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A full obituary will be posted at a later date.
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Monday, July 27, 2026
Obituary - Colt Brown
A full obituary will be posted at a later date.
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Obituary - Les Chambers
Graveside service and inurnment will be 10 a.m. Saturday, August 1, 2026 at West Point Cemetery, Amsterdam, Missouri. Gathering and lunch after the service will be held at Daily Objective Distillery in Amsterdam. Arrangements under the direction of the Schowengerdt Funeral Chapel (660-679-6555) in Butler, Missouri. Contributions to West Point Cemetery. Online condolences www.schowengerdtchapel.com.
Leslie Bartley (Buster) Chambers, 90, of Merwin, Missouri, passed away Saturday, July 18, 2026, at Field Pointe Assisted Living in St. Joseph, Missouri. He was born November 5, 1935, in Watonga, Oklahoma to A. Leslie and Virginia (Bartley) Chambers. In fourth grade, his family moved to the Brookside neighborhood in Kansas City, Missouri.
Leslie graduated in 1953 from Southwest High School in Kansas City, then from the University of Missouri. He worked for the Columbia Police Department during his time there. Leslie was a studious man and led an adventurous life. He wanted to be a Highway Patrolman but became a Rancher when his father died unexpectedly. Leslie married Beverly Beadles in 1961 and they honeymooned in Steamboat Springs, Colorado before moving to Rocking Chair Ranch in Merwin. They had 3 daughters, Cyndy, Janet and Debbie.
In 1967 they moved to Ft. Carson, Colorado while his guard unit prepared to deploy to Vietnam. Leslie spent a year in Vietnam as the Field Artillery Unit Commander with the Service Battery, 7th Battalion, 13th Artillery. He documented his tour in letters he sent home and through hundreds of photos that he took. He returned to Merwin and a few years later (1973) accepted a full-time position with the Kansas National Guard in Hiawatha, Kansas as the 2nd Battalion Commanding Officer, 130th Field Artillery, 69th Infantry Brigade. Leslie retired from the military with 33 years service. Then in 1978, he bought a dry cleaning business and moved his family to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, an area he always enjoyed. After selling his business, Leslie worked operating big trucks and heavy equipment. In the summer of 1981, he joined the “Last Hope Alaska Partnership” and spent 6 weeks drilling for gold in the remote wilderness of the Stony River area of Alaska. He returned for another 6 weeks in Feb of 1982. Leslie kept a daily journal documenting their hardships and adventures. He went to work for TIC out of Steamboat Springs and spent the next 7 years roaming the remote areas of the Northwestern United States, hauling massive equipment to and from various mines and industrial sites. In 1989, after the birth of his first grandchild, he “retired” and moved back to Merwin where he ran the ranch until 2022 when he was moved to St. Joseph.
Throughout his life he loved flying his (small planes) Cessnas and being involved in anything aviation related. Early on, he was a member of a group called the Flying Farmers who traveled together around the U.S. Leslie attended many International Cessna 180 annual fly-ins. He was a member of the EAA and at one time was even building a Kit Fox. Leslie was a member of the Young Eagles, an organization that gave children the opportunity to experience flying in a small plane. He loved his flying buddies.
Leslie enjoyed fast motorcycles and fast cars in his single days. The family often went snow skiing, including many trips with the Shannon’s and the Fritz’s. He was an avid reader, enjoyed Hillbilly music, and explored every new technological gadget that came out, but wasn’t fond of Windows 11! He was an avid investor and could talk in great detail about the companies in his portfolio.
Leslie is survived by his children, Cyndy (Bob) Mahlandt, Janet (Don) Garnett and Debbie (Devin) Kanapilly; grandchildren, Cord Lane, Kelsey Mahlandt, Taylor (Erin) Mahlandt, Amanda and Elizabeth Kanapilly; a great-granddaughter, Ellery; and one cousin, Preston Chambers. He was preceded in death by his parents and brother, Jim.
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Obituary - Rainz Gerleman
Rainz Gerleman, 22 of Amsterdam, Missouri passed away Tuesday, July 21, 2026 at his home in Amsterdam. Memorial services will be held at 3:00 pm, Sunday, August 9, 2026 at the Amsterdam Baptist Church in Amsterdam. Arrangements entrusted to Mullinax Funeral Home, Drexel (816-657-4400). Memorial contributions may be made, in lieu of flowers, to Phoenix Home Health Care. Messages of condolence may be left for the family at www.mullinaxfuneralhome.com.
Rainz Jaret Gerleman was born on August 27, 2003. He came into this world with a rare genetic disease, Non-Ketotic Hyperglycinemia, but that never stopped him from laughing and moving to the best of his ability. He enjoyed light displays, books being read to him & music. He often laughed with the angels only he could see, and we loved that most about him. Without ever using words, Rainz showed us how to truly care for others. He changed how we see the world and taught us what matters most.
On July 21, 2026, Rainz parted ways with his mortal body to be with his family in spirit. He can now run, talk, sing, and jump in heaven alongside our Almighty Jesus Christ. While we mourn his loss deeply, we comfort ourselves knowing how happy he is in heaven. Imagine how loud that beautiful laugh must have been when he realized he could finally walk.
Rainz leaves behind his loving parents, Shane and Heidi; his brother, Chanz (Bree); his sisters, Seara and Reyo (Logan); and his nephew, Kaden. His lessons of love will stay with us forever. Fly high little bee.
“Though shall be perfect with the Lord thy God.” Deut. 18:13
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Sheriff Anderson provides rebuttal to audit findings
The following response given by Sheriff Chad Anderson following the release of the state auditor's report on Wednesday
"To the citizens of Bates County, I’m here today to address the recent Audit report from the Missouri state auditors office to begin with, I want to acknowledge that this was caused by a whistleblower complaint almost 3 years ago. My office has fully complied with every request from the auditors throughout this process, which again has taken almost 3 years of our time at the sheriffs office.
It is important for the community to understand that an audit report is only an opinion, it is not legal advice and they are prohibited from providing legal advice to counties. While I do not contest the expenditures mentioned in the report, I strongly contest their characterization of those funds as wasteful. To be clear the findings failed to reveal a single violation of the law.
I would like to address a few specific findings regarding specialized divisions within the sheriffs office. As sheriff, I have the statutory authority to create any division within my agency that I see fit; those would include canine division, traffic control, SWAT search and rescue narcotics divisions, but seemingly what is at hand here is the division I created in 2020 called the 'mounted patrol' where the auditor fails to acknowledge that the Sheriff's Office has the authority to create such groups.
The auditor claims the mounted patrol lacks a clear law-enforcement purpose, and I strongly disagree with that characterization. This unit has successfully conducted search and rescue missions for injured citizens, assisted with animals loose on the highway, and has even been requested by the Kansas City Police Department for crowd control at the now passed World Cup soccer competitions. Use of horses at community event keeps both the animal and riders trained and ready for real world emergencies and the other thing we have noticed, is that the kids in our community want to pet a horse, they come up and talk to the officers while building relationships and it’s one of the best community policing tools I have. Second, the report criticizes expenditures from our volunteer sheriff posse over the four year audit.
We spent just over $16,000 on equipment with uniforms, training, and much needed safety tools. One of the training classes that has been contested is a class called Stop the Bleed, so that when they respond to emergencies, they are now trained and equipped to stop the bleed and save a life. If they’re gonna act on behalf of the sheriffs office, we are obligated to train them and equip them for the daily duties that they’re gonna do, and since 2009 the posse has been instrumental providing massive man power during major emergencies. Those include tornadoes cleanup, 30 person search of a 1400 acre area, and providing much needed staff support for the mass casually event where a plane crash killed people 12 people. Posse members were called in to help comfort and provide families of those victims the support they needed while allowing the sheriffs office and their deputies to remain on scene for four straight days helping with the recovery efforts and the investigation of the federal agencies. That cost, $16,000, is a fraction of hiring one single deputy.
The Auditor also questions $28,000 spent on community events like family fun days and the festival we attended where we participated in building essential relationships with our community and our citizens. Furthermore, meeting their requirements for the community policing grant or the community policing portion of the Blue Shield grant that the governor himself has issued, part of that requirement was that we have community policing be portion of what we do; and because of that we have received $79,000 in Blue Shield grant money to date.
Regarding donations to third parties totaling $23,268, the report buries the fact that these funds went to Bates County youth program programs like little league football, little league baseball, scouts, little league basketball, the youth fair board, and places like the children center. Providing financial support to these programs, we are letting 'at risk' youth participate in a program they may not have been able to afford prior to our donations. I have provided the auditor with three separate legal opinions, confirming that these donations fall under the court recognized public use doctrine and are entirely within the law.
The auditor also criticizes $4,356 spent on our banquet/Christmas dinner over the span of four years. These Christmas dinners and banquets were held to recognize the heroics of my staff, to show appreciation for their service to our community. The banquets help with retention. They help with morale, and they have merit. These events are standard in law-enforcement agencies across the country. The state of Missouri has their own awards banquet. The governor gives out merit awards and heroic awards so there’s no reason why the sheriffs office in Bates County can’t either. There are common amongst elected officials here in Bates County, but I find no report of any other elected official being criticized for having an award banquet or Christmas party - only the sheriff's office.
Finally the auditor suggests we reduce our cash reserve that we have built up at the Sheriffs office. Maintaining roughly 4 months of operating cash is responsible budgeting and suggesting we eliminate the tax for law enforcement in effect is a call to defund law-enforcement. The law-enforcement tax they recommend cutting does not even fund the sheriffs office. We receive 100% of our budget from contract housing.
This tax passed in 1988, was intended to fund the sheriffs office, the prosecutor’s office, and the juvenile office. That’s what the ballot wording said, and today the sheriffs office receives zero of that tax dollars. We've been forced to generate our own revenue to fully fund the sheriff's office and the coroner's office because this tax does not create enough revenue to fund all of it.
We do not take any money out of general revenue. We’ve been able to help build that reserve up as well, so the auditor criticizes expenditures, but on the other hand says we have too much money, I’m not trying to minimize the auditors findings, but to put it in perspective, we’re talking about expenditures over the audit period that equal less than 1.1%- actually, it’s .84% of the sheriffs office budget over four years audit period. The report also suggested that if a specialized unit is not used daily, then it’s wasteful.
I’m not sure how much experience the auditor himself or his staff have in public safety, but I will continue to continue to equip, train and prepare my staff to respond to the needs of bates county citizens. We will not wait four hours relying on state agencies to respond with equipment simply because the auditor failed to see the value in what we have built here.
I will quote the auditor in her own words. "It does not appear necessary for the taxpayer to continuously fund a private entity (the posse) for hypothetical future events without an agreement identifying what the actual benefit to the county is". Ladies and gentlemen, my job in law-enforcement is exactly to do that. It is to train, to prepare, and to plan for hypothetical situations. The time to be prepared isn’t when a major incident occurs. If that is the case, then way too much of our state tax dollars has been spent preparing for FIFA soccer in Kansas City requiring many thousands, if not millions, of of your tax dollars.
My first priority is the safety of our citizens. I have remained transparent with you throughout this entire process. We have been transparent in our expenditures as they occur in real time through press releases. Tomorrow, the staff of the Bates County sheriffs office will continue to show up. We’re going to continue to answer your calls and we will continue to serve you as we have in the last 17 years. I truly appreciate your support."
-Bates County Sheriff, Chad Anderson
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