees working for the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility are about the location: Why is NBAF being built in Kansas or why in the middle of cattle country?

I’ve been to Cincinnati, Salt Lake City, Houston and Orlando. They don’t strike me as very similar to Manhattan, Ames or Stillwater. Or even Lawrence.

Right now, at this very moment, roughly half of the eligible population of our community has chosen not to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. That’s in spite of clear guidance from medical professionals, scientific researchers, and the government agencies that are in charge of handling …

Three short comments:

Columnist’s piece misleading, confusing

The end result of the local government budget season for most of us is pretty simple: Our property tax bill will go up 5 percent. It’s an increase of about $200 a year on a $250,000 house.

In the end, Abimael Guzman was a loser. He died in a Peruvian prison this past weekend, age 86, alone and powerless. Not that I want to celebrate anyone’s death, but there’s some powerful symbolism in those facts.

I’m not interested in giving Travis Goff a free pass.

I was nine years old when the world completely changed.

One of these days the growing season will come to an end with the first frost. The thought of next season will then kick off with much anticipation. There are some tasks that can be done now as we both approach the end of the season and the thought of next year.

It’s September 11, 20 years later.

Eleven dead Marines, one dead Army soldier, and one dead Navy Corpsman last month in Kabul. Their families faced that dreadful knock on their door from a military officer and a chaplain; what a terrible loss their families now have to live with for the rest of their lives.

If you’re headed out to a football game this weekend, enjoy it. Revel in it. Take it all in, and savor it, because you should not take these things for granted.

Let’s not invite BYU to join Big 12

Of the hundreds of billboards, giant marquees and flashing signs I saw in New York City on a visit a couple weeks ago, only two stuck with me.

As a child at my father’s knee, I would hear Walter Cronkite describing “guerilla warfare” and visualize M-16 toting hominids.

Two brief curmudgeonly notes, and one bit of unadulterated cheerleading:

This coming week, your Manhattan Mercury is going to arrive on a slightly different schedule. This is also the first time through the high school and college football season, and so it’s a good time for a quick update on what you can expect.

I grew up during the Civil Rights Era. What we were taught about equality was from the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that a…

It’s a couple days before the start of the college football season here, and I have almost zero enthusiasm about it. It’s probably the first time I’ve felt that way since, oh, 1988.

My stepdog, Rex, died a week ago. He was a big ol’ mutt, mostly Boxer with probably some mastiff, an 85-pound shedding machine who drooled and had terrible breath. I loved him because of all that, plus the way he bounded down the hallway and grinned a big goofy toothy grin all the time. I mi…

Five observations from a few days in New York City last week:

Folks from around Manhattan are doing what you’d expect in a moment of national crisis: They’re stepping up to help.

We’ve got to do better, folks.

“Free Guy” is a new Ryan Reynolds movie. Reynolds is known to play happy-go-lucky characters. Guy is the latest of them.

I’d like to wish the owners of Kite’s the best of luck. I’d also like to slap them around for sacrilege.

The help-wanted ad that they’ve put together to bring in the next president at Kansas State University is all well and good. The key now is going to be finding the person who can really drive the place forward.

It’s easy to make the case for a Congressional investigation into college football realignment as I’m sitting here in downtown Manhattan, Kansas. We stand to lose tens of millions of dollars a year, a huge blow in a small college town like ours, if the Big 12 blows up.

August is the month to evaluate your cool-season lawn. Tall fescue is the preferred grass for most situations. It is a bunch type grass and doesn’t spread. If you have thin or bare spots, planting seed is necessary. Join me on Saturday, Aug. 28 beginning at 9 a.m. for a program on turf care …

Like anyone excited to move into a new home, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is sorting through and organizing items that have been collected for more than 66 years at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, or PIADC, in New York. This is in preparation for the move to the National Bio and…

KSU supporters need to know that leaders are on top of realignment

The prospect of a big new commercial building in Aggieville is alluring, certainly. A structure with 155,000 square feet of office space, plus room for apartments and retail stores, would be a shot in the arm for that important part of town, and, by extension, the community as a whole.

Trillions of taxpayer dollars. Thousands of American lives.

Oklahoma and Kansas belong together. More than Kansas and Missouri do, even.

The growth of Pottawatomie County in the past decade is pretty easy to explain: It’s a nice place to live, where taxes are low, and you can have access to most of the amenities of Manhattan without having to pay for them.

The mask debate rages on. You don’t really need to hear my opinion on the meat of the issue, but I’d like to make a point about motives.

The new class of Riley County, K-State Research and Extension Master Gardeners will start on Thursday, Sept. 2. Presently, the learning will be in-person instruction. There is an online-only option. The in-person instruction will take place in Pottorf Hall in CiCo Park where there is room to…

Young people need to be educated as to what ‘statutory rape’ is

America is suffering an immigration crisis. The southern border is experiencing a surge mainly from South America and Mexico, but from hundreds of other countries as well. We must stop this and stop it quickly.

I never cried at movies as a young person, other than “ET.” That was the only one.

One of the joys and frustrations of being a newspaper editor is the unresolved questions that present themselves nearly every day. The Mercury’s news staff does a tremendous job digging up answers to all sorts of questions; without those professional journalists, we’d be constantly driving i…

A few thoughts about Novak Djokovic, Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles.