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JOURNAL
THE JOURNAL
(Print edition: ISSN 2328-4366; Online edition: ISSN 2328-4374) is published quarterly by the Kansas Leadership Center, which receives core funding from the Kansas Health Foundation. The Kansas Leadership Center (KLC) equips people with any title or role to lead and engage others. Founded in 2007, KLC is a first-of-its-kind nonprofit educational organization with a civic mission, national reputation and global reach. KLC MISSION
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JOEL MATHIS
Joel is a freelance writer who lives in Lawrence with his wife and son. He is both a reporter and opinion writer. “Journalism in Kansas – and in America – is in a transition phase from what it used to be to what it will be next. I write for the Journal because it’s one of the few places left for Kansans to do deep-dive reporting on issues that affect Kansans. My goal is to hear and reflect a range of voices on a range of issues, with the intent of making them comprehensible to each other and to the public at large.”
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A PUBLIC SQUARE FOR ALL TO LEAD • VOLUME 15 • ISSUE 3 • FALL 2023 PUBLISHED BY KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER
Sam Smith, Director of Communications Cindy Kelly, Communications Manager Julian Montes, Creative Services Manager CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
Shaun Rojas, Senior Director DEVELOPMENT
Chris Harris, Senior Director CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
AJ Dome, Stan Finger, P.J. Griekspoor, Kim Gronniger, Jerry LaMartina, Joel Mathis, Mark McCormick, Amanda Vega-Mavec, Dawn Bormann Novascone, Michael Pearce, Barbara Shelly, Monica Springer, Beccy Tanner, Keith Tatum, Claudia Yaujar-Amaro, Mark Wiebe Bruce Janssen, Shannon Littlejohn, Laura Roddy
DAWN ARAUJO-HAWKINS
Contributing Writer
Dawn Araujo-Hawkins is a religion journalist, Black Girl Magic practitioner and Shine Theorist. Originally from Indianapolis, she now resides in Kansas City, Missouri, with her husband and three children. She is the official vice president of the Religion News Association and the unofficial president of the fan club for the K-pop star Taemin. Her story about health advocacy in Wyandotte County after the death of Broderick Crawford is her first article for The Journal.
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A Crucial Moment for Growth Arrives THE JOURNAL ASKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT. BY: CHRIS GREEN
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
A PATCHWORK OF SHORT ITEMS AND UPDATES OF INTEREST. BY: BRUCE JANSSEN
Stan is an award-winning journalist who twice earned nominations for the Pulitzer Prize over the course of a distinguished career at the Wichita Eagle. A native Kansan who grew up on a farm near the hamlet of Rozel, Finger has also written two books. “I write for the Journal because it’s an opportunity to do the kinds of stories that we see less and less of in modern journalism.”
WILL RIPPLE BROADLY.
Replacing the Work of the Irreplaceable
Connecting Threads
STAN FINGER
DECLINING BIRTH RATES
FACTS AND FIGURES
Journalpedia
6. Contributing Editor
Will a ‘Demographic Cliff’ Threaten Colleges and Universities, too?
4.
BY: BRUCE JANSSEN
Roxie Hammill Dawn Araujo-Hawkins
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BY: JOEL MATHIS
FROM THE FALL EDITION.
DONATIONS
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Contents
Contributing Editor
COMMUNICATIONS
COPY EDITORS WEB EDITION
CONTRIBUTORS
8.
When the Bough Breaks RECKONING WITH A BABY BUST. BY: JOEL MATHIS
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ADAPTING TO THE LOSS OF A UBIQUITOUS HEALTH ADVOCATE. BY: DAWN ARAUJO-HAWKINS
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Going from Rut to Groove IMPROVING THE CLIMATE FOR ENTREPRENEURS IN SEWARD COUNTY. BY: MONICA SPRINGER
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Fruitful Opportunities UNCORKING THE WINE INDUSTRY IN KANSAS. BY: STAN FINGER
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Skip the Salt and Sauce A JUICY HONOR FOR A NO-FRILLS STEAKHOUSE. BY: BECCY TANNER
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Raising the Flag for All PATRIOTISM THROUGH A BRAILLE AMERICAN FLAG. BY: STAN FINGER
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Celebrating an Elusive Greatness HONORING THE EPIC CAREER OF NFL GREAT BARRY SANDERS. BY: MARK MCCORMICK
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A New Horizon Takes Shape HOW RENEWABLE ENERGY IS CHANGING KANSAS VIEWS. BY: BECCY TANNER
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LETTER FROM THE EXECU TIVE EDITOR CHRIS GREEN
A crucial moment for growth arrives H ELP US M E A SU RE O U R I M PACT BY SUP P ORTING THE JOUR NAL’S E N D - O F -THE -YE A R F U N D RAISING C AMPAIG N.
I became a journalist because I love telling other people’s stories, allowing them to be heard and to be seen by others. I like empowering people with knowledge that will help them shape their own lives. I want communities to be stronger, more cohesive places because of my efforts. These days, an expression of that love has become writing emails and columns such as this one asking for donations from our audience. While such work is new to me, I have found myself experiencing a strange sense of excitement as the calendar turns to November. Why? Because Nov. 1 marks the start of NewsMatch, a powerful collaborative fundraising movement to support independent journalism. It’s an incredible program that we’re able to participate in because we are members of the Institute for Nonprofit News, a network that aims to ensure that all people in every community have access to trusted news. Every contribution, up to $1,000, that an individual donor makes between the start of November and Dec. 31 will be tripled. With your support, we hope to earn $40,000 through our NewsMatch campaign, enabling us to deliver in-depth, insightful civic journalism you won’t see anywhere else. As important as it is for us to raise additional resources, I am energized by NewsMatch because it’s such an important measuring stick. A publication’s success can be gauged through web traffic, social media views and awards. But nothing shows that people value our work more than their willingness to financially support it with their hard-earned dollars.
CHRIS GREEN EXECUTIVE EDITOR
These aren’t the easiest of times to ask for donations. And The Journal is already fortunate to have support through the Kansas Health Foundation’s core grant to the Kansas Leadership Center, among other generous supporters. We’re fighting to grow our impact, not keep the lights on.
We trust that you share our view that The Journal is a special publication that fills a distressing journalistic void in Kansas and beyond. But it costs money to make something of this high quality. Each edition costs us at least $45,000, a figure that includes paying for reporters, photography, graphic design, editing, printing and mailing. To keep it accessible to all, we give away most of our work for free. The truth is it’s worth it if what we’re doing informs you and inspires you to care more, engage more and risk more by exercising leadership on behalf of your community and what you care about. But to truly have the impact we desire, we need you, our readers, to show that you think we’re worth it too. If it’s within your capacity, we’d greatly appreciate it if you could make a monthly donation of $7 or a one-time donation of $84 before the end of 2023 to help take The Journal to the next level. But any donation, no matter how large or small, helps us know we matter to you. You can donate at: klcjournal.com/support-our-publication/ or use the QR code below.
Thank you for reading and being a part of this community. I look forward to seeing where we can go next – together.
JOUR NAL P E D I A
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FACTS A N D F I G U R E S F R O M T H E FA L L E D I T I O N In the 2021-22 school year, Kansas’ K-12 schools had an average daily attendance of about 405,000 students. Just four years earlier, before COVID arrived, an average of 445,000 students filled those same school buildings. When the bough breaks, Page 8 In the 19th century, Kansas grew more grapes than almost any other state in the country. It was also one of the nation’s largest wine producers. Then came Prohibition. Fruitful Opportunities, Page 38 About 26% of Liberal, Kansas, residents identify as being white but not Hispanic or Latino. 65% of the community identifies as Hispanic or Latino. Census figures also show the community is about 3% African American and Asian, while nearly 18% identify with two or more races. Yet slightly more than 50% of residents identify as white, including more than a third of Latinos. Going from rut to groove, Page 28 Moving nonpartisan elections from spring to fall has brought an upswing in participation, at least in Johnson County. In the elections of 2017 and 2019, turnout was just above 17%. The 2021 figure jumped to 25.27%. Previous spring elections were more likely to hover around a 10% turnout rate or less. Once-placid local political races increasingly driven by anger, klcjournal.com Randolph Cabral’s Braille flags are displayed in hundreds of locations around the country, including the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, Arlington National Cemetery and the nearby Women in Military Service for America Memorial, the State Capitol in Topeka, numerous Veterans Affairs hospitals, and veterans and military organizations. Raising the flag for all, Page 62
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WHERE WE’RE REPORTING FROM: CO M M U N I T I E S A N D P L A C E S F E AT U R E D IN THIS EDITION.
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Connecting Threads A PATC H W O R K O F U P D AT E S A N D I T E M S O F I N T E R E S T The folk art of M.T. Liggett — equal parts politics, scrap metal and provocation — got the cinematic treatment with the release of “It Started with a Horse,” a movie that chronicles how the late curmudgeon interacted with fame and his Mullinville neighbors. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
A DISMAL HARVEST — In the last edition of The Journal, P.J. Griekspoor surveyed efforts at regenerative agriculture. That story was reported before the Kansas wheat harvest, and the farmers she interviewed were not hopeful about their crop. The statewide results reflect their dismay. It was the smallest since 1966, a tad more than 200 million bushels. Unfortunately, reduced yields are part of a trend involving an increase in hot, dry, windy days across the Plains, driving a search for new farming practices. READY TO ROLL — For everyone moved enough by Mike Pearce’s article on the Flint Hills Trail in the Spring 2023 edition to get rolling on Kansas’ bike trails, the state Department of Transportation is ready to point you in the right direction. The agency — long the publisher of its illuminating, foldable road maps that provided a dexterity test when the time came for refolding — has released a state bicycle map. Request a paper copy or download it at klcjr.nl/ksbikemap.
A KIND OF FINALITY — In a story about how Kansans use the state’s open records laws in the Winter 2022 issue of The Journal, Mike Sherry told the story of Sheila Albers, whose son was shot to death by an Overland Park police officer while in the throes of a mental health crisis. In September, the city’s police chief, Frank Donchez, quit after a confrontation with Albers. Afterward, Albers, whose research has provided her with extensive knowledge of the shooting incident and its aftermath, sent an email describing the exchange to city officials. Overland Park’s city manager, Lori Curtis Luther, then prepared to fire Donchez, saying, “Basic empathy and progressive policing policies are essential for any police chief in Overland Park.” He resigned first. DEATH STALKS THE NEWS — In the Spring 2019 edition, writer Joel Mathis outlined the struggles facing Kansas newspapers and the emergence of news deserts — a topic that he would subsequently revisit. The introduction to that first report talked about the shrinking
Hutchinson News, a trend that’s inescapably obvious to newspaper readers everywhere. Now comes word that the Wichita Business Journal recently hired Alice Mannette, one of the News’ last full-time reporters, if not the last. (The online newsroom directory, updated Sept. 27, contained no names.) The News had 24 newsroom staffers in 2016, when it was acquired by Gatehouse. Last year, the News’ 1965 Pulitzer Prize was placed on long-term loan with the Reno County Museum. A REAL CHARACTER STUDY — If data is our guide, you can’t get enough M.T. Liggett, he of the roadside whirligigs. Two years ago, The Journal’s most-read story was Beccy Tanner’s piece on the folk artist and conservation efforts at his Mullinville “Stew-Dee-Owe.” Liggett died in 2017, but a documentary about him, “It Started with a Horse,” was released last year. The film was a 20-year labor of love by director Joshua Dubois. We hope some of you saw it in September at the Kansas City Underground Film Festival. For everybody else, be aware it’s now on YouTube.
WHAT WE’VE BEEN READING — In a lateSeptember article published by The Daily Yonder, Claire Carlson takes stock of the summer trends in country music and finds plenty to like: “Good storytelling has always been country music’s strength,” she says. “It seems like people are ready to have that back.” Is there anyone with access to a keyboard who has not opined on the Travis Kelce-Taylor Swift connection? Louisa Thomas has one of the better takes (that you might not have seen) in The New Yorker: “Swift and Kelce are a dream pairing for the NFL; it’s an alliance with the only cultural force in America bigger than itself.” For a more studious appraisal of Swift, Swifties and the social order, Kansas Alumni’s Steven Hill interviews professor Brian Donovan, who teaches The Sociology of Taylor Swift, an honors seminar at KU.
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ansas is in the midst of a baby bust. Numbers released in May by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment tell the plain story: In 2022, there were 34,476 live births – a slight decrease from 34,697 births the year before, but a huge drop from the nearly 42,000 new Kansans born in 2008 amidst the Great Recession. Put it in a different context – there were just 11.7 new babies born for every 1,000 Kansans in 2022. That is a historically low number. “This is the lowest birth rate for Kansas residents since the state created a centralized vital records system in 1911,” KDHE said. Talk to demographers and you’ll hear myriad reasons explaining the bust. They’ll also tell you it’s not just a Kansas thing: Birth rates have been falling across the country for more than a decade.
All of which means: There are fewer Kansans staying home. And those few are having fewer babies. There will be ripple effects. The bust is already being felt in the state’s K-12 schools, in places like Wilson – population 836 – in central Kansas, where residents fought and failed over the summer to disband their school district after the closing of their beloved community high school. It might be coming for Kansas’ public universities in the not-too-distant future, then for the state’s workforce and economic development efforts after that. The state is already poised to fall short of meeting a growing demand for college graduates this decade, Ginther told the Kansas Board of Regents earlier this fall. The state is projected to add another 54,000 jobs that require some level of college degree this decade. Overall, Kansas will need to fill 234,000 jobs with new grads by the end of the decade, but the expectation is that only about 200,000 newly minted professionals will stick around.
THERE WERE JUST 11.7 NEW BABIES BORN FOR EVERY 1,000 KANSANS IN 2022.
“I think one of the things that’s apparent from that research is there’s no single explanation,” says Sarah Hayford, a sociologist at Ohio State University who studies family formation and reproductive health and has been tracking the national decline.
But observers say that other demographic shifts – young Kansans moving away from rural areas to cities, suburbs and very often out of state – have exacerbated the drop in births here. “There’s the natural demographics, the echo of the baby bust, happening nationwide,” says Donna K. Ginther, director of the Institute for Policy & Social Research at the University of Kansas. “And then the second factor is that we have had disproportionately fertility-age families (that) have left the state. We’ve had a lot of outmigration.”
State and community leaders will have to grapple with the fallout of a baby bust, even as they contemplate solutions. They ask: Is more daycare needed? (Gov. Laura Kelly thinks so.) Medicaid expansion? Does Kansas need to do better at luring good jobs here? What about accepting migrant workers, who after all tend to have higher fertility rates? Are the state’s culture wars somehow to blame? What will happen to the state’s tax structure if there aren’t as many young families living here, buying houses and building wealth? It can be difficult to suss out the bust – and its effects – from other issues facing Kansas leaders. The bust “is in the background” of so many debates already happening in Topeka, says Senate Minority Leader Dinah Sykes, a Democrat from Lenexa.
Pinckney Elementary School in Lawrence traces its history to the mid-19th century. The most recent building to house the school was built in the 1930s. But children’s voices are no longer heard in its hallways or the Sixth Street tunnel, which allowed students to avoid crossing the busy street. Last spring, the school board voted 4-3 to close Pinckney and another Lawrence elementary. Photos by Jeff Tuttle
Cutline goes here, cutline goes here, cutline goes here, cutline goes here, cutline goes here, cutline goes here, cutline goes here, cutline goes here, cutline goes here, cutline goes here, cutline goes here. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
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Lawrence school board member Shannon Kimball says falling enrollment was not the only thing that sealed the fate of Pinckney and Broken Arrow schools. Expenses have been climbing, she says, and budget cuts needed to be made. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
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Some Kansans are left worrying about the future of their communities. “You start glancing at the communities that are dying or maybe died,” says Michael Kratky, a Wilson resident who fought the closure of his community high school, “and the first thing that goes is the schools.” ‘GUT-WRENCHING’ SCHOOL CLOSURES In fact, K-12 schools are feeling the effects already. During the 2021-22 school year, the state’s schools had an average daily attendance of around 405,000 students. That’s not a big drop from the beginning of the Great Recession – daily attendance was about 405,000 students then, as well – but it is a big drop from before the pandemic: An average of 445,000 students attended Kansas schools in 2017-18, before COVID set in.
over that same time period.) There were 822 kindergarteners in the Lawrence district during the 2013-14 school year, but just 718 for the 2022-23 school year. A consultant’s projections suggested that number could go as low as 544 students for the 2025-26 school year. Shannon Kimball, a longtime member of the Lawrence school board, says declining birth rates weren’t the only reason for the closures. “Everything that we do is more expensive,” she says, “and we do more now than we did a decade ago for students.” Everything from teacher pay to the cost of insurance goes into bottom-line decisions. In Kansas, though, where schools are funded based on their enrollment numbers – during the school year, districts received a base rate of $5,088 per student. Every lost student means a tighter budget. That’s where the baby bust comes into play. “The districts that have increasing enrollment each year, they have new money each year,” Kimball says. And those districts “are the ones who tend to be able to keep up with increases in staff pay and increases in costs.”
DISTRICTS RECEIVED A BASE RATE OF $5,088 PER STUDENT. EVERY LOST STUDENT MEANS A TIGHTER BUDGET.
Some of that drop can be traced to COVID. “Some parents and students didn’t like certain COVID policies, like masking and whether the district required or didn’t require it,” Mark Tallman, a lobbyist for the Kansas Association of School Boards, told The Topeka Capital-Journal in December. But, he said, birth rate declines and shrinking populations were also starting to leave some districts in a lurch.
Jack Enneking-Alexander (left) and Franceska Enneking, the children of Melody Alexander and her husband, Topher Enneking, attended Pinckney Elementary School in its final year. The closure was “gut wrenching,” Melody Alexander says, leaving her angry and frustrated. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
Small districts, like the Claflin-based Unified School District 112 that shut down Wilson High School, are struggling already: Wilson’s high school enrollment declined by 50% over 10 years. But urban areas aren’t immune from a crunch. In Lawrence, the school board voted last March to close down Broken Arrow and Pinckney elementary schools. One reason? Fewer young kids: There were 1,232 births in Douglas County in 2009 – and just 962 in 2022. (Johnson and Sedgwick counties also saw fewer births
Lawrence, at the moment, isn’t one of those districts. Such explanations aren’t satisfying to parents like Melody Alexander, whose stepdaughter and son attended Pinckney in its final year. “The kids loved their teachers. We loved the parents that were involved,” she says. “I felt like it was a place where I could go and feel like I knew what was happening in my children’s education.” The closure of Pinckney “was gut-wrenching, to be honest,” she says. The process left her angry. “To me, it felt like the school board ... knew what outcome they wanted.” Kansas’ school funding formula lets districts receive aid based on their highest enrollment
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in the preceding two years – a measure aimed at cushioning any financial shock for declining districts. State legislators tried tweaking that formula this year, but Kelly line-item vetoed the measure, saying she was defending rural schools. That suggests more battles over diminishing resources are probably ahead, and not just in communities as disparate as Wilson and Lawrence, but also at the state level.
far and away beats China’s number of 6.77, after all. That’s a bust.) That dearth of opportunities, he says, helped lead to the ongoing exodus of Kansans of child-bearing age.
Says KU’s Ginther: “There’s going to be a retrenchment in higher education and K-12 education.” (See sidebar.)
She rattled off a list of reasons it is difficult for many young Kansans to even think about having a baby. There’s the cost of child care: “Infant care in the state of Kansas costs more than in-state tuition at KU,” she says. For young professionals, there is the burden of student debt. “You see evidence that people who have high student loan balances are slower to marry, slower to buy a house, slower to have kids.” There’s also the cost and availability of housing.
Whether all of this is enough to reverse the Kansas baby bust – and the state’s broader demographic slowdown – is an open question. In August, Hill’s center at Wichita State released projections showing that Kansas will grow more slowly over the next 50 years than had previously been predicted, and much more slowly than the nation as a whole.
“These choices,” Ginther says, “all fit together.”
“People move here when there’s opportunity,” he says, “even during recessions.” Right now there seems to be a growing number of opportunities.
3. What could working across factions look like in this issue, and whose work is that to do? - By Rebekah Starkey Keasling
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Sykes thinks there is more work to be done.
2. What are some of the competing values at play? What are some shared values?
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“Those might be opportunities to really start growing the state in terms of its workforce – and, by proxy, families,” Ginther says.
1. When reading the different interpretations for the cause of the “baby bust,” what factions can you identify?
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“Over the last decade, wages were not going up – we had a pretty slow economy across the state, not creating new opportunities,” says Jeremy Hill, director of Wichita State University’s Center for Economic Development and Business Research. (For the record: He’s one expert who won’t say that Kansas is experiencing a baby bust: Kansas’ birth rate of 11.7 children per 1,000 residents
As for job opportunities, well, those might be coming around as well. A new Panasonic battery plant at DeSoto is expected to create as many as 4,000 tech-manufacturing jobs, while another 2,000 jobs might be created at the proposed Integra semiconductor plant near Wichita.
DISCUSSION GUIDE
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Kansas experts say the decline might bring more of those bad things.
“This will benefit the workforce of today as we nurture and care for our children, who will become the workforce of tomorrow,” said Melissa Rooker, executive director of the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and Trust Fund, in the grant funding news release.
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“On the other hand,” Hayford adds, “it’s also the case that people say they want to have two or three children on average in the United States, and they tend to end up having one or two children on average. And so maybe that’s a bad thing that people aren’t having the children they wanted or maybe it’s just that they’re sort of doing other things instead or making other decisions.”
“There are things to do that could change the trajectory,” Hill says. “It’s not the worst trajectory. We’re saying Kansas is still growing.”
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“If people aren’t getting pregnant and having children when they don’t want to, that seems like it’s probably a good thing,” she says. Society can adapt to those decisions.
There are signs that Kansas’ leaders are trying to knock down some of these obstacles. Kelly spent much of the summer campaigning for expanded child care options in Kansas. In June, for example, she announced $43 million in grant funding to create more than 4,000 new “child care slots” across the state.
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Hayford, the Ohio State demographer, isn’t so sure there is a problem.
That doesn’t mean the baby bust will become a boom. But it does mean that the situation could improve.
Still, Hill pronounces himself “optimistic.”
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So why is the birth rate declining? Can anything be done? Should anything be done? Having a child is one of the most personal decisions a person or family can make, after all – and people can get tetchy if government starts wading into those choices.
But it’s not just job opportunities, Ginther says.
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A GOOD THING?
“When there’s not labor demand, and a millennial looks around … “ he says, his voice trailing off.
“Our high school graduates who are leaving and going to school outside. ... How do we get them back? How do we keep the college graduates here?” she asks. Those grads “want someplace welcoming and accepting to work. They want public transportation. Those are things we haven’t always focused on in Kansas.” She adds: “We have to be open to not doing things how we’ve always done them.”
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Clockwise from left: Wilson High School was founded in 1887 and for decades graduated its seniors and kept its Dragons sports teams on the field and in the gym while other high schools in its consolidated district – Lorraine, Holyrood and Bushton – were shuttered. Despite an energetic community effort to help the school survive, the buses no longer drop students to attend Wilson High. Instead, former students being dropped off by a neighboring district return to a parking lot there with a forlorn collection of vacant, decorated parking spots. Photos by Jeff Tuttle
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‘DEMOGRAPHIC CLIFF’ THREATEN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES, TOO? BY: JOEL MATHIS
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t’s not just K-12 schools that could be affected by the Kansas baby bust.
“We’re probably going to have less people in that pipeline,” says Jeremy Hill, director of Wichita State University’s Center for Economic Development and Business Research, and “that’s going to put a lot of pressure on colleges and the workforce.” Indeed, a demographic “cliff” is coming for Kansas colleges and universities, Kansas Board of Regents Chairman Jon Rolph acknowledges. The number of Kansas high school graduates is expected to peak at 35,000 in 2026 before dropping to around 30,000 in the next few years after that. “It has not gotten to us yet,” Rolph says of the bust. “I think we’re keenly aware of it. The national higher ed world has been talking about this. ... ‘There’s a cliff coming.’” For now, the Board of Regents can take comfort in a 2% increase in enrollment this fall, with Wichita State and the University of Kansas posting record enrollment highs. A couple of other institutions saw declines, but Emporia State University’s was the largest, 12.5%. Before that happens, Rolph says, the Regents need to solve a more pressing problem. The “college-going” rate of Kansas high schoolers has declined over the past decade. If that issue can be addressed successfully, the shock of the baby bust may be less substantial. “If you recaptured where we were in 2015, you’ll have an offset” for the birth rate decline, Rolph says.
Still, there’s a fair amount of speculation that not all of Kansas’ public colleges and universities will survive the bust. The decline in enrollment at Emporia State University, and the subsequent termination of a number of tenured professors there, has only turned up the volume on those conjectures. “Can we sustain the same number of colleges?” Hill asks. “Probably not.” Rolph has heard those questions as well. His answer? “It’s difficult to look that far out in the future and predict anything with reliability.” The bust also raises workforce issues. Who will be around to fill Kansas’ jobs? Mike Beene, Kansas’ assistant secretary of commerce, sees the problem coming. “I can see that hitting us in 15 years or something like that as those young adults mature into the workforce,” he says. First, though, his aim is to focus on retaining and luring back all the young Kansans who leave the state to work and live elsewhere. The department is set in 2024 to embark on a three-year $2 million campaign to reach out to those former Kansans with the promise of high-tech and green jobs. “We want to keep those child-bearing folks in Kansas,” Beene says, “and we want to align them with careers to keep their communities strong, and more importantly keep the state strong.”
Enrollment at Wichita State University was up 3.7% this fall, part of a 2% rise in attendance at Regents colleges and universities. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
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REPLACING THE WORK OF THE
IRREPLACEABLE A UBIQUITOUS COMMUNITY ADVOCATE, BRODERICK CRAWFORD SPREAD HIS INFLUENCE FAR AND DEEP TO IMPROVE THE HEALTH OF THE NORTHEAST NEIGHBORHOOD IN KANSAS CITY, KANSAS. HIS DEATH IN NOVEMBER 2022 LEFT A VOID THAT HIS CHURCH AND COMMUNITY MUST WORK TO FILL. WHAT DOES THE FUTURE OF FAITH-BASED HEALTH ADVOCACY LOOK LIKE AFTER BRODERICK? BY: DAWN ARAUJO-HAWKINS
When A. Glenn Brady became pastor of The New Bethel Church in the Northeast neighborhood of Kansas City, Kansas, in 2009, he had a vision of a congregation that did more than just meet for worship on Sundays. He imagined a church that would work to improve the quality of life for the people living in the surrounding community.
that provides health care access in Kansas City, recalls that Crawford once said he belonged to 40 different coalitions. Kleinmann often joked that Crawford was the real mayor of Kansas City; he knew everyone, and he got things done.
“My position is not just to have individuals prepared for heaven,” Brady says, “but, as the Scripture says, we’re supposed to have abundant life even on the way to heaven.” Brady found an enthusiastic partner for his vision in Broderick Crawford, a longtime church member with more than 30 years of experience in community health. Before long – working within New Bethel’s ministries, but also beyond them – Crawford became known as a highly effective and seemingly ubiquitous community advocate. Matt Kleinmann, director of community development at Vibrant Health, an organization
Crawford, who served as the executive director of New Bethel’s Community Development Corp., seemed larger than life. So, when the 61-year-old died in November 2022 following complications from a medical procedure, it left many people and organizations reeling. A year later, they are working to build ways to carry Crawford’s work without having it fall too heavily on any one person’s shoulders. At New Bethel, Brady says other church members are working to fill some of the positions that Crawford once held, with five or six people now trying to do the work that he used to do solo. “But we still haven’t been able to accomplish all that he did by himself,” he says.
Broderick Crawford’s death last year sparked myriad well-earned tributes and recollections. The Kansas Leadership Center graduate once told an interviewer that he and the colleagues he worked with “have the willingness to sacrifice ourselves.” Photo by Jeff Tuttle
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Through his myriad community leadership roles, Crawford worked on community health issues such as HIV/AIDS, food insecurity and safe housing. As a leader in the Kansas Community Health Workers Coalition, Crawford was instrumental in getting workers trained and hired in hospitals and clinics, a move that is known to improve access to health care services, decrease the need for emergency services and help people navigate health and social service systems. In 2020, Crawford received the Kansas City National Cancer Survivors Day Community Impact Award for his work in addressing inequities in cancer care. In 2018, Crawford received the Community Health Leadership Award from U.S. News & World Report for his exemplary commitment to solving problems in population health. Donna Young, executive director of the Community Health Council of Wyandotte County, says Crawford had an inimitable ability to disarm entire rooms full of people and to make compelling calls to action. But there was much more to him than that. “It wasn’t just that people liked him as a leader,” she says. “It was because he was personally invested in those relationships in a way that was advantageous to everyone in his circle. Morning, noon and night, this work was his way of life.” Young and Crawford first met in 2015 while on opposing sides of a local land acquisition dispute. But even then, Young says she could sense that Crawford’s ultimate goal was a positive outcome for everyone involved. Today, she regards Crawford as the single most important person of her professional life and one of her greatest friends. “Broderick wasn’t just relentless in his pursuit of justice, he gave the same level of energy and focus to enjoying life to the fullest,” she says. When she was working late, Crawford, who had office space in the CHC building, would often stay – eating dinner at his desk or sleeping on the couch – until she was done, so he could ensure that she got to her car safely.
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He was a man who loved his family, never thought he was doing enough in his work and who “worried about so much and so many,” Young adds. ‘A GREAT CHALLENGE’ Crawford was a cradle Pentecostal. He joined The New Bethel Church in 1974, when he was 13 and, according to his family, was “filled with the Holy Ghost” by the time he was 15. New Bethel was founded as Holy Ghost, Pentecostal Church in 1948 by Rosie Summers, an Arkansas native. Though Brady would greatly expand New Bethel’s outreach efforts, the congregation had a missional posture from the start. The church Crawford grew up in had a weekly radio broadcast and a prison ministry. The pastors who succeeded Summers, who retired the year Crawford joined the church, were said to be continuing her “great commission” – a nod to the lines in the Gospel of Matthew where the resurrected Jesus sends off his eleven remaining apostles, advising them to “make disciples of all nations.”
state, is nationally ranked in eight adult specialties, according to U.S. News & World Report. “We saw that as a great challenge,” Brady says. “Why do we have the best hospital in the county that has the lowest health statistics among its residents?” In 2018, the Community Health Council of Wyandotte County released a 60-page report, the culmination of three years of research, into why the county consistently ranks so low in the annual County Health Rankings Report from the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. (In the most recent report, Wyandotte County had the worst health factors in the state – things that, if addressed, could improve residents’ length of life and its quality. It was third to last, outranking Meade and Edwards counties, for health outcomes.) What the researchers found was evidence of historic and systematic disinvestment in certain KCK neighborhoods, the Northeast among them, through the discriminatory housing policy known
Formed in that tradition, Crawford saw his health advocacy work as “the call of God on his life,” Brady says. And he had plenty to keep him busy in Wyandotte County, where he lived and worshiped. More than 17% of Wyandotte County residents live below the poverty level – the eighthhighest percentage in the state. Ten percent of Wyandotte County residents say they have no health insurance, compared with 8.3% of people nationally. And the county, the most racially diverse in the state, has some of the worst statistics in the nation for screenings for cervical and colon cancer, two diseases that kill Black people at disproportionate rates. Meanwhile, Johnson County, next door, is 78% white and is both the wealthiest and healthiest county in Kansas – facts that did not go unnoticed by Crawford. What makes these statistics all the more troubling, Brady says, is the fact that Wyandotte County is home to the University of Kansas Health System, which in addition to being the No. 1 hospital in the
The revival of the Jersey Creek Trail, one of Broderick Crawford’s passions, got rolling in 2015 with $50,000 in donations that were put toward benches, bike racks and exercise stations. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
as redlining. Beginning in the 1900s, state and federal regulatory agencies, along with private real estate agents nationwide, manipulated zoning policies to keep people of color out of certain neighborhoods, while managing to situate noxious projects such as sewage treatment plants and incinerators where non-whites lived. Today, those same redlined neighborhoods have the worst health outcomes in the county. “Today’s inequitable health landscape did not emerge overnight,” the researchers wrote. “Enduring solutions will require taking a long view of incremental progress and a commitment of the community will that extends beyond election cycles and institutional turnover in all sectors.” LEVERAGING TRUST TO IMPROVE HEALTH Enduring solutions were Crawford’s goal. For instance, in March 2020, Crawford co-founded the Wyandotte County Health Equity Task Force,
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to 1 program, Crawford supported education aimed at addressing local infant mortality rates. And, according to Releford, Crawford helped New Bethel become one of the first churches in the area to not only employ community health workers but to train them as well.
Pastor A. Glenn Brady of the New Bethel Church found a passionate supporter in Broderick Crawford when he stepped into the pulpit in 2009. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
A VISION FOR JERSEY CREEK The goal now is not to find the next Broderick Crawford but rather to find the funding that makes the level of self-sacrificial volunteering that he did obsolete. Both Releford and Kleinmann agree that Wyandotte County already has the right people with the right skills to take on the effects of six decades of systemic disinvestment – the real problem is the inability to pay those people and to agree upon priorities.
a community-led response to the COVID-19 pandemic that sought to address inequalities in health care access. According to data from the Kansas Health Institute, Black and Latino Kansans were more likely to die from COVID-19 than their white counterparts. One of the reasons was “known differences in access to health care between racial and ethnic groups.” The Health Equity Task Force met people where they were at, setting up free, pop-up testing and vaccination sites, and distributing masks and tests to people’s homes. The task force also partnered with the county health department, Aetna Better Health of Kansas and Harvesters Community Food Network to provide culturally appropriate food boxes at neighborhood clinic events. The group’s website and materials were available in Arabic, Burmese, English, Spanish and Swahili. Later, the task force would serve as the prototype in a $3.5 million grant project at the KU Health System aimed at addressing inequities in COVID-19 responses among the state’s underserved populations, a project Crawford also worked on as one of the four principal investigators.
One of the things Crawford did particularly well was leverage Black trust in the Black church to improve Black health. In his roles as head of New Bethel’s health and wellness ministry and president and executive director of the New Bethel’s Community Development Corp. – the church’s community outreach arm – Crawford brought health care resources to the church and, thus, directly to the people. LaShone Releford, a member of the development corporation’s NBC CDC board, says some of the people who showed up at the biannual New Bethel health fairs that Crawford helped organize would never voluntarily go to a hospital. But they would come to a church, and on more than one occasion, a lifesaving detection was made. The church was also able to sign people up for health insurance so they could get essential health care such as knee replacements. To increase awareness about heart disease (another condition that disproportionately kills Black people in the U.S.) and certain cancers, Crawford invited health specialists to speak at New Bethel. As a consultant to the Every Baby
“Broderick was tremendous but spent countless unpaid hours building a rapport with people and becoming an organizational networking guru,” Releford says. “Are there enough people to carry Broderick’s work forward? Yes. Is there enough funding to do so? No.” But, in the meantime, there are ways for Kansas City residents to volunteer at a sustainable level. A willingness to work – and not just post on social media – goes a long way, Klienmann says. As an entry point to community work, Kleinmann suggests making it a point to show up at or watch recordings of the meetings for groups such as neighborhood associations, the board of public utilities, or the nonprofit Liveable Neighborhoods. He also recommends setting deliberate, realistic goals for the change they’d like to see. “I tell most people to start small, with achievable goals that they can accomplish with what they already have,” he says. “If money is the issue, figure out how to do something similar in a creative way without any money. Oftentimes it starts by organizing your neighbors who you already have a trusted relationship with.” One of Crawford’s long-standing passion projects was improving the area around Jersey Creek, a 3.5 mile stream (veritably an open sewer) a block away from The New Bethel Church. During the
height of the COVID-19 pandemic, he persuaded the parks and recreation department of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, to use CARES Act funding to repave the entirety of the trail along Jersey Creek. It was necessary, he argued, in order to help people remain physically active while indoor recreation centers were closed. “That was one of his biggest signature wins, and he didn’t get nearly as much credit as he deserved for it,” Kleinmann says. One of the last projects Crawford was working on before he died was renovating a dilapidated basketball court along the Jersey Creek Trail – a project that remains unfinished. Crawford’s legacy is at once inspiring and daunting in its scope. Releford says replacing him would be an impossible task because Crawford was “a unicorn” who needed neither a paycheck nor a mandate from any agency or group to make things happen. Brady is not sure any one individual should even try to do what Crawford did. “I, in fact, as his pastor tried to slow him down, counsel him and share with him, ‘Look, you can’t do it all. You’ve got to take some time and rest,’” he says. The people who worked with and loved Crawford are trying to honor him through a continued commitment to the issues he cared about, replicating his work in their own ways. Among the various ministries Crawford championed at New Bethel, “We’ve not really let anything down,” Brady says. Kleinmann hopes to honor Crawford by finishing the Jersey Creek basketball court renovation. He knows, perhaps better than most, that park projects in Wyandotte County don’t go unfunded for lack of interest. Rather, the lasting economic effects of redlining and disinvestment have made the maintenance of public amenities a lower priority in the unified government’s budget. “It does take advocates like Broderick to step up and say, ‘Hey, this is an underutilized amenity
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revamped its mission to focus on health issues, work that Crawford had started. Additionally, the board is also now meeting biweekly rather than quarterly in an effort to keep up with the pace Crawford maintained. “The hole that is left is tremendous,” he says. “For many people, he was the Community Development Corporation. That’s the face, that’s the name. He was the one. We’re trying to maintain those connections without him there, which is a very tough thing to do.” Releford thinks the new interim president, Jill Peltzer, an associate professor of nursing at the KU Health System, will be a key asset in that mission. “She’s very instrumental in trying to bridge those gaps and hold things together,” he says. At least two awards have been created in Crawford’s honor over the past year. In 2022, the regional Heartland Conference on Health Equity and Patient Centered Care launched the Broderick Crawford Community, Faith and Fortitude Award to honor those who “have faith in people and their communities.” Matt Kleinmann, director of community development at Vibrant Health, wants to honor Broderick Crawford by seeing that one of his favorite projects – the renovation of the Jersey Creek Park basketball court – is carried to fruition. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
that would mean a lot if we could just make it special’” Kleinmann says. He’s planning to launch a crowdfunding campaign to secure funding, and he’s in talks to determine whether the court can be named after Crawford. “I think the vision that he laid out was that Jersey Creek is a special place, and it has a lot of opportunity,” Kleinmann says. “He spent a good portion of the last years of his life trying to be a champion for anything and everything along Jersey Creek.” LEAVING A TREMENDOUS HOLE Releford says that since Crawford’s death, New Bethel’s community development board has
In June 2023, the Frontiers Clinical & Translational Science Institute at KU, Crawford’s alma mater, announced the creation of the Broderick Crawford Community-Research Partnership Award, which will fund projects that build or strengthen relationships between researchers and community members. Cherayla Haynes, the program administrator for the award, says it was named after Crawford because of his long-standing commitment to community advocacy. His influence extended beyond Kansas City and Wyandotte County, she says. He was, really, “a national leader for a community voice in research.” The Community Health Council of Wyandotte County commissioned local artist JT Daniels to paint a mural of Crawford, unveiled in September, that includes a portrait and the phrase “It’s a beautiful thing.” Crawford had a number of sayings he was known for, and Young says this catchphrase was his response anytime someone shared good news.
She heard it daily, either in coalition meetings with Crawford or while he paced the halls on his phone. “The silence left behind is the hardest,” Young says. Despite the mythology that has evolved around him, Crawford was human, Kleinmann says; he certainly had flaws, and he didn’t have a magical solution to every problem. But if community health was his primary ministry, his second was bringing people together to, at least, get started on a solution. And that was almost magical. “It was him preaching to us about how to be in collaboration and how to set aside our egos,” Kleinmann says. And the target audience for this ministry was everyone Crawford worked with. “I carry that with me now,” Kleinmann adds. “You have to bring people together in spaces where we can have a dialogue. And sometimes it’s not what you want to hear, but it helps you be a better advocate.”
DISCUSSION GUIDE 1. After a powerhouse intervener's departure, how can the community replicate former successes? 2. Is community leadership more effective when prioritizing passion or the principle of “manage self?” Which priorities do you see Crawford projecting and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each? - By Julian Montes and Anisah Ari
Artist JT Daniels of Kansas City, Missouri, honored Broderick Crawford and his community work in this mural he painted at the Community Health Council of Wyandotte building. Located in downtown Kansas City, the mural is one of several efforts underway to help remember Crawford after his death last year at age 61. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
rut groove
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GOING FROM
TO
BY: MONICA SPRINGER
EVEN THOUGH THERE’S A RENEWED PUSH TO ADDRESS ISSUES SUCH AS A SHORTAGE OF
HOUSING, PROGRESS HAS BEEN LIMITED IN LIBERAL, KANSAS, A DIVERSE COMMUNITY LOOKING FOR MORE GROWTH. RECENTLY, THROUGH A PROGRAM CALLED HEARTLAND TOGETHER, ABOUT A DOZEN RESIDENTS HAVE BEEN EXAMINING THE COMMUNITY’S ENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEM AND EXPLORING WAYS TO IMPROVE IT. PARTICIPANTS IN WHAT’S BEING CALLED A FLAGSHIP EXPERIENCE ARE TRYING TO MOVE THE NEEDLE ON A SET OF PROJECTS. BUT WILL MOMENTUM CARRY OVER FOR THE LONG HAUL?
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Is
Liberal stuck in a rut? A year and a half ago, José Lara thought so.
The U.S. Census showed Liberal and Seward County losing population. There were only about 10 new houses being built each year in town. He wasn’t seeing new businesses open. “Our actual growth at that point was very, very limited. I definitely believe Liberal was in a rut,” he says. “We were not growing at a point that I would be comfortable with.” Lara, 32, an insurance agent who is married with three young kids, decided to get involved in his community. He ran for a seat on the Liberal City Commission, won and is now the first bilingual Latino mayor. Lara thinks he represents Liberal’s median age and racial makeup well – Liberal’s median age is 29 and, according to the census, is 65% Latino (although locals say the percentage is more in the range of 70% to 75% Latino). He was born in Liberal, raised in Guymon, Oklahoma, and came back to town eight years ago. “It’s an interesting mix, what I bring to the table. There was a time when there were no Spanish speaking commissioners,” he says. “Most people can (now) come to our City Commission meetings with a grievance, and we would be able to understand them and translate for them in real time.” Language gaps such as the one Lara describes are an example of hidden barriers that can hold communities back. It’s hard for many to see them until there’s a crisis or an inadvertent solution comes along – in this case, Spanish-speaking commissioners coming on board – that quickly makes clear how things have advanced. But can community members also make conscious choices together that improve their economies? That’s what Lara and a group of about a dozen Liberal residents have been trying to learn through an effort over the past six months to improve what’s been termed the “entrepreneurial ecosystem.”
Just how did conservative Kansas spawn a city named Liberal? According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, at the time of the town’s founding in 1888, local landowner L.E. Keefes was “liberal” in allowing the use of his well in time of drought. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
Those who don’t come from the world of entrepreneurship might not have heard of an “entrepreneurial ecosystem.” But the concept isn’t all that different from the natural ecosystems
explained in science classrooms, and how plants, animals and other organisms work in concert with the weather and landscape to sustain life. Strong entrepreneurial ecosystems sustain the ability of local risk takers to develop, launch and grow business ideas and businesses to better meet a community’s needs. It obviously takes entrepreneurs, sometimes many of them. But according to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a Kansas City, Missouri-based nonprofit devoted to fostering economic growth through entrepreneurship, other aspects are also required, ones that might be less visible or obvious. They include access to talent within the community; people and institutions with knowledge and resources to help; on-ramps that allow people to participate; intersections where people, ideas and resources can collide; a powerful story that makes progress possible; and a culture where collaboration, cooperation and trust thrive. Truly inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems – places where new business ideas flourish, and support is widely available regardless of background – are rare. And even in places such as Silicon Valley, it can take decades to develop a thriving one. Where do communities start? And how do they know what to prioritize? Through a three-month pilot program called Heartland Together, funded by the Kauffman Foundation and designed by the Kansas Leadership Center, Liberal’s trailblazing dozen have been working to strengthen their leadership skills in order to get more people engaged in shaping their entrepreneurial ecosystem for the better. The hope is the training and activities associated with the program will help members of the community more effectively connect their networks and resources. Made possible by a $450,000 multiyear grant from Kauffman to the KLC, the Heartland Together pilot program also plans to provide leadership training to entrepreneurship support groups in Marshalltown, Iowa; Hutchinson, Kansas; and the Kansas City area. Participants will also work to develop a slate of projects aimed at trying to strengthen each community’s hand at
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Levi Williams, who owns Salco Truck and Trailer Repair in Liberal, has plans to open the Tortuga Brewing Co. in town. He sees a brewery as the kind of community gathering spot that’s currently lacking. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
At his insurance office in Liberal, Mayor José Lara and Eli Svaty, the executive director of the Seward County Development Corp., share thoughts on the current state of their city and its possibilities. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
step in Liberal’s path toward a more inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem and growing economy.
“Our hope is that if communities focus more on local entrepreneurs, then that is a more sustainable way for a community and individuals in that community to have economic prosperity,” says Lucy Petroucheva, who has managed the program for the Kansas Leadership Center.
To help with the underpinning needed to accomplish the overall goals, Heartland Together helps a community identify and focus on common challenges. Back in April, May and June, residents gathered to better understand the persistent issues in the network of support around entrepreneurship. Included in those meetings were local business owners, the development corporation, the Seward County Chamber of Commerce, a local radio station, National Beef Packing Co. and others.
In Liberal, that means residents have been working to improve the experience of entrepreneurs who are opening or expanding a business in the county, boost Liberal’s community pride, celebrate its diverse culture and get more people to open businesses in town.
The good news is that the town was already headed in the direction of inclusion prior to Heartland Together. Lara says two new bilingual commissioners over the past year and a half, along with other changes, means Liberal is evolving and working its way out of that rut.
entrepreneurial vitality. (The Journal is published by the KLC, but this story was reported independently.)
ALREADY HEADED IN A GOOD DIRECTION Even if every project achieves every objective, the effort is likely to represent just an early
“There was a lot of the ‘we’ve always done it this way’ mentality that we quickly went through and addressed,” Lara says of the commission’s new attitude. “And ‘we’ve always done it this way’ quickly became the first phrase we got rid of. If you don’t
know why you’re doing it that way, either find out why you’re continuing to do it that way, or find a new way that’s better. And so far, it’s been working.” Yet pinpointing what is an entrepreneurial ecosystem problem can be complex. Is it simply about the support systems business owners receive as they move from prospective entrepreneurs to founders? Or do broader community challenges that affect entrepreneurial activity, such as a lack of housing, need to be tackled, too? Because circumstances vary from community to community, experts can be wary of offering a generic prescription. Lea Ann Seiler, the entrepreneurship manager for the southwest Kansas region for NetWork Kansas, which is dedicated to developing entrepreneurial ecosystems, says she’s not in the business of diagnosing problems in communities. She leaves that up to the locals and says she meets communities where they are and focuses on what residents say their community needs. That might include accessing loans with low interest rates at local banks with first-time
business owners who are minorities or working with small-business development centers. For instance, in September, Seiler was at the New Mexico State Fair, promoting Kansas and trying to fill a shortage of employees in the state. “We work together to promote communities,” Seiler says. ‘RICH IN CULTURE’ The years-long slow cycle of homebuilding has been a sign of stagnation in the community, but it’s now becoming a marker for a culture that’s finding ways to navigate challenges. Lara says he uses the word “rut” because, at best, Liberal was building six to 10 housing units a year for about five years, and he says the lack of housing put a limit on the city’s growth. With help from its 1-cent sales tax and a state incentives program, Liberal plans to build roughly 250 new houses over the next three years, with more housing to come after that.
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“That promise of workforce growth will be another tool in our belt to entice larger companies to consider Liberal in the future and now,” Lara says. The community’s story is also changing, although the contours can be complicated and there is a sense that it is a work in progress. Race and ethnicity serve as dividing lines, but identities here are unusually intricate, compared with the nation as a whole. About 26% of Liberal residents identify as being white but not Hispanic or Latino, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. 65% of the community identifies as Hispanic or Latino. Further, the community is about 3% African American and Asian, while nearly 18% identify with two or more races. Yet at the same time, slightly more than 50% of the community identifies as white, including more than a third of Latinos. In shaping its story, Liberal is in some ways leading Kansas, a state that is still nearly three-quarters white, into a diverse American era of widespread crosscutting identities.
percentage of foreign-born residents in the country. “We are very rich in culture,” says Svaty, another flagship program participant. He says Liberal and Seward County attract different cultures because of the nature of the jobs available, and that the community has embraced and supports those cultures. He also says there’s a sense of safety among the immigrant population since many local businesses have Spanish speaking employees front and center. “Anyone, whether they can speak English or not, can find the services and support that they need from the local business community and even the city and county representatives as well,” Svaty says.
65%
of the community identifies as Hispanic or Latino.
But some community members still see challenges with representation. Latino and African American community members say that more people of color need to get involved, run for office and get elected, so Liberal’s leaders more accurately represent the city’s diversity. That would allow the burden of enriching civic life in the community to be shared more broadly. Lara acknowledged there are 17 different languages spoken in Liberal, and being inclusive to two of them, English and Spanish, is a step in the right direction. Eli Svaty, executive director of the Seward County Economic Development Corp., says according to the 2010 census, Seward County had the highest
SUPPORTING ‘EACH OTHER’ One thing that makes progress challenging is that different stakeholders see different problems ranked as the community’s No. 1 challenge.
Some say lack of housing is the main problem. Workforce challenges are seen as an issue, too, while others fault a lack of transparency and the need to better communicate with the public and forge ties between cultures. Levi Williams, a Liberal transplant who has lived in the community for two years, owns a truck and trailer repair business, Salco Truck and Trailer Repair. He says his biggest challenge as a business owner is hiring qualified people who also have legal status. He wants to see the city implement a streamlined system where workers can get visas and appropriate documents to work legally. “If there was something like that, I think there’d be more employees available to me,” says Williams, a flagship program participant. “If we’re desperate for workers and those workers are desperate for
The influence of Hispanics in Seward County is both old and new and can be seen in its architecture as well as in store windows. While the U.S. Census Bureau officially counts Liberal as being 65% Hispanic or Latino, locals say the actual percentage is more likely as high as 75%. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
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a job, and we can’t put that together, that’s a problem. That’s a struggle.”
housing units a year, so they could get 4,000 new units in 10 years.
it’s frustrating because we have so many talented minority individuals in this town.”
Amanda Collins, who works at Seward County Broadcasting, sees communication and a lack of online presence as a challenge. She said if one spouse gets a job offer in Liberal, it’s almost impossible for the other spouse to search for a job online or for the couple to go online to find a place to live.
Lara says the units will include both houses and rentals.
He adds: “I want a thriving community. I want a town where we thrive on big corporation growth, and we have the housing, and we have the people. But in order for that to happen, we have to have our people here support each other.”
“There’s no website where this data is readily available to them,” says Collins, who is also part of the flagship program. “It really limits growth.” Housing is the area where Liberal is trying to be particularly aggressive. In addition to the 250 housing units being built over the next five years, Lara says he wants to see more. “We need to work on getting that up to 100 units per year, hopefully getting to 200 per year,” Lara says. Up the road a bit, neighboring town and competitor Garden City is building 400 new
“We can fill any at this point,” he says. Another challenge is getting minorities to become more involved in civic affairs, says Damien Denmark, director of business development for Seward County Development. Denmark has lived in Liberal for three years and also runs a couple of businesses. He says he’s a member of eight different boards in town. “It’s the same people, cookie cutter, same demographic, same background,” he says. “And Karem Gallo – Liberal real estate agent, art gallery owner and artist – applies her talents to a mural of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church that’s located inside the church. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
SUSTAINING LIBERAL FOR THE ‘LONG RUN’ The community, famous for the annual International Pancake Day race and its eponymous Hall of Fame, is hardly starting from scratch. In addition to the worldwide renown that its 415yard pancake-flipping run provides, Liberal is also known for the Mid-America Air Museum, Dorothy’s House and the Land of Oz, Ozfest and the Seward County Coronado Museum. There’s a sense that the town is the right size, and there’s enough momentum to counter the climate of decline that many other communities face in western Kansas. Many people throughout Liberal, population just over 19,000, say that they want the city to grow. They are proud of the diverse culture and rich history and are quick to boast about the offerings of its food trucks. “We’re big enough so we have some of the amenities that smaller communities don’t,” Svaty says. “We’re still small enough that you can get across town in 10 minutes, and you do know most of the people you’re running into at the grocery store. And it’s nice to have that community.” Svaty says one of the main reasons people stay in Liberal is because of the good jobs that are offered in agriculture, the oil and gas industry and ethanol production, along with local businesses that support those industries. “We have some phenomenal businesses, some phenomenal industries that provide good jobs for people. And that is more than just what you’re doing every day,” Svaty says. “People like companies they work for, because they provide them with a good life. So that’s huge.”
Svaty says part of the reason people stick around is the community atmosphere and the entrepreneurship opportunities available in southwest Kansas. “People really can start from nothing and make a great life for themselves. Not that they can’t do that anywhere, but we have a long track record of people doing that in Seward County,” Svaty says. Williams, who owns the truck and trailer business, says business in Liberal has been good so far. He also owns a brewery in Arizona and wants to open a brewery in Liberal, partially to give the community a place to gather. Williams also says he wants to see Liberal get a community calendar so everyone can know what’s going on. “Getting the word out for all of the things that are going on would make people feel like there are more things going on and enhance the sense of community,” he says. Denmark says Liberal is the small business hub of southwest Kansas and claims it has more small businesses than Garden City or Dodge City, its neighboring rivals. There’s already a sizable small-business community in Liberal – large enough that the Small Business Administration approved 887 Paycheck Protection Loans in Seward County during the pandemic, totaling more than $38.5 million. Denmark says growth doesn’t happen overnight. “Liberal might not be where it needs to be, but we have to understand that it takes time,” he says. “We’re building houses; we’re growing in phases. When you think of growth, you have to think the long game and not the short game. The long game is: How can I sustain the city for retail, housing and my kids in the future of Liberal.” He adds: “We have so much potential, but again, we have to work together to be one.”
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‘NICEST PEOPLE IN THE NATION’ Karem Gallo is a real estate agent for Heritage Real Estate Group and owns a tiny art supply store and studio, the 200-square-foot Prairie Mermaid and Watercolor studio in Liberal. Gallo, who has an associate of arts degree from Seward County Community College, has classes for kids during the week and also sells paint and other supplies. She is a member of the Heartland Together group and was appointed by Gov. Laura Kelly in 2020 to the Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commission. “One of my pillars is to bring more art to southwest Kansas,” Gallo says. “I saw a need in the community and decided to go for it.” Gallo wants to see Liberal grow and wants to be a better entrepreneur, which is one reason she attended the Heartland Together events. She came to the community at the age of 4 from Mexico with her parents, graduated from Turpin High School in Oklahoma and lives in Turpin. “I love our community,” Gallo says. “We’re the nicest people in the nation, literally.” Gallo got emotional at one point when talking about race, immigration and different cultures. She is the eldest of four kids, and before her dad died in 2019, she served as his caretaker.
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“I want people to embrace the people around them and consider them a friend regardless of their economic standing, regardless of what color their skin is, regardless of where they came from,” Collins says. Teresa Randle, who works at Plains State Bank, agrees. “I want an all-inclusive community that celebrates our differences and supports growth,” says Randle, a flagship participant. “I feel like we all say we want to grow. We all want new businesses coming into town. But it takes work.” And bringing those aspirations to reality will require more than talk, says Gallo. “I feel we need to suck it up,” she says. “The main goal has to be to grow Liberal. And by doing that, we all have to really open our minds and open our hearts and come together as one to make the community grow.” Does she think that’s possible? “It’s not going to be tomorrow,” she says. “But long term? I think it’s possible.” As for Lara, he wants his community to feel like home to everyone who lives there and everyone who is thinking about moving there. His biggest goal is to see Liberal as a residential community first, where retail and industry eventually follow.
“I had a trigger. When you look back and think about all the struggles and all the hoops that my parents went through to get me here, it makes me reminisce,” Gallo says. “Leadership usually gets thrown onto that first generation.”
“There’s a saying, ‘There’s no place like home,’” Lara says. “Home has many different definitions for people. For some people, it’s their house. For some people it’s their family. For some people it’s their job. So whatever home is for you, that’s what I want Liberal to be.”
MAKING SOMETHING ELSE HAPPEN
Gallo, for one, hopes that the effort continues well after the Heartland Together pilot wraps up. She doesn’t want it to be a situation where nothing else happens. She says she doesn’t want Liberal to be compared to anywhere else in the world, but to stand out on its own.
When asked what kind of community residents want in a year, five years and 10 years, many say they want Liberal to grow, but retain its small, hometown feel, where neighbors know and look out for one another. Many people also say they want to see more businesses.
“I want the 12 of us to actually go out and put this in place,” Gallo says.
DISCUSSION GUIDE 1. What does progress look like for Liberal? How might the community share and celebrate wins along the way? 2. How can communities hold space for unlikely voices to be part of a conversation that affects them, thereby creating opportunities for everyone to lead? 3. How might the community stretch to experiment outside their comfort zone? - By Lydia Santiago and Anisah Ari
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LONG AGO, KANSAS RANKED AS ONE OF THE COUNTRY’S LARGEST WINE PRODUCERS. BUT WHEN THE STATE OUTLAWED ALCOHOL, IT KILLED THE INDUSTRY. RECENT YEARS HAVE SEEN A RESURGENCE OF WINERIES HERE, PAVING THE WAY FOR GRAPE GROWING AND WINEMAKING TO PLAY A THRIVING ROLE IN KANSAS AGRICULTURE.
Row after row of verdant grapevines cling to rocky terrain sloping into rippling hills stretching as far as the eye can see.
Adds Maulik Trivedi of Trivedi Wine in Lawrence: “The potential of Kansas is we have not even scratched the surface.”
Is it Tuscany? The Mosel? Try the Flint Hills of northeast Kansas.
When Highland Community College in Wamego launched its viticulture program in 2010, there were perhaps a dozen wineries in the state, says Scott Kohl, director of viticulture and enology at the school. That number is nearly 50 now, and several more are slated to open late this year or in 2024.
“People come here to our winery, and they’ve lived in Kansas their whole lives and they look out over the views we have … and they go, ‘I didn’t know that Kansas could look like this,” says David Tegtmeier, founder of Liquid Art Winery, outside of Manhattan. “One of the most rewarding things is blowing people’s minds.”
Fruitful O P P O R T U N I T I E S BY: STAN FINGER
Photo by Jeff Tuttle
Once upon a time, Kansas grew more grapes than almost any other state in the country. It was also one of the nation’s largest wine producers. But then Prohibition became law in the Sunflower State, decades before the rest of the nation. In many ways, Kansas winemakers say, the specter of Prohibition lingers. But a resurgence of wineries is underway in Kansas, and vintners believe the state’s potential is just beginning to be tapped. “I really think that the only limitations (to what’s possible) are self-imposed,” says Michelle Meyer, who with her father, Les, runs Basehor’s HolyField Winery, the oldest bonded winery in Kansas, meaning they have secured insurance to cover the cost of their tax liabilities – a reflection of serious intent to engage in a commercial enterprise.
“It’s definitely growing,” and for numerous reasons, Kohl says. One of them is the local food movement, which embraces locally made wine and beer. “Grapes have always been there as part of the Kansas agriculture scene,” says state Sen. Tom Holland, owner of Haven Pointe Winery near Baldwin City and former president of the Kansas Viticulture & Farm Winery Association. “Now we’re able to once again start putting that out there. And make no mistake, we grow some very good wine grapes here in the state.” Many in the industry believe something even more substantial than the local food movement is helping drive the resurgence. “There’s almost a generational thing happening,” Kohl says. “A lot of the folks that are opening wineries today, their grandparents were farmers. … They remember going out to grandma and grandpa’s and having a great time in the summer
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and going out for harvest and being out in the country and away from the city and the hustle and bustle, and a lot of those folks are wanting to get back out to the country. “You can’t start a wheat or a corn farm with 20 or 30 acres. … But for a vineyard or winery, six, eight, ten, twelve acres, that’s plenty. So you don’t have to break the bank trying to buy all the enormous equipment and sections of land to move out in the country to be a farmer.” That trend is evident all over the nation, says John Brewer, president of Wyldewood Cellars in Mulvane. There were only about 400 wineries in the United States in 1990, he says, and almost all of them were commercial wineries. Today, there are more than 11,000 wineries around the country, he says, and 85% of them are retirement hobbies. “There’s nothing wrong with a retirement hobby, but it’s a hobby,” Brewer says. Wyldewood is the only commercial winery in Kansas, Brewer says, though four others are nearing the threshold for commercial wineries, open at least five days a week for business and
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making fault-free wines free of odors or tastes that make them unpleasant to drink.
Brewer, the first international wine judge in Kansas, goes a step further.
ever had” other than far more expensive French wines, he says.
It takes a good 20 years for a talented amateur to learn how to make fault-free wine without outside help, he says.
“Some Kansas wineries make some very good, excellent wines that will stand up against anything in the world,” he says.
Kara Rodriguez and her husband have seen Kansas wine evolve and improve as they have sampled numerous labels and vintages over the past several years.
UP AGAINST THE WORLD It’s been more than 15 years since then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius joked at a Democratic fundraiser in the state of Washington, “If you ever see Kansas wine, don’t drink it,” but Sunflower State winemakers still bristle when reminded of that comment. Even though she meant it as a joke, Sebelius’ appraisal of Kansas wine at the time was not far off the mark, some winemakers concede. When Jeff Sollo first started at his father’s Grace Hill Winery outside of Whitewater 12 to 15 years ago, “I drank some wines at some conferences that were borderline undrinkable. You don’t find that anymore. But the quality of everything now is at least ‘good’ and a lot of it is ‘pretty darn good.’”
Dave and Kathleen Hansen are “steeped in wine,” as he puts it, having taken three-week vacations to France and Italy to visit wineries there and sampling wines all over the United States. They have tried a lot of Kansas wine, he says, and most of it has reinforced the old perception of not being very good. So when Trivedi opened his winery literally across the street from where the Hansens live in Lawrence and invited them over to try his wine, “we were pretty skeptical” about its quality, Dave Hansen admits.
“It’s definitely better than people think,” says the Lawrence resident, “and I think it’s kind of sad that people don’t think of Kansas when they think of wine.” Kansas winemakers are now winning prestigious competitions. Holy-Field, for instance, has won 19 Jefferson Cups, an invitation-only wine competition featuring wines from across North America.
“Quite honestly, we were shocked at how good it was,” he says. “Like, ‘This isn’t Kansas wine.’” Trivedi’s ensuing vintages have also been stellar, Hansen says.
Wyldewood Cellars has won more than 700 national and international awards and titles in both grape and non-grape categories, Brewer says. Those successes hint at what’s possible, winemakers say, but for Kansas to reach its potential, several obstacles must be overcome.
“He had a Chardonnay that he ran out of; it was definitely on par with any other Chardonnay we’ve
The most significant challenge, they say, is simply the state’s late return to winemaking. Between the
Liquid Art Winery outside Manhattan was founded in 2014 and consists of a 20-acre vineyard, a tasting room, a winery and an event center. Ten miles of drip line irrigation have been installed, serving every row of grapes. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
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passage of a statewide ban on alcohol in the early 1880s and the passage of the Kansas Farm Winery Act, which established guidelines for wineries and opened the door for farmers to begin raising grapes for commercial wine, the state went a full century without wineries. Lost was the expertise that had been cultivated by early winemakers. Gone was the knowledge of which grapes grew well and which ones struggled in various parts of a vastly divergent state. When Les Meyer decided to grow grapes on his farm near Basehor to make wine for personal use a few years after the farm winery act was passed, he had to visit wineries in Missouri to get equipment and answers to his many questions. He eventually was growing more grapes than he could use or sell, so he opened Holy-Field with his daughter in 1994. Thirty years may seem like a long time, Sollo and others say, but in many ways Kansas winemaking remains in its infancy. Vintners are still learning which grape varieties grow best in the state and in turn produce the best wine. It takes decades to answer those questions. “A lot of the famous wine regions around the world, they’re famous because they’ve been around forever and they’ve really figured out what works well there and how to work with what works well there,” Sollo says.
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Many regions have the benefit of coastal breezes that moderate the climate, protecting their vinifera grapevines from extended bouts of searing heat and frigid lows. But Kansas is far from those buffers, so vinifera varieties struggle here. “Cabernet sauvignon has to see almost 100-degree days to create the flavors, but to set the flavors it’s got to cool below 65 at night,” Brewer says. “Here, we get 100-degree temperatures, but we’re lucky to cool off to 80” on those nights. Numerous grape varieties grow well in Kansas, but they are not household names. In fact, if you want to stump your friends at trivia, just ask them to name the official state wine grapes of Kansas. Yes, there are state grapes: two, in fact. David Tegtmeier pulls a sample from one of the tanks in the production room at Liquid Art Winery. Vitis vinifera grapes, such as cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay, are the primary grapes used by the winery. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
The red wine grape is chambourcin, the white wine grape, vignoles. “Just about every winery in Kansas will have one of those on the shelf,” Kohl says. “Especially the chambourcin just grows like gangbusters in Kansas.” Winemakers have come across several white grapes that thrive in Kansas as well: vidal blanc, Frontenac gris, seyval, and chardonel, to name a few.
liquor stores have contracts with wineries that produce widely known varieties, such as chardonnays, merlots and cabernets.
But go to almost any liquor store in the state and you will have a hard time finding wines with those names on the labels. The distributors supplying
“I’m not saying you can’t grow those here,” HolyField’s Michelle Meyers says, “but typically you’re not going to grow the volume you need to have” to make it work financially. Tegtmeier at Liquid Art is determined to defy those odds. A sixth-generation Kansas farmer who grew up near Seneca close to the Nebraska state line, Tegtmeier used some of his great-great-grandfather’s old equipment to make his first batches of wine as a teenager from grapes he had grown on the farm. He went off to college, which included course time overseas near Bordeaux in France, where he Soil samples show the difference between the lighter-colored, rocky soil at the vineyard and more balanced soils. The terroir of Liquid Art’s land is similar to the soil profile and terrain of some of the world’s more prominent grape-growing regions. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
discovered the soil and climate were much like portions of his home state. “Some of the most prestigious wineries in the world were right there where I was living and working the soil,” Tegtmeyer says. “The topography was almost identical to the Flint Hills region here in Kansas. The clay limestone soils were key in making the quality of the wine. So why not here?” He has spent the better part of 15 years developing a multipatented system that allows him to grow cabernet sauvignon and other vinifera varieties in his vineyards. He has more than 100 total acres of grapes on land he has leased on a dozen farms around the eastern part of the state. More than 25 of those acres are devoted to cabernet sauvignon. Getting the vines to survive the Kansas heat was not as much of a challenge as helping them live through the harsh Great Plains winters. He learned about trunk diseases such as crown gall and cane bores, beetles that gnaw on the vines so
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much they become too weak to survive winter’s chill. The higher humidity of eastern Kansas creates an environment that allows fungus to develop on the vines and rapidly kill them, so the canopies that wineries use to protect the plants from birds must be open enough to allow proper air filtration. Wind helps keep moisture from settling onto the grapes. “I tried to put all our vineyards in locations that are more protected from frost, so we try to put them always on rocky hillsides,” he says. “It’s not the easiest place to grow grapes, but it’s the best place. They like the rock.” A ‘BLANK PALETTE’ Kansas is full of microclimates, Brewer says, including six distinct ecological zones. Then there is the vast disparity in average precipitation and soil types. While northeast Kansas vineyards must guard vigilantly against fungus setting in on the vines because of chronic dampness, the southwest corner of the state is semiarid. That means different varietals will thrive near Cimarron than flourish near Seneca. Kansas winemakers could capitalize on that mosaic of grape varieties by promoting the vast array of wines made in the state, those in the industry say. There has been and continues to be much experimentation with which grapes grow best in different parts of Kansas. A ‘STRONGER SPIRIT OF COOPERATION’ After all the experimentation, Holland says, “At some point, Kansas is going to become known for its chambourcins, its vignol blancs, its vignols.”
David and Danielle Tegtmeier are among a group of winemakers who would like to see a wine trail established that would run from Wamego to Manhattan, allowing oenophiles like Nick Saia of Manhattan to broaden their tasting adventures. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
Winemakers say Kansas could readily support more than 100 wineries scattered across the state. Most of the current wineries are clustered around the Kansas City area because of the population density there and the rocky terrain upon which grapes thrive. Yet wineries could succeed elsewhere in the state, they say, provided they have ready access to a major thoroughfare.
They point to Grace Hill outside of Whitewater and Smoky Hill Vineyards & Winery near Salina as examples. Records show that grapes were being grown in every county in the state in the 1800s. For Kansas viticulture to thrive, they say, a stronger spirit of cooperation will be necessary. Whereas some founding winery owners simply wanted to make wine as a hobby, their children are focusing on how to improve those wines and turn it into a commercially successful business. A fundamental piece of that effort is the availability of employees, those in the industry say. A challenge for almost any business in the modern era, it is particularly so for wineries. The tasks are specialized and the opportunities to learn them have historically been limited. “There’s just not a lot of vineyard management you can do from the seat of a tractor, like traditional farming,” Michelle Meyer says. “Managing the canopy and leaf thinning and cluster thinning and all of that – it’s all handwork. “I am really not interested in the quantity of fruit. I’m interested in the quality of fruit, and the quality of fruit goes directly into the quality of the bottle. And if you don’t manage your vineyard properly, you’re not going to have that.” At the request of winemakers, Highland has changed its course schedules and class times in recent years to make them more accessible for younger people. The goal is to have an educated and trained workforce that wineries can draw from and help students realize working at a winery could become a career, not just a short-term job. A sense of cooperation is growing among wineries as well. Instead of seeing one another as competition, Tegtmeier says, wineries are increasingly seeing each other as partners. “People won’t travel to another state to visit just one winery,” he says. “They want to make it worth the trip” by visiting several.
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NEW PLACES TO GATHER Kansas currently has three wine trails, all of them in the northeast: • The Glacial Hills Wine Trail, featuring four wineries near Topeka and Lawrence. • The Kaw Valley Wine Trail, encompassing 16 wineries in the state’s northeast corner. • The Somerset Wine Trail, featuring four wineries south of Johnson County in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Kohl, Tegtmeier and others have visions of a fourth trail featuring wineries stretching from Manhattan to Wamego. Three new wineries, founded by graduates of Highland’s incubator program, are slated to open soon along Flush Road south of Westmoreland. One emerging industry trend figures to help wineries in Kansas and the rest of the Great Plains: Young wine drinkers are more interested in
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finding an affordable, good-tasting wine and less interested in paying extra for well-known labels. The federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, which is under the Department of the Treasury, is reviewing an application to establish the first American Viticulture Area in Kansas. The designation tells wine enthusiasts that quality wines are being produced there. California has “hundreds” of such areas, Holland says. The first potential designation would cover the Kansas River valley and be known as the Kaw Valley AVA. Agritourism is emerging as a notable segment of the Kansas economy, and wineries are well-positioned to play a significant role, those in the industry say. “People are looking for new places to gather,” says Don Warring, the winemaker at NightHawk Winery, just outside Paola. “Church used to be the place where you did all your socialization,” but younger people are turning away from organized religion and are looking elsewhere for community.
Tending to grapes at a vineyard requires considerable physical labor. Volunteers Rachel and Mike Denning of Haysville lent a hand with this year’s harvest at Grace Hill Winery near Whitewater. Volunteers are “paid” with a vineyard tour and lunch. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
More and more, they gather at nearby wineries on Sunday afternoons to meet friends, listen to live music and maybe have a bite to eat. It ties into the desire to simplify and focus on what really matters that blossomed during the COVID pandemic and has persisted as society moves forward. A more concerted effort by the state to promote wineries would help, Trivedi and others say. The Grape and Wine Advisory Council was established in 1988, but it had a sundown clause for 2016 and then-Gov. Sam Brownback allowed the council to be shut down. Ever since then, winemakers say, confusion has reigned over where to go to get answers for various questions. Winemakers would love to see Kansas emulate Missouri, which provides scientific and marketing support for wines produced in the state. The Kansas Department of Agriculture is conducting a winery census, gathering information and generally asking what it can do to help. That is a great start, winemakers say. Among the toughest people to convince that Kansas wine is improving are Kansans themselves. When Ben Motley first tried selling Kansas wines at his Arrow Cocktail Lounge in Manhattan about seven years ago, “it did not go over very well,” he says. Maybe 1% of his customers ordered a Kansas wine. Today, that number is 10%. A BIGGER PLAYER? Along with being a key piece of agritourism, wineries could become bigger players in the future of agriculture in Kansas. “The farming that we have traditionally done in Kansas is starting to lose its potential, because the land doesn’t produce as much corn and soybeans,” Trivedi says. “There’s not enough water anymore.” “Grape growing is one of the prime crops for the future, just because the added market value from the grapes to the wine in the bottle is so much larger,” Trivedi says.
A 2021 master’s thesis by Elizabeth Carter Fayers, a Kansas State University graduate student in agricultural economics, showed that grapevines can deliver $1,062 in profit per acre, compared with a profit of $363.73 per acre from irrigated corn. Her thesis also revealed wine grapes required 9.83 inches of additional water on average in northeast Kansas, compared to 20.76 inches of additional water for irrigated corn. Those figures would be different in drier southwest Kansas, Trivedi says, but grapevines would still require much less water after their first year, once they have established their root systems. There’s a tremendous local market for grapes, winemakers say. “We always need more grapes,” Sollo says. “The one thing about the state of Kansas is there’s never enough grapes here.” According to preliminary figures provided by the Kansas Department of Agriculture, the state has 88 acres of vineyards and about 400 acres of licensed farm wineries. But not every vineyard has been counted yet. Contrast that to records from 1901, which show that 5,000 acres of grapes were being grown around the state – most of the fruit for wineries in other states. By comparison, California now has more than 600,000 acres of wine grapes. Neighboring Missouri has 1,800 acres of grapes, along with 129 wineries and 10 wine trails. The lure of grapes only seems to be growing, despite the many challenges it presents. Listening to winemakers talk about their vineyards is like hearing about a partnership, working with nature to coax the best out of the grapes each year. Kansas winemakers are still in the discovery stage of that relationship, but there is no questioning their devotion. Farming is in the DNA of Kansas, Trivedi says. “It’s our heritage. It’s in our blood to grow grapes.”
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DISCUSSION GUIDE 1. How can Kansans support local winemakers and vintners to erase the stigma surrounding Kansas wine? 2. In what ways are winemakers in Kansas working together to promote the industry and how is this spirit of cooperation helping them? 3. Given the challenges faced by winemakers, what drives their dedication and passion for growing grapes and making wine in Kansas? - By Pedro Cuevas
Dave Sollo (above) started what has become Grace Hill Winery in 2004 with 200 plants. These days, sons Brian and Jeff Sollo head up the operation, which has spread to cover more than 15 acres. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
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AFTER LONG BEING THE PROVINCE OF WELL-INFORMED CARNIVORES, A NORTHWEST KANSAS STEAKHOUSE CALLED BIG ED’S IS ACHIEVING NEWFOUND NOTORIETY. THE CASH-ONLY BUSINESS WITH LITTLE PRETENSE WAS RECENTLY RANKED AS THE NATION’S NO. 1 STEAKHOUSE BY A TRAVEL SITE. BUT CUSTOMERS HOPING TO SPREAD THE WORD MIGHT HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL THEY LEAVE, CONSIDERING THEIR MOUTHS LIKELY WILL BE FILLED WHEN THEY’RE THERE. BY: BECCY TANNER
SKIP THE SALT AND
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Photo by Zach Tuttle
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THE PATRONS AT BIG ED’S STEAKHOUSE IN BIRD CITY OFTEN DRIVE, DRIVE AND DRIVE SOME MORE TO GET THEIR FAVORITE CUT OF GRILLED MEAT. It’s not uncommon for the restaurant’s patrons to travel four to six hours for a meal in the small town of 437 in northwest Kansas. “I think it’s the experience, really,” says Mark Stromberg, who lives in Denver, a four-hour drive – one way. “The experience is half of what made the steak taste so good. It’s almost like you are at the county fair with the big grills going and just how casual it is. That country beef though was, I’d say, half the experience. “You can go to places like Ruth’s Chris (Steakhouse) or other big, expensive places with all the fake pomp and circumstance of the super fancy restaurants. But there (at Big Ed’s), it’s authentic.” And the steaks?
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• No. 8-rated Cut by Wolfgang Puck in Beverly Hills, California • No. 10-rated Johnny’s Cafe in Omaha, Nebraska It’s a big deal in this tiny Cheyenne County town, barely a pheasant’s flush from both Nebraska and Colorado. “Friendly staff and meat seasoned so well you don’t even think about adding salt or sauce is what you can find at Big Ed’s,” TravelAwaits said. Don’t let the size of the town fool you, TravelAwaits cautioned: “Bird City may be a small town, but the steaks here are big. Big Ed’s cuts include 24-ounce T-bones and ribeyes. Weekend night prime ribs can reach a hefty 28-30 ounces. “The décor, including deer heads on the walls, is not the main draw; the open kitchen to watch your steak cooked to perfection is.” STEAKS AT N 39.686 W 101.569
“They are nice and juicy and very charred,” Stromberg says. “There’s lots of that charcoal barbecue flavor.”
Located a 30-to 45-minute drive off Interstate 70 from Colby and just off U.S. 36, the drive into Bird City is by many people’s standards, well, out in the middle of nowhere.
What Stromberg and other customers might not have realized until recently is that they’re having what is purported to be one of the best steakeating experiences in the country.
The closest tourist site in the surrounding High Plains region is the Arikaree Breaks, known for a rugged landscape of canyons, caves, valleys, creeks and mesas.
Several months ago, Big Ed’s Steakhouse was named the No. 1 steakhouse in the nation by readers of TravelAwaits, which focuses on travelers 50-plus, in the online site’s Best of Travel Awards.
Pull into Bird City on a weeknight and you are hard-pressed to find another living soul – even cats and dogs seem scarce.
It topped a list of 14 steakhouses, beating out such establishments as: • No. 3-rated Peter Luger Steak House in Brooklyn • No. 4-rated Cattlemen’s Steakhouse in Oklahoma City
But turn on to Bressler Street downtown and the smell of steak suddenly smacks your nostrils and triggers tastebuds enough so that your mouth is soon flowing like Niagara Falls. Parking spaces filled with vehicles with out-of-state
Down-home is a description that perfectly fits Big Ed’s Steakhouse. No need to get gussied up to get a table. And a visit is as much of a treat for locals like Alana Meitl and Colton Ketterl of Oberlin as it is for folks who have to drive for hours. Photos by Zach Tuttle
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license tags – Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Nebraska and more – are at a premium in front of a sparsely adorned building of brick and beige siding. Could this be the No. 1 steakhouse in the nation?
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Kansas has another Big Ed’s Steakhouse – in Thayer, population 432. It’s in Neosho County in southeast Kansas.
A small white sign at the top of the building confirms this is indeed Big Ed’s Steakhouse and Lounge. Underneath, two longhorn steer heads are painted onto the sign with the building’s latitude and longitude: N 39.686 W 101.569.
In fact, Big Ed’s tends to defy expectations in a multitude of ways. Despite its recent notoriety, the restaurant has largely built its reputation by word of mouth. It doesn’t advertise.
Big Ed is long gone, but his spirit endures in a way many places can’t emulate. THE OTHER BIG ED’S STEAKHOUSE Wait, wait, just a minute. Before we go any further. We need to clarify. Do a Google search.
So, that made Prochazka a believer.
Still, in Bird City when word started trickling in that Big Ed’s was named the top steakhouse in the nation, it didn’t surprise City Clerk Seante Gyukeri.
The steaks are perfect.
“Coming from the East Coast, it’s the best steak I’ve ever had in my life,” she says. “I never knew steak could taste that good.” There was a flurry of activity when the news first made its way to Bird City early this past summer.
Its high quality is infused with a back-to-basics spirit. For the customers, it’s cash only at Big Ed’s. No credit or debit cards accepted.
As you might expect word got around town pretty quickly.
Bird City Councilman Ted Partch says the key to Big Ed’s popularity is twofold: good cuts of meat and talented cooks. Photo by Zach Tuttle
And although it has not been named the No. 1 steakhouse in the nation, owner Ed Carrico references the Bird City Big Ed’s by throwing a little good-natured shade. “I thought it was a hamburger joint,” he says. “That Big Ed’s in Bird City is not associated with me, at all.” He’s owned Big Ed’s in Thayer for 31 years – and prides himself on the quality of steaks his restaurant serves.
“We’d heard about it over the years but had not gone and tried it,” said Prochazka, from Phillipsburg. “Then, out of the blue, some lifelong friends from Denver got ahold of us and said, ‘Hey, we just drove out to Bird City for dinner and love it.”
A SYMBOL OF PRIDE
Gyukeri moved to town from Massachusetts three and a half years ago.
But walk inside, and the magic begins.
If you want to look beyond the steak, you also might see a fascinating story about a rural business, launched by a community outsider, that is thriving amid a series of successions in ownership, no small feat at a time when smalltown restaurants too often face extinction.
And, like Big Ed’s in Bird City, his customers also come from all around.
“The steak is amazing,” she says. “They have some secrets that have been passed along from owner to owner.”
Neon signs advertising Budweiser, Bud Light, Coors and Miller beers decorate the exterior windows.
But while you should plan on spending money, you won’t necessarily need a wad of cash. The meals are big enough that two people can easily split an entrée, which runs $30 to $40. The price tag goes up, depending on any extras you add.
They are also big enough for two people to share.
More vehicles with out-of-state license plates showed up. It is a symbol of town pride, says former Mayor and current City Councilman Ted Partch. “There are those in town who have never been there (to Big Ed’s) because they don’t want to drink beer. And there are those who don’t mind the drive and come from out of town and become regulars,” Partch says. Most of the customers are out-of-towners, which may be a good thing. Because in Bird City an establishment that caters to those with hearty appetites could feed the native customer base in fairly short order. Bill Prochazka found out about Big Ed’s 20 years ago.
“It’s old-time, down to earth,” he says of the restaurant. “You walk in, and you feel at home. “It’s world-class steaks. We’ve traveled the world and it’s in the top two or three – one was in Colorado, the other was in South America.” Not bad for a small-town restaurant that began with a big vision. Big Ed’s started in 1986 with Ed Thomas. “This was one of those things that started with somebody who wasn’t from here who was a relative of a relative,” Partch says. “He came in and opened it up. It’s changed hands a couple of times, but it’s the same décor and the same menu. When people come here, they know they are going to get a good steak.” Since Big Ed’s tends to fly under the radar, news of the No. 1 ranking erupted on social media, Gyukeri says. “Everybody just clicked on it, shared and it just exploded,” she says. CREATING LEGENDARY STEAKS DeAnza and Shannon Ambrosier sank just about everything they owned into Big Ed’s when they bought the place more than four years ago. They knew they were buying more than a restaurant. They were also buying a reputation, starting with Big Ed himself. “He had oil wells and was worth money,” Shannon Ambrosier says. “He built a YMCA in McCook (Nebraska) and then he came out here and bought
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the building and just started cooking steaks. It took off from there.” The next owner was Richard Upchurch, who continued to serve good steaks and upgraded the building, followed by Robert and Sherry Cherry. “I worked for the Upchurches, cooking for him for six years,” Shannon Ambrosier says. “He then went out to Colorado and built a nice steakhouse, and I went out there for a year helping get that one going. He said he’d sell it (Big Ed’s) to me, but he sold it to the Cherrys instead and then, when they were ready to sell it, my wife and I talked about it.” DeAnza Ambrosier says they definitely wanted to buy Big Ed’s because it was an established name.
It’s Old West saloon meets small town diner. “I think the big attraction is that it’s located in such a small, little Midwest town,” she says. “It’s a tiny little hole in the wall compared to other places. It’s not fancy, at all. But people get a great steak at a great price.
“We get it as a big roast and then it is hand cut per order,” she says. “We keep it in the cooler, trim it and get all the fat off it. Whenever there is an order, we cut off however big a steak they want.”
“I think that’s the allure of it all.”
And now, here is a kicker – it’s not Kansas beef.
The regulars know it’s also about the cooks.
“Most of it comes out of southern Nebraska,” DeAnza says. “When we first started, our hope was to buy local, but there were no local suppliers that could produce the number of cuts we wanted. So we had to look elsewhere for it.”
“They’ve had cooks there long enough to know what they are doing,” Partch says. “The good cooks know by the touch of the steak. That’s a real knack. You’ve got to train somebody so they can do that.”
Shipments come in once a week.
Cathy Loop is one of the grill masters.
THE EATING EXPERIENCE
“Just to come up with the down payment, we pretty much liquidated a lot of our stuff,” she says. “Gradually, we will get back the things we liquidated.”
“There are some folks who won’t go unless Cathy is at the grill,” Partch says.
It’s certainly fitting for Bird City to host a top-rated steakhouse. It’s in the heart of cattle country, having been founded in the mid 1880s and named after Benjamin Bird, manager of the Northwest Cattle Co.
Meanwhile, they’re No. 1.
And when he goes to Big Ed’s, Partch also asks what the evening’s best cuts are.
The restaurant in Bird City is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 5 to 10 pm. “We get a lot of locals but also a lot of our business is on the weekends,” DeAnza says. “People come from out of town, traveling quite a distance. Sometimes, people will rent a party bus and they’ll travel as a group to come spend an evening with us.”
He’s one of them.
“When I go in there, I always ask what’s the best you got? Shannon knows because he’s bought all the steaks. He knows what pieces are best. Certain cuts are just better pieces of meat. I always ask for which one he thinks is best.
The most popular items on the menu?
“The thing is you go into some restaurants and one time you might get a good steak and the next you won’t.
The prime rib, DeAnza says, is like getting a roast on a dinner plate.
“The steaks at Big Ed’s are always the same – always good. “
Then, there are the ribeye and filet that are mighty fine, too – big, juicy and ever so tender.
Partch says it’s because the folks at Big Ed’s know how to take meat to the next level.
People come for the experience, the tastes and that feeling of just being here.
DeAnza says the secret is in the spices – and the meat.
The atmosphere is a bit eclectic. It’s mounted deer and buffalo heads, racks of antlers, longhorn skulls, taxidermied turkeys, rodeo posters, and a mural of the Kansas prairie with a windmill and white stockinged horse looking off into the distance.
“The first step to a great steak is you buy the best quality,” she says. “We never skimp on that because that’s where it is. Then the seasoning and how you cook it.” The meat is never frozen.
One of its first moments of notoriety was in the summer of 1922, when a soon-to-be famous barnstormer used the town as his home base. Charles Lindbergh was nicknamed “The Daredevil” by locals.
Prochazka’s sister – who lives in Longmont, Colorado. The Prochazka siblings grew up on a farm near Atwood and are now in their 60s and 70s. One evening about 20 years ago when the family had gathered in Atwood for a small reunion, Bill suggested they all go to Big Ed’s. Mary Jo is not a steak person. She dug her heels in, initially. “Really, we are going to drive to Bird City – 40 minutes away – and have supper?” she asked. It turned out to be a great experience – although she’s still not a steak person. “When I grew up, we had our own cattle, and we’d slaughter cows – we’d have beef in the freezer, and we had red meat like three meals a day.” But diets change and so did her impressions of Big Ed’s. “You are watching the flames,” she says. “They are cooking steaks over the fire. And there are all these cowboy hats and attire. “That’s when you know: This is going to be good.”
These days, Bird City attracts barnstormers of a different sort, such as Mary Jo Prochazka – Bill
Like the restaurant itself, the menu at Big Ed’s foregoes frills. There’s a multitude of beef dinners — and few other entrées. Photo by Zach Tuttle
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DISCUSSION GUIDE 1. How has Big Ed’s Steakhouse preserved the legacy of the restaurant as it’s passed down to various owners? 2. What new voices might Big Ed’s Steakhouse consider engaging? 3. What growing pains should Big Ed’s prepare for as consumer trends change? - By Kaylee Busick
Clockwise from right: Shannon Ambrosier and DeAnza Ambrosier sank about every dollar they had into buying Big Ed’s about four years ago. She had worked for a previous owner and knew the value of the restaurant’s reputation. For those with big appetites, a 24-ounce ribeye awaits. Orders clog the queue in the kitchen, where magic is added to the meat. Photos by Zach Tuttle
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BY: STAN FINGER
Raising the flag for all RANDOLPH CABRAL DESIGNED THE BRAILLE AMERICAN FLAG TO HONOR HIS FATHER, AN IMMIGRANT AND VETERAN WHO LOST HIS SIGHT LATE IN LIFE. IN ADDITION TO ALLOWING THE BLIND AND PARTIALLY SIGHTED TO EXPERIENCE THE FLAG, A COLORFUL VERSION AIMS TO CATCH THE ATTENTION OF THOSE WITH SIGHT. NOW WITH SCHOOLS IN SOUTHCENTRAL KANSAS ADOPTING THE FLAG, CABRAL IS STARTING TO DREAM BIGGER.
Will Wetz’s fingers glided nimbly across the flat board until he gasped. “The flag,” he says, his tone an awed whisper. Unable to see since shortly after he was born 26 years ago, Wetz first learned of the Braille American flag while attending the Kansas State School for the Blind. But now he was touching it. Born several weeks early, Wetz needed high levels of oxygen to survive – levels so high the pressure detached his retinas. His brain development was also disrupted, meaning he often speaks in bursts of words. Yet his pace slowed as he touched Old Glory. He studiously traced the specially designed tactile flag, which uses Braille to denote the 50 stars and 13 stripes. Braille is a system of raised dots that can be read with fingers by the blind or partially sighted. It is named after its inventor, Louis Braille. Wetz recognized something else embossed on the flag. Something he had learned as a child. He began quietly reciting the Pledge of Allegiance as his fingers followed it on the flag, his tone even,
his words clear – some louder than others as if he were stressing points. “I pledge allegiance … the United States of America … one nation, under God … with liberty and justice for all.” Across the room at Northridge Elementary School in Newton, where Wetz’s younger sister, Jasmine, goes to school, Russell Williams watched his grandson – “That’s my buddy,” he adds lovingly – and gave a slight shake of his head in disbelief. “This is fantastic,” says Williams, a veteran of the Korean War, in a low voice. Nearby, Randolph Cabral fought to maintain his composure. Stars and Stripes forever? Maybe never for those who are blind or have vision loss. Until now. The Braille flag makes it possible for Will Wetz of Newton and others to experience Old Glory. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
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“This,” Cabral says, “is why I do this.” Cabral designed the Braille American flag to pay tribute to his father, Jesus Sanchez Cabral, who arrived in the United States from Mexico as a toddler with his mother, served in World War II and proudly flew the Stars and Stripes outside the family home in Hutchinson. Glaucoma led Jesus to lose his vision late in life, leaving him unable to experience the flag he cherished in the same way he had for decades. Randolph, the middle of Jesus’ 11 children, took up an interest in Braille and services to the blind in 1993, a few years after his father lost his sight. In 1998, the same year his father died, he
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founded what would become the Kansas Braille Transcription Institute to help those who are blind or have low or limited vision. While working late in his office one evening, Randolph created a tactile/Braille American flag to honor his late father. The flag is a full replica of the Stars and Stripes, with 50 raised stars and the 13 stripes representing the first states in the Union. The “red” stripes have the Pledge of Allegiance written in Braille, while the “white” stripes are raised but flat. With the help of then-U.S. Rep. Todd Tiahrt, Congress unanimously authorized placement of the Braille flag at Arlington National Cemetery as a tribute to blind veterans of all wars, as well as other blind Americans, in 2008. The original Braille flags were bronze plates placed in display cases. Smaller flags printed on Thermoform paper also had no color. But after hearing sighted people say the flag held no visual appeal to them, Randolph created a color version with the help of a Wichita printing company, creating a flag that everyone could appreciate. The Braille flags are displayed in hundreds of locations around the country, including the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, the Women in Military Service for America Memorial across from Arlington National Cemetery, the State Capitol in Topeka, numerous Veterans Affairs hospitals, VFW Post 112 in Wichita, the American Legion post in Newton and the offices of other military organizations. ‘IT BELONGS TO ALL OF US’ Cabral sends the flag to any veteran who requests it. But he has a grander vision: Put a Braille American flag on display in every school in the United States.
Braille flag maker Randolph Cabral, president of the Kansas Braille Transcription Institute, helps Will Wetz “read” the American flag. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
“This is how the blind people should see the American flag,” Cabral says as he watched Will Wetz linger over the flag in Newton. “The way sighted people do.”
For decades, schools for the blind have had small, cloth flags embossed with Braille, he says, but those flags do not have all 50 stars or all 13 stripes. Students in 47 of the nation’s 50 states still look to the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of the school day, he says, but for blind students who go to mainstream schools, it’s a cruel barrier. “They don’t get to see the American flag,” he says. “They don’t even get a copy of the Pledge of Allegiance” in Braille. “They have to listen and memorize it. I’ve seen students facing the opposite direction” during the pledge, “looking around, wanting someone to tell them, ‘Where’s the flag?’” Cabral launched his school initiative, Raise the Flag, last spring and already has flags in schools in Newton, Wichita, Park City and Pratt. Interest has been shown in Nebraska, Missouri and Oklahoma as well. By having a Braille flag in the schools,
Air Force veteran Russell Williams and granddaughter Jasmine Wetz, 6, got to admire a Braille flag at Northridge Elementary School in Newton. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
blind or partially sighted students “know there is a flag that’s representative of you,” Cabral says. The Braille flag also gives sighted students a chance to connect better with those who are blind or have limited vision. Cabral sees the Braille flag as a step toward unity and celebrating diversity in ways people often do not consider. “Our country has become polarized,” he says. “And in some places around the country, the flag has been weaponized. But it’s not partisan. It belongs to all of us.” When Cabral launched the initiative at a school in Park City, a young girl came into the room where
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the bronze Braille flag was sitting on a table. She started feeling the object, Cabral says, and announced, “This is the flag.” She continued reading the Pledge of Allegiance, reached the end, and “just explodes,” Cabral says. “She jumps up and started screaming and clapping. ‘I’ve got to do it again! I’ve got to do it again!’ Why most Americans don’t feel that way when they see the flag is beyond me.” His perspective may have been shaped by the family he grew up in, Cabral admits. Besides his father, who served in World War II, he had three brothers who served in Vietnam. Cabral joined the military and was scheduled to be sent to Korea, but those orders were rescinded and he never served overseas. Still, he says, “Wherever I see the American flag, I know that I'm in a country where, to me, I'm equal.”
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‘ENGAGING THE PUBLIC’ Cabral’s tiny nonprofit generates less than $200,000 a year in revenue, and he makes less than $10,000 in his role as president and sole employee, according to public IRS records. The institute contracts with more than 30 certified transcribers to convert textbooks, government documents and other written materials into Braille. A dozen proofreaders double-check the transcriptions. Cabral would welcome help from organizations or even private individuals paying for the Braille flags, which cost $250 each, including mounting hardware. “It’s a matter of engaging the public,” he explains, so they can feel like they are part of the effort. Newton became the first school district in the nation to have the Braille flags installed in every school, among them Northridge Elementary. The Newton Lions Club donated funding for the flags,
and Cabral says he is seeking private donations to pay for flags for every school in the Wichita Unified School District. He hopes to have the flags installed this autumn. Last spring, the Kansas Braille Transcription Institute presented Braille flags to Isely Traditional Magnet Elementary, Allison Traditional Magnet Middle School, Northeast Magnet High School and West High School in Wichita. While students with vision loss attend many of the district’s schools, those with more intense needs attend Isely, Allison and Northeast. Students with low or limited vision were given paper Braille flags as well. Getting the Braille flag into every school in the country sounds daunting, but Cabral is brimming with confidence. He plans to first get the flag in every school in a county, then aim for every district in Kansas. If he wants financial assistance from the state, he will need to lobby the Kansas Legislature to approve funding, says Denise Kahler, director of communications for the Kansas Department of Education. Likewise, he might need to get Congress to approve funding for federal assistance to have the flags placed in every school in the nation. Cabral says he has already begun discussions with state legislators about his project and his goals. While Cabral has a long way to go to reach his aspirations, Hollie Dawson-Butler, director of related services for the Wichita school district, says she is pleased to see the Braille flags in Wichita schools. “Our district is a big supporter of making sure all students have a diverse learning environment, so they can experience all the different ways of life for all of our students – whether that's related to a visual impairment, a cultural difference, a linguistic difference or another factor.” Dawson-Butler says: “We are always open to exploring opportunities to support that goal.”
Every school in the Newton district has a Braille flag, At Northridge Elementary, principal Kate Bremerman mounted the flag in the lobby. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
DISCUSSION GUIDE 1. Identify ways that people spoke from the heart in this story. What was the impact of doing so? 2. What potential barriers or challenges exist to achieving the goal of having a Braille flag in every school in the nation? 3. What voices are needed at the table to achieve this goal? - By Maren Berblinger
The Braille flag is an extension of that, she says. “It would certainly facilitate those feelings of belonging and inclusion and be a great teaching point for others.” Sedgwick County Commissioner Sarah Lopez dug into her own pocket to pay for a Braille flag for Campus High School in Haysville, which is in her commission district. Her children go to Haysville schools, she says, so it was particularly meaningful for her to be able to do this for her community. Another donor has paid to have the flags installed in two more schools in the Haysville district, which has five elementary schools, two middle schools and two high schools. “We grow up seeing the flag every day… and there's such a beauty to everything that that flag stands for,” Lopez says. “And it's hard to think about these individuals not having that same opportunity” to see the flag. “This just gives them an opportunity to see the flag as we do. And how amazing is that? It’s such an incredible thing.”
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Celebrating an elusive greatness BY: MARK MCCORMICK
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agent.) Smith is a graduate of Howard University’s storied law school, where he learned that in society you’re either contributing socially or you’re a parasite.
captures Barry’s heart-stopping agility, but also, how generously he gave his fans run after beautiful run. Even his runs for loss could fascinate and excite.
In Barry, we’ve found a generous spirit.
Yep, the ceremony drew an impressive audience.
For example, Kevin Glover, one of Barry’s offensive linemen and now the University of Maryland football team’s director of player development, shared how Barry had gifted his linemen Rolex watches in appreciation for blocking for him. Since Glover made the Pro Bowl that year, Barry had a special watch made for him.
One almost as impressive as the man they came to celebrate.
Sculptors chisel a block of material until only the subject’s essence emerges. This piece not only Photo courtesy of Mark McCormick
Artists Omri Amrany and Lou Cella produced an 8-foot bronze replica of one of Wichita native Barry Sanders’ 1995 plays for the NFL’s Lions – poised in midair, jump-cut, eyes wide – amazingly balanced atop a 5-foot, blue granite base placed outside Ford Field in Detroit.
He stunned the sports world in 1999, abruptly retiring roughly 1,500 yards short of the all-time rushing record held then by Chicago Bears legend Walter Payton. The book Barry and I wrote 20 years ago is being re-released this fall as an e-book along with a new documentary about his life.
The sculptured Barry, like the flesh-and-blood version, is defying gravity, mysteriously remaining upright. He’s on one foot in a diagonal lean. Hips swiveled, left knee up, one arm outstretched, his body contorted into the shape of the letter C. All that’s missing are the defenders’ hands grasping the air in the C’s empty center.
Behind me sat Flavor Flav from hip hop supergroup Public Enemy. The group released “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” in 1988, but it still ranks as one of the decade’s topselling albums. Flav produces music with Barry’s oldest son, Nigel.
The impressive collection of people gathered to witness the September unveiling mirrored Barry’s epic career. Video tributes featured Michigan State University basketball coach Tom Izzo, San Francisco 49er great Jerry Rice and home run king Barry Bonds, among others. Retired Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning may have had the line of the day when he said that regardless of what Barry’s statue was made of, it would be easier to tackle than Barry was. And what a player he was.
I cornered Flav for a selfie. I ran into Barry’s friend David Ware, who as a young lawyer made the monumental restraint of trade argument allowing Barry – and countless players since – to leave college early for the NFL. Ware was the first Black lawyer to represent a Heisman Trophy winner. Ware was with Kenneth “Dabby” Dawson, a graceful runner with whom we played youth football, and whom Barry faced in the 1988 Holiday Bowl when his Oklahoma State Cowboys opposed Dawson’s Wyoming Cowboys. I saw C. Lamont Smith, Barry’s original agent. (Barry’s father insisted that his son have a Black
Mark McCormick previously served as editor of The Journal. Clockwise from top left: Mark McCormick and Barry Sanders on a school field trip. Mark and Barry at the September statue unveiling. (From left) Agent C. Lamont Smith, Barry, attorney David Ware, and J.B, Bernstein, CEO of Access Group, outside Ford Field. Hip-hop legend Flavor Flav and Mark. Photos courtesy of Mark McCormick
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AN 800-MILE HIGH-VOLTAGE TRANSMISSION LINE SCHEDULED TO BE BUILT IN 2024 IS AMONG THE RENEWABLE-ENERGY INFLUENCED PROJECTS THAT WILL BRING SIGNIFICANT CHANGES TO THE KANSAS PANORAMA AT PLACES SUCH AS FORT LARNED. IT’S THE LATEST WAY EVERYTHING FROM SOLAR PANELS TO WIND TURBINES IS RESHAPING THE LANDSCAPE AND ECONOMY OF THE STATE. THE SHIFT CARRIES PROFOUND ECONOMIC BENEFITS, BUT SOME LAMENT THE LOSS OF MORE PRISTINE HORIZONS. IT’S A STORY OF COMPETING VALUES THAT COULD CONTINUE TO EVOLVE FOR DECADES.
For visitors walking the boardwalks at Fort Larned, a 16-decade-old garrison, it can be easy to pretend that you’ve entered a different time. The scene is so lacking in evidence of the 21st century that, hearing footsteps on the boardwalk, you’d almost expect to see 19th century troopers chowing down at the mess or executing cavalry commands. Feel the Kansas wind whip body and soul, and you know they felt it too. Part of the beauty of the old fort is that visitors can turn back time and see some of the sights and sounds that travelers along the Santa Fe Trail experienced nearly two centuries before them. Ever since the fort became a unit of the National Park System – in August of 1964 – great pains have been taken to preserve and restore the fort’s look and feel.
in 2024, from Ford County east through Kansas, Missouri and Illinois, ending in Indiana. Nearly half the mileage of the Grain Belt Express will traverse Kansas. Although negotiations are still ongoing, the power line is expected to be visible from the western edge of the fort. The four-legged, metal towers carrying the lines will range in height from 130 to 160 feet, according to Brad Pnazek, vice president of transmission development for Invenergy, the company building the line. By comparison, typical rural grain elevators – long considered the skyscrapers of Kansas – are 90-feet tall. Yet Kristin Keith, president of the Fort Larned Old Guard, an auxiliary group at the fort, is concerned the line may detract from the character of the nation’s premier Indian Wars-era fort.
HORIZON HORIZON But that may soon be changing.
An 800-mile high-voltage transmission line is expected to be built, with construction beginning
A
“If you are at the fort as a tourist – definitely as a historian – you are wanting an authentic view and experience what life was like in the 1860s,” Keith says. “But then, you look out and see these huge power
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BY: BECCY TANNER
Dan Witt of Hoisington is retired from medicine but exercises his passion: photographing and doing his best to protect the Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area from a proposed solar farm. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
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Witt is specifically opposed to the solar panel project proposed around Cheyenne Bottoms and has collected a petition with more than 15,000 signatures opposing the project. “We must protect the land and birds and critters that live in our area that can’t speak for themselves,” Witt wrote in a column called “Marsh Musings,” published in the Great Bend Tribune this past spring. “If we lose them, we lose a huge part of our personal identity – I don’t want to do that.”
Cheyenne Bottoms is a world-famous marsh, but it’s more than a way station for migrating birds. Amphibians, reptiles and mammals, such as this coyote pup, call the place home. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
lines and, you know, it diminishes your experience. So, that’s where we are. “They put in these power lines and what’s next? “We have a good thing out at Fort Larned. It’s one of the most well-preserved forts on the frontier and in the West. How do you protect that?” The Kansas Corporation Commission approved building the project in two phases this past June, which, according to Dia Kuykendall of Invenergy, will allow Kansans to see economic benefits sooner. The first phase is from Kansas to the Missouri interconnection point. The proposal is expected to increase capacity on the line by 25 percent to 5,000 megawatts, with a total project investment of approximately $7 billion. The proposed route is 1.7 miles west of the National Historic Site and may be visible, perhaps far more visible than a current transmission line, from the western boundary of the fort. Grain Belt Express is working with the National Park Service and conducting an analysis to assess potential visual impacts. It’s hardly the only way that renewable energy is reshaping the horizon in central Kansas.
Cheyenne Bottoms, a designated Wetland of International Importance and key stopping point for migrating birds along the Central Flyway, is located about 50 miles northeast of the fort. Invenergy officials say their project should have no direct or indirect impacts on the wildlife area and preserve. A 1,500-acre, $300 million solar farm proposed by a Spanish company, Acciona Energy, located even closer to Cheyenne Bottoms is generating even more local opposition. This past spring, the Barton County Commission adopted a temporary ban on solar farms in an effort to buy time to revamp the county’s zoning regulations.
Representatives of Acciona could not be reached for comment. Witt says the project is, for now, no threat to Cheyenne Bottoms or the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge. He recently attended a meeting of the Kansas Wildlife and Parks Commission to express his opposition. He and other critics of the plan are talking with their local planning and zoning commissions and county governments in advance of any proposal being considered. “There will be trouble if they come close to a wetland,” says Witt, because of all the advocates for wildlife habitat. The projects in central Kansas are just two examples of communities finding themselves at odds over the future of landscapes. Amid vocal opposition last year, Johnson and Douglas counties approved regulations allowing the
construction of what’s called “the largest utilityscale solar farm in Kansas.” Sedgwick County, in south-central Kansas, recently passed a moratorium on commercial-scale solar projects in unincorporated areas. That’s given the county time to study any potential new regulations while debate simmers over a proposal from Invenergy for a 103-megawatt solar farm between Maize and Colwich. But the Grain Belt Express is a good example of how a national shift to renewable energy – crucial to reducing the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels and reducing the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change – has fueled opposition to landscape transformation. That’s despite the fact that these projects can offer landowners a new source of income, economic development to communities, along with general environmental benefits. The landscape, namely the wide-open horizons in rural areas that have long been part of Kansas’ identity, is undergoing change. It’s tough to keep modernity – particularly well-financed modernity – at bay. The Grain Belt Express is a long-distance transmission line that will deliver renewable energy generated in Kansas to neighboring “power pools” that serve consumers in Missouri, Illinois and Indiana and elsewhere across the Midwest. The project is slated to be built across those states in two phases, starting in Kansas and Missouri.
GRAIN BELT EXPRESS LINE MAP
It’s indicative of just how much green-energy projects have some conservationists concerned that the lines may be a threat to birds, in particular endangered whooping cranes that tend to loaf in area fields on their migrations. “These birds are low fliers,” says Dan Witt, a photographer and retired urologist who often drives the Bottoms two to three times a week. “They fly into barbed-wire fences. But when they are landing and taking off, they are very clumsy and not very agile. … By the time they realize there is trouble, they’ve already crashed into them and killed or damaged themselves.”
Kansas Overview 380 miles Phase 1
Missouri Overview 214 miles Phases 1 & 2
Illinois Overview 200 miles Phase 2
Indiana Overview 1.6 miles Phase 2
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Jim Gray of Geneseo takes pleasure in the vast, uncluttered plains of Kansas and looks askance at wind turbines and transmission lines. “The Kansas horizon goes beyond us,” he says. “It inspires and gives us a sense of who we are.” Photo by Jeff Tuttle
Ben Long, a National Park Service employee THE JOURNAL 77 at the Fort Larned Historic Site, describes what life was like for soldiers in the 1860s and 1870s to a group of children who visited courtesy of the Great Bend Recreation Commission. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
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The green energy being generated across the Flint Hills, the Smoky Hills, the Gyp Hills and the Red Hills means planting acres of twirling wind turbines with their flashing red lights. (It’s a phenomenon grating enough that the Kansas Legislature adopted a law this session designed to mitigate the blinks.) “It’s not just the horizon I have a concern with,” says Jim Gray, a fifth-generation Kansan who lives in Geneseo and whose great-grandmother was Euphemia Cody Gray, a cousin to Buffalo Bill Cody. Although none of the projects affect Gray’s land, he’s concerned about what they may be doing to Kansas’ landscape. “I have a concern with the native grasses and the dwindling resources of our native grassland and the habitat and biodiversity that goes with it. You put up these towers and turbines, and you just change the natural ecology of the surrounding system so that it ceases to be what it was meant to be. “I look at the horizon and I see these wind towers and transmission lines. I recognize that they are Cutline goes here, cutline goes here, cutline goes here, cutline goescommanding here, cutline officer goes here, Fort Larned’s cutline goes here, cutline goes was the only individual who enjoyedhere. by Jeff Tuttle private quartersPhoto for himself and his family. Other officers shared quarters, while enlisted men were housed in barracks. Volunteer Kristin Keith helps transport visitors back to the days when the troops were the guardians of the Santa Fe Trail. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
here because of this march of technology, this advancement of so-called civilization. But then, what does it really mean to be civilized? It probably goes beyond words to explain the effect it has upon us to blot out that big open horizon that gives us a sense we can do anything. The Kansas horizon goes beyond us. It inspires and gives us a sense of who we are. … So, that’s what changes.” HARNESSING THE POWER The changes are being wrought, in part, because one natural resource – the state’s bounty of wind and sun – have become money factories at a time when another resource – the often-dismissed minimalist aesthetics of the Plains – brings less tangible economic value to the equation. Most Kansans know the wind is constant and has been the legacy of Kansas at least since the preColumbian era. “Kansas is herself again,” a Kansas correspondent wrote in 1880 in The Salina Journal. “The wind blows and the dust and sand flies, but no rain descends. A newcomer asked one of our fellow townsmen if it always blew this way in Kansas. He replied that there were perhaps two or three days during the year that it did not.” We are a state of skywatchers. Fortunes can be made and lost by Kansas weather. At times, the scent of rain on a spring day becomes a gambling fix. To understand what’s at stake, you only have to look into the faces of Kansas wheat farmers when fields are golden, ready to be harvested, as dark, green storm clouds march across the horizon. It’s hard to put a price, though, on a view. Wind, on the other hand, is becoming increasingly crucial to the state’s economy. Consider these factoids from the U.S. Energy Information Administration: • Wind surpassed coal in 2019 to become the largest source of electricity in Kansas. • Wind accounted for 47% of the state’s total net generation in 2022.
• Coal produced 32% of the state’s net energy that year, with a nuclear power plant contributing 14% and gas-fired plants contributing 6%. (The rest of Kansas’s electricity generation comes from a group of sources that include petroleum liquids, solar energy, biomass and hydroelectric power.) For now, Kansas ranks fourth in the nation in wind power. “Since 2016, 400 new turbines have gone up in Kansas with rotor hubs taller than the Statue of Liberty. … The state now has nearly 4,000 turbines, with hubs between 210 and 400 feet high,” according to a news report on March 1 by Celia Llopis-Jepsen for KCUR-FM, Kansas City’s National Public Radio affiliate. But it’s been a struggle to build the transmission lines to enable green-energy producing states to export power. And those lines are needed if the nation is going to meet its goal to decarbonize by 2050, according to research by Princeton University. “So, the Grain Belt Express Project has been around going on more than a decade or so,” Pnazek says. “We at Invenergy believe Grain Belt Express is critically important to Kansas families and businesses. By harnessing one of
the Midwest’s greatest domestic energy sources, southwest Kansas’ wind power, we can greatly improve the reliability of the electric grid, while helping Kansas families and businesses that are facing rising energy costs. We also believe our country’s national security is strengthened when we increase our domestic energy supply to become more energy independent.” Pnazek says it is anticipated that building the Grain Belt Express will create 19,350 construction jobs in Kansas. “This is a multistate, interregional project,” Pnazek says. “So, we are not just getting approvals from state officials in Kansas, but also in Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. Why Kansas? The abundance of wind and solar resources that we find in southwest Kansas, in particular. The project has a converter station, which is one of the end points in Ford County. The wind blows strong out there and regularly.” Indeed, according to the website weatherstationadvisor.com, Dodge City is the windiest city in the nation, clocking in with an average wind speed of 13.1 mph. April is its windiest month with August being the calmest.
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“The thesis behind the Grain Belt Express is to unleash that abundant energy from that area to serve other markets that are looking for affordable, reliable, renewable power,” Pnazek says. “So, the number of megawatts over the number of miles transported, Grain Belt is at the top of the list here in the U.S. That power gets transmitted across the rest of Kansas, over the river into Missouri and then to another converter station in Missouri … and then across the Mighty Mississippi into Illinois and then on to Indiana.” So, what does Kansas get out of this? Witt says more wind energy will undoubtedly make some people richer. But the project’s corporate officials say their project will also help stabilize rural economies, particularly businesses that might not be directly affected by the lines – while strengthening the nation’s power grid. “It’s not just the transmission line itself, but the generating assets and as much as $8.1 billion of capital investments in Kansas,” Pnazek says. “Kansas is one of those abundant producers – so that comes back and benefits Kansas landowners and Kansas electrical providers in that affordable energy gets moved over and suppresses the cost of energy across all these regions.” Seventy percent of the nation’s power grid, Pnazek says, has transmission lines that are 25 years or older.
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“Just like an old piece of farm equipment or a car, you need to keep upgrading and updating things as they go on,” he says. “We are seeing that highvoltage direct-current system that we are using for Grain Belt Express is an efficient way to move power across an 800-mile stretch of property.” ‘A BIG NUMBER’ Acquiring the land is about 80% complete, Pnazek says. Negotiations are continuing. “We acquired this project in 2019,” he says. “We have had members of our project team out talking with landowners along the 530 miles that constitute Phase One of the project, which is Kansas and Missouri. Eighty-seven percent of the miles have been acquired with voluntary easements – the ones that have been negotiated in good faith between us and the landowners. “With the approval of the KCC (Kansas Corporation Commission), they do grant us the ability to use condemnation for eminent domain purposes. We have had the need to file petitions on a dozen or so properties. But again, that’s a real small percentage of the 1,300 to 1,400 landowners that we’re dealing with. I think that goes to show the kind of effort we are going to, to build relationships with the landowners.” Consensus building has been attempted through household-by-household negotiations with landowners, Pnazek says.
“It’s a lot of cups of coffee,” Pnazek says. “You will sit at family tables and meet people where they are at – and help them understand our project as well as understanding their needs. I think we are going above and beyond what the standard utility processes have been in setting transmission lines in the past. It is most impactful on landowners. We are putting money in people’s pockets. We are going above and beyond industry norms on compensation. We are paying 110% of the fair market value for the easements whereas previous utilities might pay 90%. And we are making payments for the tower structures that are being located on people’s property.”
Beyond that, Pnazek says, the project is a boost to the local economies with more money spent at gas stations, restaurants and suppliers.
In some cases, Pnazek says, it has meant negotiating over what some landowners see as needs. It has sometimes meant erecting new gates and making sure gates are locked properly and that both parties have keys.
“We are still early in the process,” says Kevin Eads, the fort’s superintendent. “Fort Larned is a National Historic Landmark as well as a unit of the National Park Service. So, those things have to be taken into account. We are looking at the visual – the potential for visual impacts to the cultural landscape and how that will affect the park and our national designation.
“There’s folks that are never going to come to agreement with us. It’s their right to feel that way. And I guess that’s why when it comes to approvals of projects like this, the KCC grants us the ability of eminent domain.” “I think $8.1 billion is a big number,” Pnazek says. “Sometimes it is easy for developers to kind of throw around big numbers. But I think what it comes back to is the direct payments to landowners. These easements, these voluntary easements are going to put money in their pockets.”
GOING AGAINST THE WIND But will the changes in the horizon reduce the opportunities Kansans have to experience their history? At Fort Larned, some of the staff hope concessions can be made to honor the fort’s importance to the nation’s history.
“Our staff has worked really hard to preserve the fort, circa 1868. Whenever you come into the park, you don’t have the typical signs and things showing – because you are going back in time, whenever you walk into the park.” The fort and Grain Belt are working on an environmental impact statement. At the April board meeting of the Fort Larned Old Guard, George Elmore, chief ranger at the fort,
At 41,000 acres, the Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area has enough space to attract and hold species large and small, while providing a haven for wildlife watchers, too. Photo by Jeff Tuttle
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says most visitors to the fort will have their backs to the transmission line once they park in the fort’s parking lot and walk across a bridge to the fort. But the transmission line will still be visible – mostly as the visitors return to their vehicles. For visitors during the summer months, the leaves on trees by the Pawnee Fork will block much of the westward view. Winter visitors will see the full impact of the transmission line, Elmore says. Even so, there are the poets and free spirits who question what this new horizon is bringing to Kansas. Gray looks at all these new projects with an eyebrow half-raised. “Maybe I am optimistic, but I honestly think that we’re moving towards a new era,” Gray says, “in which we will all self-produce our own electricity. I think that this idea of these companies supplying our energy is short-sighted.“ Gray thinks solar and wind development is still in its infancy. “I think we are seeing the dawning of a new age. They are developing solar panels to the extent that they look like shingles on your house.
Transmission lines and even wind towers – I can see them all becoming obsolete.” So, as he looks across the horizon, Gray says, he remembers growing up around Geneseo six decades ago and seeing oil derricks filling the horizon. “I was just a kid when oil was developed and at every location, they had put up a steel derrick and when you drove through the countryside, your horizon was interrupted by hundreds of steel derricks,” Gray says. “Well, as time went on that changed, and all the derricks were taken down and the horizon opened again.
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Gray envisions a future where history might repeat itself, this time with wind instead of oil. If it comes to pass, Gray imagines, “the horizon will just open up again.” Until then, though, Kansas will continue navigating a delicate balance of competing values – the expansion of renewable energy, the openness of the horizon, the rights of landowners and economic growth. It’s not a new story, but certainly a new chapter.
DISCUSSION GUIDE 1. What competing values can you identify in this story? 2. How are various factions being engaged? 3. How can supporters of new energy create space to speak to the loss the community feels around preserving their landscapes? - By Neha Batawala
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