David Condos
Reporter, Kansas News ServiceDavid Condos is the western Kansas correspondent for the Kansas News Service and High Plains Public Radio based in Hays, Kansas. Prior to joining KNS and HPPR, David spent four years covering mental health, addiction, trauma and rural healthcare issues as a freelance producer, reporter and host. His work has been heard on WPLN News, WAMC's 51% and Nashville Public Radio podcasts Neighbors and The Promise. After growing up in Nebraska, Colorado and Illinois, David graduated from Belmont University in Nashville and worked as an award-winning recording artist, songwriter and touring musician.
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Thanks to decades of conservation efforts, Hays has become the California of Kansas — a place where thinking about your water use is a way of life. For now, it’s an outlier. But as climate change brings drier, hotter weather to Kansas, more cities may have to follow a similar path.
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Drought is taking its toll on western Kansas cornfields this year. And all that dead corn could mean higher prices for products that depend on the state's grain supply, such as ethanol-infused gasoline and corn-fed beef.
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New research shows how increasingly intense solar flares could disrupt the GPS satellite connections that have made Kansas farms more efficient.
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How bad is the Kansas drought? Among the most severe in recorded history. But some other years were more extreme.
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Scientists seeking to learn about prehistoric oceans have flocked to an unlikely place: western Kansas. And now, the fossils embedded in these Great Plains could hold clues about the future of life.
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For generations, scientists seeking to learn about prehistoric ocean life have flocked to a place that’s about as far from the ocean you can get — dry, dusty western Kansas. What they’re finding could teach us both about life in the ancient world and about the future of life in a changing climate.
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As Kansans prepare to vote on the future of abortion, rural western Kansas offers a preview of what life with an abortion ban might eventually look like for the rest of the state.
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More than 2,000 cattle carcasses were put in landfill piles or pits after dying in the southwest Kansas heat. But those are not prohibited or unexpected methods of livestock disposal.
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The weather event that killed thousands of cattle in southwest Kansas last month was a rare combination of extreme factors. But it highlights the ongoing risk that heat stress poses for cattle, especially as climate change pushes temperatures higher.
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For small towns with dwindling populations and shrinking tax bases, luring travelers to stop and spend a few dollars is a matter of survival. Some turn to quirky roadside tourist attractions.