Sad note to start the column this week: For the second time this year, Platte County has lost a former county commissioner.
Sue Dance, who was serving as a county commissioner for the southern portion of the county (they were referred to as “judges,” not commissioners, back then) in 1982 when I started work here at Platte County’s oldest newspaper and went on to serve multiple terms, died over the weekend. You’ll recall earlier this year the county lost former second district commissioner Jim Plunkett.
Sue died on Saturday, just a couple of weeks shy of her 100th birthday.
Though I covered many a meeting during her time in county office, she and I fell out of communication for many years after she stepped away from elected service. It wasn’t until recent years that we had begun communicating via email. She was a Landmark subscriber and would occasionally send her thoughts on the goings-on at county level politics. In her time in office she was widely viewed as an excellent communicator with the public. Her mind remained very sharp in our back and forth messages in recent years.
We have a complete obituary for Sue on page 5. The entire notice wasn’t yet available when I was penning this column. Here’s what was posted on the Meyers Funeral Chapel website as of Monday evening.
Sue Conwell Dance, 99, a lifelong resident of Kansas City, Missouri in Platte County passed away peacefully on Saturday, March 30, 2024 in Hermitage, Mo. Sue was born April 18, 1924 to Harry B. and Velma G. (Youngblood) Conwell. She was preceded in death by her father, Harry B. Conwell, mother Velma G. Youngblood Grinberg, stepfather Dave Grinberg, son-in-law Mike Glass and husband Nelson Johnson Dance III. She is survived by a son, Jeffrey D. Dance; a daughter Priscilla S. Dance Glass and grandson, David S. Dance.
A visitation will be held at 11:30 a.m., Friday, April 5, 2024 at Meyers Northland Chapel 401 Main St., Parkville. A memorial service celebrating Sue’s life will commence at 12:30 p.m. at the chapel with Rev. Alice Whitson officiating. Placement of the urn will immediately follow at Terrace Park Cemetery. Memories of Sue and condolences to the family may be shared at meyersfuneralchapel.com
On Monday, the Kansas City Police Department posted on its Facebook page a speed checking device that displayed the fact the police had captured a motorist traveling 103 miles per hour in the 55 mph zone on I-29 near 72nd Street.
Yikes. And it wasn’t even a Chiefs wide receiver.
Your Landmark is hitting the streets and the postal route a day earlier than normal. So if you’re looking for election results from Tuesday’s vote, you’ll want to go to our Facebook page (follow us at Platte County Landmark on Facebook, if you’re not already) and to our website at plattecountylandmark.com. We busily posted those on Tuesday night just as quickly as the results were final from the Platte County Board of Elections.
We’ll put an election day wrap-up in next week’s printed paper for those of you who do not have easy access to this newfangled thing called the internet. I’m starting to think this internet thing is more than just a fad so you might want to consider checking it out.
The reason for the early print date? It’s medical related. Medical procedure related, to be more specific.
At my regular checkup earlier this year I asked my trusted family doc (everybody loves their doctor and thinks they have the best one. You don’t have the best one. I do) to take a look at a longtime scar on my face a short distance below my right eye. I was always told I was bitten by a dog in that spot as a toddler, though I have no recollection of this alleged incident. For years I had never thought anything of the small scar but then it had begun to kind of “scab over” (that’s a Foley medical term, not a doctor’s words). I asked my doc to take a quick look during my annual wellness check and she did not like what she saw. In fact, here is her direct quote: “I don’t like the way that looks.” Followed by another look at it from a slightly different angle, followed by this quote: “I don’t like the way that looks.” So she set me up with the KC Skin and Cancer Center on Ambassador, inside the building that formerly housed the Boardwalk Branch of the Mid-Continent Library. Nice place.
The doc at the KC Skin and Cancer Center took a quick look at it and immediately said “this is a squamous cell cancer” that sometimes starts, after years of sun and the aging process, in places like old scars. Then she looked around in other locations on my pretty face and found another spot that she identified as a “basal cell skin cancer” on the left side of my nose. Then she gave me a shot in each side of my face and cut pieces of both so biopsies could be conducted. Her quick diagnosis of each spot proved to be spot on, as the biopsy reports confirmed her immediate eyeballing of the situations.
They’ll do what is called “Mohs surgery” on each of those locations the next two Wednesday mornings. They tell me the cure rate using this method can be as high as 99%. So I’m not worried about anything other than getting the paper out a day early the next few weeks.
Anyway, if my self-described handsome face has to be bandaged up like a mummy I apologize in advance for the potentially scary scene when we cross paths in the next couple weeks.
A man can always count on his buddies for sincere words of support during health issues. For example, I had to tell our page 3 columnists Kamler and Speckman about the upcoming medical procedures so they could get their weekly profound thoughts turned in ahead of time for the early deadline. Speckman, always the thoughtful type, offered these heartfelt words of encouragement as I head in for the slicing: “Good luck with your doctoring this week, don’t let them play on the wrong cheek, unless you’re into all that.”
Lol. I suspect this type of banter only occurs among the male population and not between other pronouns. #blessed
(Foley encourages you to check your cheeks for suspicious spots)