[QUOTE]

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2005• THE WICHITA EAGLE 3B

WICKED WITCH'S DEATH CONFIRMED

BY KAREN SHIDELER
The Wichita Eagle

Ding, dong.
The witch is dead.
Or is she?

We all know that the Munchkin coroner declared the Wicked Witch of the East dead - not only merely dead but really most sincerely dead - in "The Wizard of Oz."

But the 1939 death had not been recorded as a Kansas fatality, as state law requires, until Friday.

The Shawnee County Commission appointed 90-year-old Meinhardt Raabe, the Munchkin coroner in the movie, as a spedal deputy coroner so he could sign the certificate and record it with the state. The certificate was accepted Friday in Topeka by State Registrar Lorne Phillips.

The certificate notes that death was by tornado trauma. And because the tornado picked up the house in Kansas, the death certificate gets signed here.

The reason for all this is so that the death certificate can be given to organizers of Wamego's first Oztoberfest celebration, this weekend. Phillips said his office wouldn't officially record the certificate.

Which leads to a question:

If the death certificate isn't officially recorded, can that wicked witch really be

Positively,

absolutely,

Undeniably

and reliably

DEAD?

[END QUOTE]



Comment: Probably the first sensible thing any member of Kansas State government has done in the past couple of years ... and they don't intend to finish the paperwork on it??????

John