By MIKE CORN

mcorn@dailynews.net

OAKLEY -- The Kansas Department of Transportation is planning a public meeting next week to discuss preliminary plans for the reconstruction of Kansas Highway 25 north of Russell Springs.

The meeting will be from 5 to 7 p.m. June 23 in the basement meeting room of the Logan County Courthouse in Oakley.

The highway project won't even start until sometime next year, but KDOT officials hope to get a head start on spreading the word about the project. The project will require the closure of the highway, an 11-mile stretch of K-25 from U.S. Highway 40 south to Russell Springs.

Although KDOT officials won't be making a formal presentation, engineers will be on-hand to answer questions. They will talk about phases of the construction and where the official state detour will be.

The official detour will stretch from Leoti to Scott City, north on U.S. Highway 83 to Oakley and then back west to the K-25 junction that heads north to Colby.

They also will talk about access to county roads even though the highway will be closed.

Bids for the K-25 project won't be let until sometime this fall, and plans for the project are ongoing.

There are similarities between the K-25 project and one completed recently in Gove County, when Kansas Highway 23 south of the city of Gove to Kansas Highway 4 was closed for several months as the road was rebuilt.

The Gove County project, one of the first financed by the federal recovery act, closed off access to the city of Gove from the south.

The K-25 project, which should start next year, is a T-Works project, the state transportation program approved by the Kansas Legislature in 2010.