A change of command at Kansas State University topped the Mercury’s list of biggest stories for 2016, followed closely by the months-long mascot debate at Manhattan High School.
Each year, the newspaper’s staff members vote to determine the top-10 stories that have emerged from the previous 12 months.
The interim and then official hiring of Gen. Richard Myers, a K-State alum and once the highest-ranking uniformed military officer in the country, to lead the university took first place. But just one vote below it was the school board’s hotly debated decision to keep the Indians as the symbol of the high school.