Gift shop opens
Ernie Tafoya has opened another retail business in a vacant store adjacent to his initial business, Balloons by Ernie.
“Holiday Gifts and Crafts” opened this month at 321 Commercial St.
The store will feature replicas of antiques, like 1800 clocks, cast-iron moldings, and similar items, Tafoya said.
Tafoya’s woodworking also will be on sale, as will beer steins, repllica signs, snowmen, and G.I. Joe collectibles.
The store will be open from 1 to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays. He expects to expand store hours as the holiday shopping season approaches.
Tafoya and his staff will work at both stores, which will share one telephone number, 343-1275. People who stop in at the original store may sometimes find it unstaffed.
“If they want balloons, they’ll need to come next door to get me,” he said.
— Bobbi Mlynar
New doctor
Dr. Nabil El-Halawany has joined the Mental Health Center of East Central Kansas as a full-time psychiatrist. He joins Dr. Jean-Daniel Policard, medical director.
El-Halawany has been in private practice in Independence, Mo., since 1990. He has also been a staff psychiatrist and medical director at the Menninger Mental Health Unit of Providence Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan., since 1998. El-Halawany is a board certified psychiatrist currently licensed to practice in Kansas and Missouri.
He earned his medical degree from Cairo University in Egypt in 1977 and completed an internship at Cairo University Hospitals in Cairo from 1978 to 1979. He worked as a general practitioner in the Egyptian Army from 1979 to 1980. He also worked as a general practitioner at the About Sowelam Medical Unit in Giza, Egypt, in 1991.
El-Halawany relocated to the United States and completed a psychiatry residency at the University of Missouri-Kansas City from 1984 to 1988. He worked briefly as a psychiatrist at Burrell Center in Springfield, Mo., before going into private practice in 1989 in Centralia, Ill.
Math training
Area teachers recently attended a workshop for teaching math at Emporia State University. Providing students with strategies to succeed in math was the topic of the workshop, called “From Good to Great! Go Beyond Just Teaching Math to Engaging Students in Algebra and Geometry.”
It was organized by the Jones Institute for Educational Excellence and held Monday. The event was attended by 31 educators from across the state including middle and high school math teachers.
Rebecca Lentz, the workshop’s presenter, demonstrated how students develop a higher level of understanding of mathematics by engaging in student-centered instruction. Cooperative learning in the mathematics classroom not only enhances students’ math skills, it also increases their ability to communicate and work well with one another.
Area educators in attendance at the workshop included:
- Dave Sloop of USD 244, Burlington;
- Nickie Edwards, Marilou Noller and Lisa Preisner of USD 251, North Lyon County; and
- Cathy Terrell of USD 253, Emporia.
Turkey dinners
Capitol Federal Savings employees have supplied Thanksgiving meals to 250 families in the city in which it has bank offices. The company teamed with the delicatessens of local Dillon’s, Price Chopper, Reebles and Hy-Vee grocery stores, which prepared the turkey dinners, complete with potatoes, vegetables, stuffing and dessert.
In Emporia, the bank is working with Salvation Army to distribute the meals. The Capitol Federal Foundation provided grant money to purchase the meals, which totaled $12,250.