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Millions of children and brave adults have enjoyed letting loose on a go-kart track.

Families across the country have bonded over DIY builds, custom modifi cations and priceless adventures surrounding these vehicles. In addition to building memories, go-karts often serve as training wheels for kids to learn about personal responsibility and caring for a motorized machine.

History of Go-Karts

According to the National Museum of American History, go-karting was offi cially organized in the 1950s. Manufacturers began marketing affordable motorized karts toward pre-teens based on open-wheeled cars used for racing on oval tracks in the 1930s and 1940s.

Before long, creative parents began equipping the vehicles with more powerful motors and that led to children racing each other. Early races were performed on regular paved tracks. Still, they were mainly held on specially designed raceways designed for the specialized karts. g g motorized karts toward ased on open-wheeled or racing on oval tracks s and 1940s. ng, creative parents pping the vehicles with rful motors and that ren racing each other. were performed paved tracks. Still, mainly held on signed d r the e ka ar rt ts s. Several professional racing drivers like Jeff Gordon, Al Unser, Jr. and Michael Andretti credit the competitions as their fi rst taste of the racing world.

Go-Kart Driving Tips

Whether you’re driving go-karts for fun or as a racer, it’s essential to learn tips to improve your speed and performance. Check out a few ways to dominate your friends during a ride of leisure or beat other drivers during a competition. • Keep your hands steady on the wheel as go-karts are notorious for sensitive steering. • Find the perfect timing to execute a turn. Slow down shortly before the turning attempt and aim for speed as you begin to straighten. you begin to straighten. • Try to keep your eyes focused • Try to keep your eyes focused on the path ahead at long on the path ahead at long distances to help your brain distances to help your brain process the track. pr p ocess the track. • Make wide turns at each • Make wide turns at each corner to enhance your corner to enhance your racing speeds. racing speeds. • Use a gentle force on • Use a gentle force on the steering wheel to the steering wheel to prevent sharp or prevent sharp or sudden turns. sudden turns.

Safety Tips

While it’s fun to brag with friends about a souped-up go-kart, it’s essential to travel in these vehicles ess with the utmost care. Remember to wit insist that all drivers and passengers ins have appropriate safety gear like hav helmets and seatbelts. You should also he teach children about the importance tea of driving respectfully for their safety of and others’. an

While go-karts are affordable means to get around, it’s essential me to perform routine maintenance to periodically. Ensure the ride is free of pe gas leaks before operating, the brakes gas are in working order and the tires are are infl ated to the recommended psi. infl

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Cover Story

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by Susan Thacker by Sus su a an Thack c er

sthacker@gbtribune.com sthack ker e @ @gbt b ribune e com m Photography by Hugo Gonzalez

hgonzalez@gbtribune.com

Virginia Sharp: From 20th century farmer to 21st century world traveler

he fi rst time Miss Virginia Lenora Lonnon planned to travel outside of Kansas was for her honeymoon. She was engaged to marry Leonard Sharp on March 13, 1948, and he promised her a trip to Colorado. However, the week of the wedding, a huge snowstorm hit central Kansas. They said their vows at the Baker Ave. Baptist Church in Great Bend and the newlywed couple headed west. They made it as far as Garden City, but Leonard got to worrying about his cows on his rural Barton County farm, so they turned around and came home.

It would be some time before Virginia got to travel past the state line, but eventually she would see the world.

Before that, Virginia Sharp lived the life of an active farm wife, working as a secretary at the Barton County Extension Offi ce and raising a family in rural Barton County, staying active in her church and canning vegetables grown in her garden. Later, she would gather eggs daily from 64,000 chickens, and when Virginia and Leonard were done doing that they got a job delivering newspapers on a large rural route.

Finally, Leonard and Virginia began to travel, visiting their youngest son, John, who worked for Caterpillar in Japan and later France.

Leonard died in 2012, but Virginia has become a seasoned world traveler, visiting some 22 countries. After her 95th birthday in 2020, family members compiled a pictorial history of her life. Travel agent Larry Kopke from Cheyenne Travel/Please Go Away™ Vacations also shared some of her adventures.

“When Virginia went on an African safari, one of the special events she was going to enjoy was a sunrise hot air balloon ride over the Serengeti Plains, observing wildlife from aloft,” Kopke said. “When it was pointed out to her while planning for her safari that it would be necessary for her to climb rather ungracefully into the basket of the balloon before ascent and that it was advisable she be wearing jeans or slacks while doing so, she confi ded that in her long and full life she had never worn either, only dresses. Being the congenial good sport she is, jeans were purchased and a new dimension was added to her already full life of accomplishments.”

When she turned 90, Virginia took her four children – Lenora, James,

Charles and John – and their spouses on a cruise to the Caribbean.

Virginia was in her 90s when she rode a jet ski in the South Pacifi c.

Kopke recalled, “the parfait-like layers of multi-colored waters and coral reefs were beckoning travelers to engage in waters sports, including jet ski rides. It was determined she did not have a swimming suit. Fellow travelers solved this challenge for her and soon she was riding as the extra passenger on a jet ski piloted by a fellow traveler, again proving to be an inspiration to those much younger that made up her travel party.”

The early years

Virginia was born Oct. 11, 1925, at her grandparents’ home in St. John. She was the only child of Myrtle and James Lonnon Jr., who lived and farmed near the Barton/Stafford County line.

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The Lonnons were members of a country church, Mount Pleasant Evangelical United Brethren, and Virginia attended the Prairie Home country school in Stafford County where her mother once taught. h She and Leonard Sharp knew each other since they were children, both growing up just a few miles apart. She e can’t remember how they met, but when she was about 10 years old, Leonard rode his horse to their farm just to see her. As a young man he would have several girlfriends, but family members claim her excellent cooking helped Virginia win his heart.

In the seventh grade, the country school didn’t have a seat for her, so Virginia switched to District 41, known as the Rolling Green School, in Barton County. Her son James later attended school in District 41 as well. He wrote in her birthday book that his parents were great supporters of everything they did, including FFA and 4-H projects.

“One thing I remember was that (Mom) always packed up a great lunch and I always looked forward to seeing what we had for lunch.” Once, on April Fool’s Day, he found a piece of paper in his sandwich instead of meat and a note to look elsewhere in the lunch box for the fi lling.

Virginia herself attended Great Bend High School.

“I didn’t drive in those days,” she said. “A lot of the kids drove back and forth.

I didn’t drive in those days. A lot of the kids drove back and forth. But I always stayed in town and came home on the weekends. I stayed with different people and my dad paid room and board for me.

But I always stayed in town and came home on the weekends. I stayed with different people and my dad paid room and board for me.”

Her senior year, Virginia shared an apartment in Great Bend with her future sister-in-law. After graduating from high school in 1943, she shared apartments with different girls in Great Bend and Larned until she was married.

She worked as a cashier for Kansas Power and Light, and also worked as a nurse’s aide for a time before becoming a secretary for the Barton b County Extension Offi ce. C

After Virginia and Leonard married, they moved to the farm and the house t Leonard grew up in, raising cows and L sheep and maintaining a garden. s

Fire broke out in their house on Kansas Day, Jan. 29, 1951. The temperature was about 5 below zero.

“We had a brooder house, which is what you raise young chickens in. My husband Leonard was out milking the cows and I smelled smoke. The two little children are crying, James and Lenora, so I grabbed them and wrapped them in a blanket and took them out in the brooder house.”

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I said that I wanted to get out and see God’s world. Those were my

thoughts – Virginia Sharp

She put the kids on the hay in the chicken house and returned to help fi ght the fi re, but they lost the house and most of its contents. They set up housekeeping in a newly dug basement south of the former house, using curtains to divide rooms as they slowly began to build a new home and as their family continued to grow.

Staying active in church and social activities, Virginia continued to work at the Barton County Extension Offi ce for several years.

Later, after she retired from that, they would go into chicken farming in a big way.

“We only had a small fl ock of chickens when we were married. We had, maybe 50 to 100 chickens. Then we got 2,000. Then we got 64,000,” she said.

Their fi rst automated operation, Sharp Poultry, was built in 1980. Virginia did the bookkeeping and gathered eggs twice a day. For a time they allowed school children to come out for tours of the poultry operation, but that stopped after biosecurity measures became more strict.

Farming kept the Sharps close to home. In 1995, they expanded into hog farming. When they “retired” again, they got a paper route with the Hutchinson News. Virginia fi lled out the application to become a rural carrier because they thought the paper wouldn’t hire Leonard, since he was then 80 years old.

“We’d get up around midnight, pick up the papers around one or two in the morning, and be back home by six in the morning,” she said. The route kept growing, to the point that Virginia remembers driving more than 150 miles a day.

“It was off over in Stafford County and (the papers went to) people that we had heard of but we had never met in person. We called on everybody in person that we delivered the paper to at least once.”

The world tour

Virginia began her world tour with a trip in April of 2013.

“I said that I wanted to get out and see God’s world. Those were my thoughts,” she said.

The family didn’t want her to travel alone, so James’s wife Judi joined her on the trip.

“Oh, we had a great time,” Judi said. “And I could tell she was hooked.”

For future trips, Virginia sometimes shared a room with another tourist, meeting her roommate shortly before the start of the adventure.

She prefers the comfort of cruises to long airplane trips. She has visited the Rhine River in Germany, ridden a paddle boat on the Mississippi, and taken a long trip from the east coast to the west coast, traveling through the Panama canal.

“I went from Tahiti all the way to Iceland. Tahiti was the most beautiful place,” she said. But seeing the African animals in their natural habitat was the most vivid thing she remembers.

Inspiring at 96

Today, at 96 years old, Virginia remains active, which is why Kopke fi nds her an apt subject for Inspired Living. He said, “Gathering eggs daily from 60,000 (that’s thousand) chickens, driving hundreds of miles daily in the wee morning hours delivering newspapers to rural receptacles, conquering the role of a farm wife, maintaining an active lifestyle in both church and other social activities, raising a family in rural Barton County, having an insatiable desire to travel the world, and always having a charming and pleasant smile and demeanor are just a few of the inspirational activities and attributes that come to mind when thinking of this special lady – Virginia Sharp.”

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