KANSAS! Magazine | Fall 2020

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inside

The Apollo 13 command module Odyssey is displayed at the Cosmosphere museum in Hutchinson.

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Explorers and Innovators Having created new paths and new approaches in their lives, these Kansans represent values and a spirit we hope to take with us into the future

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SpaceWorks A Kansas crew of expert technicians restores, recreates and sometimes reimagines iconic space artifacts for public displays

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY Cosmosphere International SciEd Center and Space Museum

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Kansas Details | Cuisine Fine Food and Good Eats | Made in Kansas Must-have Local Items | Heartland People and Places that Define Us | Culture Arts and Experiences | Kansas Air The Freshness of Outdoor Life | Lens A Conversation with KANSAS! Photographers 22 | Reasons We Love Kansas

Celebrating Unique Attractions 24 | My Reasons

An Advocate for Grassroots Art 26 | Must See

Upcoming Events to Enjoy

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From the Editor

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In this Issue

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Wide Open Spaces 28 | Taste of Kansas: Chuckwagon Cooking

A Wabaunsee County couple prepares old-style meals for modern-day ranch hands

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32 | Emmett’s Place

The third-generation owners of Louisburg Cider Mill continue to harvest and expand on their founder’s dream

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ON THE COVER “Kansas Trailblazers,” an original illustration for KANSAS! Magazine by Angie Pickman.

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KANSAS! (ISSN 0022-8435) is published quarterly by the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism 1020 S. Kansas Ave., Suite 200, Topeka, KS 66612; (785) 296-3479; TTY Hearing Impaired: (785) 296-3487.

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in this

issue The Tart and the Sweet Our story on the Louisburg Cider Mill includes recipes for apple cider marinade and apple cider butter bread.

But it doesn’t include a recipe for cider.

One reason for this omission is that the apples, the main ingredient, vary so often. “We don’t have a set variety that we use in our blend; rather we focus on combining certain proportions of sweet and tart fruit,” explains the mill’s third-generation owner, Josh Hebert. “The key is to have a good blend of fruit.” Some of the varieties often used include Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Fuji, Gala, Honeycrisp, Cameo, Jonathan, Jonagold, Braeburn, Jazz and Piñata.

PHOTOGRAPHS (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) Bill Stephens, Dick Smith, Jeffrey McPheeters

‘Permanent, lasting contribution’

Our feature on great Kansas explorers and innovators includes several original creations

by Kansas artists. In addition, we commissioned two portraits from younger creators, Harley Vinsonhaler and Phillip White, participants in Living the Dream’s annual youth art competition.

This nonprofit sponsors several community initiatives and coordinates with the governor’s Kansas African American Affairs Commission to organize the state’s annual Martin Luther King Day celebration march. Board member Cindy White explains that since 2001, the group has also encouraged local youth with essay, poetry and art competitions and scholarships. Works from artists in the 2018 and 2019 competition were included as part of the public mural outside of the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Topeka. “To have that permanent, lasting contribution speaks volumes for their work,” says White. “And that mural speaks volumes even about what is happening today.” You can read more about the group’s work at ltdtopeka.com.

On the Trails Again

Dawn and Geff Dawson, featured in this issue’s food and recipe story, love to base many of their menus on authentic, old-West recipes. It’s no surprise, then, that the chuckwagons they use when catering at ranches and events have their own authentic heritage. When the Dawsons began to build one of their chuckwagons, they found some old wagon parts at an auction. To their delight, after washing away what seemed like 100 years of dirt, they discovered an emblem for Beggs Wagon, a Kansas City company that manufactured wagons from the 1870s–1920s. Geff was able to use parts of this wagon, including the original running gears and wagon seat, in creating the chuckwagon they continue to haul out to ranches and other locations.

around the

state

These are just some of the locations represented in this issue of KANSAS! magazine.

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Oakley

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Beeler

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Fort Larned

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Burns

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Louisburg

Wichita

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from the

editor This issue is dedicated to those who dare to see beyond what’s expected and envision making the impossible possible.

Exploration and innovation are core values threaded tightly through the fabric of our state. Young Kansans need only look at the generation or two before them to see that Kansas, the Free State, has been a birthplace to those courageous enough to strike out into new territories (literally and figuratively) and blaze trails so bright we are still following them today.

In our Explorers and Innovators feature, we showcase ten individuals with Kansas roots who set their own path. Some names will be familiar, such as George Washington Carver and Amelia Earhart, but a few might be new to you. Each of their stories is a testament to having an inquisitive spirit and determination.

The ten chosen for this story are representative of Kansans who left their mark. For each one included, there are probably dozens of others, known and unknown, whose stories would have been equally compelling.

Being an explorer is not just for those in our history books—we can all still be explorers today. Each time we travel or take an adventure, we’re exploring. Maybe a site has already been “discovered,” but does that take away from the excitement of seeing it? Not for me. Standing at the top of Point of Rocks, looking over the plains of the Cimarron National Grasslands, and viewing the enduring wagon ruts of the Santa Fe Trail—all of this has only heightened my sense of awe and wonder.

Those emotions can be experienced across our state. For those who may not want to explore alone, there is the Kansas Explorers Club, spearheaded by Marci Penner and WenDee Rowe. I’m a proud card-carrying member, Kansas Explorer #6450. I encourage you to connect with fellow Kansas explorers online or through local community groups.

As you explore, share your stories with me. One of my favorite things is hearing from our readers. You can message me directly at andrea.etzel@ks.gov.

Happy exploring!

ANDREA ETZEL

EDITOR, KANSAS! MAGAZINE

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KANSAS! MAGAZINE | FALL 2020

PHOTOGRAPH Andrea Etzel

@KANSASMag

cuisine

K A N S A S D E TA I L S

Kansas restaurants combine dining and entertainment

By Cecilia Harris

When the youngster’s bowling ball spins down the lane and takes out every pin, her parents put down their burgers to cheer the strike from their table at The Pennant in Topeka. With four bowling lanes and over 30 vintage arcade games like Pac-Man and Skee-Ball, this downtown dining establishment features a menu that reflects the game atmosphere.

“Our goal is for our guests to come in and have as much fun as they can,” says Todd Renner, The Pennant’s general manager. “We go a little over the top and add a little extra on everything we do here,” Renner says.

The popular Bourbonator Burger features smoky Gouda cheese, caramelized onions, and bourbon-bacon jam. Fries come smothered with options like jalapeño cream cheese, bacon, and pickled jalapeños. And of the unconventional desserts, the Over the Rainbow Shake triumphs with ice cream piled into a waffle cone and topped with coconut cotton candy, sprinkles and whipped cream.

“The kids love it,” Renner says. “We take the shake out to the table and watch their eyes brighten up.”

This approach reflects a growing family restaurant trend called “eatertainment,” the winning combination of food and games offered by other Kansas venues.

Pittsburg’s Cosmic Castle Soda Shop and Arcade, home of classic coin-operated games, offers more than a dozen beef hot dog topping combinations, including the Steve Dog with barbecued chicken and bacon.

And in Lawrence, RPG (Restaurant, Pub and Games) provides over 1,000 board games such as Monopoly or Codenames for patrons to play as they enjoy menu items like the Vegan General Tso’s (tempura cauliflower, vegetable fried rice and furikake).

thepennanttopeka.com | (785) 286-6808 cosmic-castle.com | (620) 717-4105 rpglawrence.com | (785) 330-5079

Look for German flags marking vendors featuring Volga German cuisine and crafts at the Downtown Hays Market Saturday morning in the Pavilion during the city’s annual Oktoberfest, a weekend celebration featuring German-heritage foods, crafts, beer and musical entertainment in nearby Municipal Park.

downtownhays.com (785) 621-4171

FIND THE WINE November 7 and 14 Walter’s Pumpkin Patch Burns Find your way through this family farm’s corn maze to get a taste of award-winning wines served at hidden wine stations in the corn stocks. Kansas wineries will provide the wines to sample at this adultonly event running on November 7 and November 14.

thewaltersfarm.com (316) 320-4150 Where in Kansas?

Lawrence Pittsburg

Topeka

KANSAS! MAGAZINE | FALL 2020

Burns

Hays

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PHOTOGRAPHS (FROM LEFT TO RIGHT) Shutterstock, courtesy Anna Petrow

PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD

DEUTSCHER MARKET October 3 Downtown Pavilion | Hays

The kids love it.

We take the shake out to the table and watch their eyes brighten up.� –Todd Renner

Artist Tomiyo Tajiri sits in her home studio in front of some of her kimono creations.

OPPOSITE Tajiri uses origami to create intricate patterns and floral shapes.

K A N S A S D E TA I L S

made in kansas

BEAUTY IN PAPER, BLOOMS AND GLASS Beauty blossoms in artistic and natural Kansas creations

By Amber Fraley

Prairie Lavender Farm The six and a half acres of Prairie Lavender Farm sit on the cusp of the tallgrass and shortgrass prairies of northcentral Kansas, between Bennington and Salina. The land provides full sun, good drainage and the alkaline soil that allows lavender to bloom from June through October. It can be harvested four or five times during a single growing season.

Mike Neustrom, who founded the farm in 2002, has since expanded his perennial crop to include over 4,600 individual plants and 12 different varieties of lavender.

Currently the president of the US Lavender Growers Association, Neustrom says he is proud to grow a Kansas crop with such a rich, global history. “The perennial herb lavender has a history of over two thousand years of providing natural healing properties,” says Neustrom. “We have found this still resonates today.”

In addition to selling lavender plants and blooms, Prairie Lavender Farm also creates lavender health and beauty products as well as teas, lavender-infused honey and lavender for cooking. Every item is natural and made on-site. The farm does have a gift shop and offers tours. Guests should check in advance by calling (785) 488-3371 or going online at prairielavenderfarm.com.

Wichita Benningtion

Detrixhe Studios Stan Detrixhe designs, creates and repairs stained and fused glass in his Hays-based studio. It’s a craft he has been mastering for more than thirty years. “The world of stained glass and fused glass is evolving, and I revel in its wonder anytime I can experiment and have the privilege of bringing my art to people. For me, when it comes to pure color, nothing Where in Kansas? beats sunlight coming through a stained glass window,” says Detrixhe. You can see examples of his work on the Detrixhe Studios Facebook page or can call (785) 628-6564 to find out about upcoming showings and craft fair appearances.

Hays

PHOTOGRAPH Justin Lister

Wayasashi Studio From her home studio in Wichita, Tomiyo Tajiri creates stunning kimonos, origami art and accessories. Tajiri began studying her craft while growing up on Okinoerabujima, a small Japanese island near Okinawa, and continued her craft when she moved to the United States in 1995.

Although legally blind, Tajiri has given demonstrations and training classes in New York, Colorado, California and Kansas. The artist says the most important aspect of her creations is touch. She works out design and color in her mind, but relies on touch to bring her creations into being.

“My hand wants something to touch. That’s very important to me,” she says.

Tajiri also places a high importance on the idea of reconnecting with nature to elevate one’s mood. “I like natural. I like nature. I like the plants and the flowers,” she says, explaining that this is why she likes to honor and recreate the natural world in her origami, and she is willing to spend hours on the meticulous folds of the paper flowers and animals she brings to life.

Tajiri describes this artful connection to nature as “healing” and continues to create and display her works, which can be seen at different times in Wichita galleries and through her studio’s Facebook page, Wayasashi. “I don’t give up,” says Tajiri. “I know what’s important to me. I’m very happy.”

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heartland

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KANSAS! MAGAZINE | FALL 2020

Patty Reece, project director for The Volland Store in Alma, Kansas, one of the six venues that will be hosting the Smithsonian exhibit, as well as a local exhibit, says she hopes the exhibit will help close the information gap between rural and urban lifestyles.

“I think the value of this exhibit, because it’s a Smithsonian exhibit, it will attract [people from] urban areas, but then the local aspect will also attract those from the rural communities because those people take a lot of pride in where they come from,” Reece says. “The whole idea of this exhibit is to start conversations about these communities and about how they can remain strong and sustainable.”

As Reece and other project coordinators look at ways to explore connections between rural and urban life, they also have to address an issue affecting everyone: the COVID-19 pandemic. As states continue to gradually reopen, Reece says The Volland Store and other local venues are aware of the challenges the pandemic presents and are in preliminary discussions to make the tour viewable online. To see the official tour schedule, visit humanitieskansas.org/grantsprograms/initiatives/crossroadschange-in-rural-america.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY Kansas Humanities

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Alma

The whole idea of this exhibit is to start conversations about these communities and about how they can remain strong and sustainable.”

–Patty Reece

Iola Independence

Six Kansas communities have partnered with Humanities Kansas to feature the tour of “Crossroads: Change in Rural America,” the newest Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibition from its national outreach program, Museum on Main Street.

The exhibit will show in Alma, Independence, Iola, Greensburg, Norton and North Newton. In addition, Humanities Kansas will partner with 10 additional communities that will develop their own spin-off exhibitions and public programs beginning in August 2020.

Tracy Quillin, associate director for Humanities Kansas, says this tour will be an opportunity to drive conversations about the togetherness of rural life, as well as the challenges of sustaining local grocery stores and accessing highspeed internet and affordable and efficient healthcare.

“The goal of the tour is to explore the history and culture of local, rural life and what it means to live rural in the 21st century,” Quillin says. “It explains the relationship between urban and rural life, and it will drive conversations about what people would like to see in their communities, whether that be a farmers’ market or a bigger hospital.”

North Newton

By Kalli Jo Smith

Greensburg

Kansas communities to host tour of Smithsonian exhibition and local exhibits highlighting rural life.

Norton

CROSSROADS: CHANGE IN RURAL AMERICA TOUR

Where in Kansas?

Through stories and images such as these, the Crossroads Tour seeks to highlight the importance of rural communities and the struggles they face today.

Contestants receive cornhusking lessons and tips before the 2019 state competition.

culture

K A N S A S D E TA I L S

AW, SHUCKS! Kansas to host the 2021 National Cornhusking Contest

By Cecilia Harris

SPOOK WALK October 16–17 | Hutchinson Kids age 12 and under are invited to dress in their Halloween costumes and bring their family to walk the trails of the Dillon Nature Center to see non-scary performances by the Family Community Theatre along the path. The theater trail tours begin every 30 minutes, from 5:30–8:30 p.m., and tickets can be purchased in advance.

facebook.com: dillonnaturecenter (620) 663-7411

50TH ANNUAL EVENING OF LIGHTS CHRISTMAS PARADE

The cornhuskers work their way quickly down rows of corn from stalk to stalk, reaching up or bending down to pick the ears and then rip off the husks before tossing them into horse-drawn wagons pacing behind them. This typical pre-industrialization corn harvest scene occurs annually at the National Cornhusking Contest, where competitors from nine states showcase the traditional farm skill. The Covid-19 crisis postponed the official 2020 Kansas and national competitions, but both have been rescheduled for 2021 with Oakley as the host venue.

The state contest, with multiple age divisions from kids to senior citizens, is open to anyone who registers. Experts will teach those interested in learning the skill, and the greenhorns then may compete in the novice class. The winners of the timed contests are determined by the final corn weight once penalties for unhusked and dropped ears of corn are subtracted. Those who qualify will compete in the national contest, and the entry fee includes a ticket to the awards banquet.

During the festival, organizers will offer free screenings of When Farmers Were Heroes, a 27-minute documentary on the origin of the cornhusking contests in the 1920s, its rise as a national sport that would draw over 100,000 spectators, and the nation’s idolization of the sport’s “cornfield gladiator” champions. Other scheduled activities include a corn art contest, a corn cook-off, a corn ear throwing contest, a corn maze, a virtual roller coaster, and horse-drawn wagon rides.

garnettchamber.org (785) 448-6767

Where in Kansas?

Garnett

Hutchinson

buffalobilloakley.org/annual-events/kansas-state-cornhusking (785) 671-1000

Join the countdown to lighting Garnett’s Downtown Square in all its festive glow, warm up with the annual fire department chili and soup supper, and then watch the parade of illuminated floats, high school band and dance performances, and, yes, even an appearance by Santa at the 50th anniversary of this annual holiday celebration.

Oakley

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY Oakley Corn Festival

November 28 | Garnett

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kansas air

K A N S A S D E TA I L S

FALCONRY

The Kansas prairie provides perfect hunting grounds for raptors and their trainers This fall and winter the Kansas countryside will be sprinkled with thousands of hunters, and a few will have birds of prey on their arms.

“Kansas is a great state to practice falconry. It has to rate as one of the best,” says Dan McCarron, president of the Kansas Hawking Club. “There’s so much here to hunt,” he adds, listing pheasants, quail, cottontails, squirrels, jackrabbits, ducks and prairie chickens.

McCarron estimates that Kansas is home to 40 to 50 licensed falconers, each pursuing a sport that demands a tremendous amount of time and training.

“It’s a lot more than a hobby, almost a way of life,” says McCarron.

“It’s not like with a shotgun and you get home, put it away and not get it out again for six months. These birds take a lot of care every day.”

Starting the hunt Just getting started requires a huge investment as well as knowledge about caring for the birds.

State and federal wildlife agencies have stringent regulations to protect the kept birds.

Vanessa Avara, a Manhattan falconer, notes that hopeful falconers must first pass a written test, then complete a two-year apprenticeship with an experienced falconer.

Facilities and equipment must be inspected prior to a new falconer getting their first bird, which must be captured in the wild, with species and age guidelines.

Kansas falconers must adhere to all general hunting regulations and

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KANSAS! MAGAZINE | FALL 2020

have the appropriate licenses, as well as to ones specific to falconry. They can fly their birds during any regular hunting season, plus a few extra weeks open only to falconers.

Licensed falconers, like McCarron and Avara, think it’s worth the time and money to share hunting trips with some of Mother Nature’s most efficient predators.

Both note that falconers often develop a special bond with their birds. Some choose eventually to release their birds back into the wild if they’re sure the native hawk or falcon can survive on their own.

For some hunters, falconry is one just one aspect of hunting with other raptors.

Nate Mathews, a Wichita resident, is training a prairie falcon for ducks. “We’ll be watching a bird that may be going 150 to 200 miles per hour when it hits a duck,” says Mathews. “They’re just amazing birds to watch. It doesn’t always work, but when it does, it’s like magic.” Mathews also has trained and flies a golden eagle to hunt cottontail and jackrabbits in central and western Kansas.

Land of great falconry opportunities Modern falconry dates back at least 3,000 years, to the steppes of ancient Mongolia. It has changed little as it has spread around the world and continued to the present. Kansas’ numerous hunting opportunities have made the state a popular destination for modern falconers. In 2019, over 200 falconers from many states and

several foreign countries gathered in Great Bend for the annual gathering of the North American Falconers Association. At the event, many of the falconers concentrated on hunting waterfowl, pheasant and quail. And others, such as Chris and Melonie Tarlton from South Carolina, flew their red-tailed hawks to hunt Kansas fox squirrels.

“Those are like finding a pot of gold for us,” said Chris. “All we hunt are those little eastern gray squirrels, and these red fox squirrels are so much bigger.”

Mathews explains that western Kansas, in particular, is a top destination for those wanting to fly large hawks and eagles for jackrabbits.

Western Kansas jackrabbits often live in open covers, like wheat stubble or grazed pastures. Such habitats allow falconers good views of their birds chasing prey. It’s also safer for the birds compared to flying them amid sage and other brush.

McCarran says officials at the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism have a great track record for working with falconers. So do Kansas landowners.

Chris Durham, a South Carolina falconer found that true when he attended the Great Bend event last year.

“We hardly ever (got) turned down when we asked permission,” says Durham, as he and others flew birds within a few yards of a landowner’s house. “When you tell them you’re hunting with a bird, most people are not only going to let you, some want to come watch.”

OPPOSITE Falconry enthusiasts bring a variety of raptors, including Harris hawks such as this one, into Kansas for hunting.

PHOTOGRAPH Shutterstock

By Michael Pearce

FOR MORE INFORMATION For information on laws governing falconry, including hunting, transporting, selling and more in Kansas (both for residents and for guests who wish to bring birds into the state), go to ksoutdoors.com/Services/LawEnforcement/Regulations/Falconry For more information on Kansas falconry, go to kansashawkingclub.org.

lens

K A N S A S D E TA I L S

DAVE LEIKER

A conversation with KANSAS! photographers about their lives in photography

A valuable lesson I’ve learned as a photographer is to observe silence, to become quietly receptive. It takes time and practice to actually “see” what is right in front of us.”

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY Dave Leiker

–Dave Leiker OPPOSITE (CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP) “October Storm,” photographed in Lyon County, this is the “chance” image that Dave Leiker describes in his interview. | “Sunrise Bottle Feeding,” photographed at the Sauble Ranch, believed to be the oldest continuously operating ranch in Kansas | “Milky Way over Chase County Lake,” photographed in July 2017 | “Sweat Bee on Moth Mullein Wildflower,” photographed along the back roads of Flint Hills National Wildlife Refuge | “Foggy Morning Cattle Drive,” photographed near the Bazaar cattle pens in Chase County; this is one of the images from Leiker’s favorite photo shoot.

A Kansan all his life, Dave Leiker was born in Salina and has made Emporia his home for the past 30 years. Here, he runs a photography studio and documents the landscape of the Flint Hills region, as well as the wildlife and people he encounters during trips through the region’s rugged backroads. His photographs are frequently shown in Kansas galleries and have been widely published, including on the covers of four award-winning Kansas Notable Books.

What was your first camera? The first camera I remember using was a Brownie Hawkeye, which was likely also the family camera. My first truly-my-own camera was a wonderful, pre-owned, black Fujifilm SLR, purchased when I was studying art at college.

What is one of the hardest subjects to photograph badly? What is one of the most difficult subjects to photograph well? The hardest to photograph badly are horses. They’re naturally beautiful in form and every movement is expressive. Sweat bees are a personal favorite to photograph but are among the hardest subjects because they are so tiny.

How would you describe your photography in terms of a color wheel? I suppose my photography lives in the softer earth tones of a color wheel.

Often I use limited palettes or no color at all. I love subtlety.

Tell us about the shot that got away …

The shots that got away? That happens mostly with wildlife. Natural creatures are so sensitive, and I’m a little klutzy in the wild.

What is your favorite chance photograph? It was a brutal storm front approaching Emporia one evening. A huge roll of clouds was moving in, spanning the southwest sky. I rushed into the country

to get a clear vantage, hoping to find a hill view without visual obstructions.

Eventually, I came to a high spot along a country road next to a corral and small group of cattle. As I got out of my truck, lightning and thunder tore through the air; the rain was so intense I could barely focus the camera. Just for a moment the entire cloudbank became bathed in gorgeous backlighting, illuminating the structure of the storm from within.

I composed the image as well as I could in the rain and accomplished one of my favorite landscape photos.

What is your favorite photoshoot of your career? That’s easy. Several years ago I was invited to ride out on horseback with the Ryan Arndt crew on an early fog-bound morning near the Bazaar cattle pens. I photographed their movements across the tallgrass prairie as the fog lifted in the morning sun.

What is your most common advice to beginning photographers? It is to simplify—to eliminate nonessential elements and distractions from imagery.

What have you learned from photography that applies to life?

A valuable lesson I’ve learned as a photographer is to observe silence, to become quietly receptive. It takes time and practice to actually “see” what is right in front of us.

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reasons

K A N S A S D E TA I L S

Reasons

WE LOVE KANSAS

By Cecilia Harris

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KANSAS! MAGAZINE | FALL 2020

IN THIS ISSUE

On the Rocks Tour

reasons

K A N S A S D E TA I L S

1 CASTLE ROCK | Collyer

A distinctive geologic feature, this Niobrara chalk spire stands alone in a pasture, giving the appearance of a large castle rising from the prairie. Not far away, chalk badlands overlook the lone pillar that served as a landmark for early travelers. Property owners graciously allow the public to view both although the roads are unpaved.

travelks.com/listing/castle-rock/16010/ | (785) 743-8325

2 MONUMENT ROCKS NATIONAL NATURAL LANDMARK | Oakley

Designated as the first National Natural Landmark in Kansas in 1968, this 10-acre site features pinnacles, small buttes and spires of the Niobrara chalk formation. The region is a well-known source of Cretaceous marine fossils and the home to abundant wildlife. Because the site is located on private property, please respect the posted guidelines.

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Facebook.com: Monument Rocks Chalk Pyramids Kansas | (785) 671-1000

MUSHROOM STATE PARK | Marquette 3 Millions of years of erosion slowly created the unusual Dakota sandstone concretions in this five-acre park, the smallest in the state. Resembling giant mushrooms and measuring up to 27 feet in diameter, the formations served as landmarks and meeting places for Native Americans and early pioneers such as Kit Carson and John C. Fremont.

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4 LITTLE JERUSALEM BADLANDS STATE PARK | Oakley

A mile-long stretch of 100-foot-tall spires and cliffs make up the state’s largest formation of eroded Niobrara chalk in this recently opened state park adjacent to the Nature Conservancy’s Smoky Valley Ranch. Pedestrian and wheelchair-accessible trails provide views of thriving flora and fauna amidst the fragile, rugged limestone pyramids; guided tours hike off trail.

ksoutdoors.com/State-Parks/Locations/Little-Jerusalem-Badlands (620) 872-2061

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5 ROCK CITY PARK | Minneapolis

In the middle of rolling farmland stand 200 rare, round Dakota sandstone formations, some as large as 27 feet in diameter. These elaborate formations were created when an inland sea covered the state. Designated as a National Natural Landmark, the park is always open and includes interconnecting trails abundant with wildlife, native grasses and wildflowers.

Facebook: Rock City Park | (785) 392-2092

6 PAWNEE ROCK STATE HISTORIC SITE | Pawnee Rock

On the grounds of this Dakota sandstone bluff, interpretative signs discuss the Santa Fe Trail and its travelers. The rock marked the halfway point on the Santa Fe Trail, and Pawnee Indians used the flat-topped citadel as a landmark, meeting place and observation point to track buffalo herds and wagon trains. Although much of Pawnee Rock was destroyed in the 1870s by railroad construction and settlers in need of stone, the pavilion provides a 360-degree view of the beautiful Arkansas River Valley below.

5 6 Where in Kansas?

Minneapolis

Marquette

Oakley

Pawnee Rock

kshs.org/pawnee_rock | (785) 272-8681

Collyer

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY (CLOCKWISE FROM OPPOSITE) Morgan Barrett, Jonathan Adams, Erik Johnson, KDWPT, Eldon Clark, Kansas Historical Society

ksoutdoors.com/State-Parks/Locations/Mushroom-Rock | (785) 546-2565

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my reasons My Reasons with ...

GREG MILLS

By Cecilia Harris

K A N S A S D E TA I L S

Born in Dodge City, raised in Great Bend and having graduated with a degree in wildlife management from Fort Hays State University, avid outdoorsman Greg Mills says he was fortunate to grow up surrounded by the Kansas outdoors.

“My father introduced me to waterfowl hunting at an early age, and we spent a majority of our time in the fall hunting ducks and geese at Cheyenne Bottoms,” Mills says. “These are the memories that I will always cherish, but I continue to make new memories with my grandkids hunting and fishing.”

Mills is able to continue enjoying Kansas wildlife in his position as manager of both the Historic Lake Scott State Park, featuring natural springs, deep wooded canyons, craggy bluffs and 26 archaeological sites, and the recently opened Little Jerusalem Badlands State Park, a mile-long stretch of Niobrara chalk spires and cliffs. He resides in Scott City, where he suggests attending the Beefiesta BBQ & Tasting Booths and the Scott County Fair (both in July), the Lake Scott Rod Run and Car Show in August, and the Whimmydiddle Arts & Craft Fair in September.

As far as other Kansas locations, Mills ranks Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area in Barton County and Quivira National Wildlife Refuge in Stafford County among his preferred outdoor locations. Among his other favorite Kansas travel destinations are the Fort Larned National Historic Site for its living history programs and the city of Lawrence for University of Kansas football and basketball games, as well as the dining and shopping opportunities.

... I continue to make new memories with my grandkids hunting and fishing.”

–Greg Mills Greg Mills’ Top 5 Reasons for Loving Life in Kansas

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KANSAS! MAGAZINE | FALL 2020

4

Job – Very few places are as unique as the two parks where I work.

Outdoor Recreational Opportunities – Some of the best hunting and fishing can be found in Kansas.

5

Weather – One gets to experience every type of weather in Kansas: blizzards, thunderstorms and heat waves, and, every once in a while, it is near-perfect weather!

Sunsets – I can’t think of many places that have better sunsets.

PHOTOGRAPH Jason Dailey

Greg Mills leads a tour of Little Jerusalem Badlands State Park.

1 2 3

Family – 99 percent of my and my spouse’s family live in Kansas.

WHAT’S THERE TO DO IN TOPEKA? Visit our website to learn more!

PT’s Coffee Wheatfield Village Wheatfield Village

www.visitgreensburgks.com

A LOT. ENOUGH TO FILL YOUR DAY AND YOUR CUP!

Raise your glass and your spirits in Topeka! For more info check out VisitTopeka.com Tap That Topeka.

Downtown Topeka

WORK HARD. PLAY HARDER.

COME EXPERIENCE

CLAY COUNTY Zoo Museums Rodeos

Live Performances Jayhawk Theater

Festivals Milford Lake Water parks

Hunting Kansas Landscape Arboretum

claycokansas.com claycenterchamber@gmail.com 785.632.5674

SEPTEMBER

Labor Day Quilt Display and Barn Dance September 5–7 | Strong City

The Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve presents its three-day annual quilt display festival. The event will also include barn dancing on Saturday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Look for the event on the official travelks.com website.

Muddy Hutch 5K Mud Run September 19 | Hutchinson Spend the third Saturday of September getting active and muddy by participating in Hutchinson’s annual 5K mud run. The race will feature more than 20 obstacle courses at the Fun Valley Sports Complex, as well as post-race festivities.

K A N S A S D E TA I L S

Fort Leavenworth Haunted Tours October 24 | Fort Leavenworth Get into the Halloween spirit with friends and family this season. Take a walking tour through the oldest part of the post, with stops in front of some of the most haunted historic buildings.

ffam.us/haunted-tour Hiawatha Halloween Frolic October 31 | Hiawatha The Hiawatha Halloween parades and frolic are some of the oldest continuous celebrations of their kind. The day will include costume contests, an afternoon parade and an evening parade.

Look for the Hiawatha Halloween Frolic on Facebook.

NOVEMBER

Look for the event on the official travelks.com website.

Paola Wine and Brew Rendezvous November 7 | Paola

Louisburg Cider Mill Ciderfest and Craft Fair September 26–27, October 3–4 | Louisburg

Get a babysitter for the kiddos and head downtown for a night of local wine and brewery tastings, live music and food trucks.

Enjoy the fall weather two weekends in a row, by strolling through booths of local vendors in downtown Louisburg, tasting classic cider, and enjoying performances by local musicians.

travelks.com/event/paola-wine-and-brewrendezvous/21472/

louisburgcidermill.com/ciderfest/

OCTOBER

Celtic Thunder Ireland November 12 | Salina Celebrate the influence of Irish and Celtic music from the past decade with a performance by the Celtic Thunder Ireland at Stiefel Theatre. Tickets on sale now.

Fall Fest and Chili Cook Off October 10 | Holton

Look for the event on the official travelks.com website.

Celebrate the change of the season with local vendors, live music, scarecrow decorating contests and a chili cook-off, all on the courthouse lawn in downtown Holton.

Night of Lights November 21 | Liberal

Look for the event on the official travelks.com website.

Get into the Christmas spirit early this year. The event will feature food, drinks, live and silent auctions with decorated Christmas items and fine art.

visitliberal.com/festivals

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KANSAS! MAGAZINE | FALL 2020

Local tin man Rhett waits patiently for the Hiawatha Halloween day-parade to start. Last year’s theme was the Season of the Witch.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY Kalli Jo Smith

must see

K A N S A S D E TA I L S

must see FIND MORE EVENTS AT TRAVELKS.COM/EVENTS Because all events are subject to change, confirm with organizers before finalizing plans.

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By Meta Newell West | Photography by Nick Krug

Taste of Kansas

Chuckwagon Cooking

A Wabaunsee County couple prepares old-style meals for modern-day ranch hands

T

he Old West comes alive as Geff Dawson tends the campfire and his wife, Dawn, chops vegetables and stirs up cornbread on the worktable of their chuckwagon. Clad in cowboy regalia and working with iron pots and pans, the duo’s cooking is a throwback to the way things were done in the late 1800s when cattle were being moved from Texas to Kansas.

According to the Dawsons, the mobile chuckwagon can be seen as a forerunner of today’s food truck.

A practical and efficient way to feed the cowboys, it was the heart and soul of late 19th-century cattle drives. In those times, the cook had to be self-reliant, resourceful, flexible, creative and practical. “I’ve worked all aspects of ranching and cattle work—and chuckwagon cooking is the hardest job in the outfit,” says Geff.

“The chuckwagon cook would put in the most hours. He would be up working before the cowboys got up in the morning and he would stay up cleaning after they went to bed.”

The original chuckwagon meals mostly featured basic trail cuisine—sourdough biscuits, beans, beef and occasional fresh garden vegetables acquired from homesteaders. Dawn explains that their chuckwagon meals include these traditional dishes but also incorporate contemporary flair.

“Biscuits and gravy are favorites, but we also prepare eggs and burritos for breakfast,” she says. Stews, grilled meats and Dutch oven desserts are

Parts of a Chuckwagon Chuck Box — Charles Goodnight was the first to attach a chuck box to a wagon. Since “chuck” was slang for “food” in the 1800s, his invention was referred to as a chuckwagon. The chuck box is equipped with a hinged door that can be laid flat to create a worktable. Shelves hold small cookware, utensils, and seasonings.

The Boot — Another box located under the chuck box holds larger pots, cast iron skillets and utensils.

“Possum Belly” — Stretched canvas or cowhide is often suspended beneath the wagon; it carries fuel for the campfire, usually wood, but it could have carried another fuel source—cow chips—during the original trail drives.

Wagon Attachments — A water barrel and coffee grinder are attached to the outside of the wagon. One of the Dawsons’ wagons is even outfitted with an original 100-pound wooden Arbuckle coffee box.

Wagon — The interior of the wagon holds equipment, bags of cornmeal, flour, potatoes, dried beans and coffee beans. Extra kitchen supplies, bedrolls and even medical supplies were originally stored in the wagon.

Fly Tent — These were often set up in the vicinity of the chuckwagon to provide shelter while eating.

OPPOSITE Owners, ranch hands, family and friends of the Deer Horn Ranch in Geary County gather for the spring calf works. Their meal at the end of the day was catered by Dawn and Geff Dawson on their heritage chuckwagons.

dinnertime favorites, and recently they’ve been experimenting with hickory-smoked meatloaf and smoked salsa.

The Dawsons have served these meals to wranglers in the Flint Hills, cowboy poets at the National Cowboy Poetry Rodeo and guests at private parties. Always up for an adventure, the couple have even bartended a wedding from one of their chuckwagons. The couple also perform original cowboy tunes, with Geff playing guitar and Dawn playing bass.

Chuckwagon cooking fits right into the litany of the Dawsons’ Western pursuits. They are both ranchers and cowboys at heart. Dawn is also a co-host with the Better Horses Radio Show out of Topeka.

In 2012, Geff was inducted into the Kansas Cowboy Hall of Fame, and in 2009 he won two championships at the National Cowboy Poetry Rodeo, the Best of the West and the Shoot-Out Champion. They are both accomplished musicians, and their Western music, poetry and comedy routine regularly earns them invitations to perform throughout the Midwest. Branson, Missouri, is a frequent destination, and the Dawsons recently performed at Silver Dollar City’s Salute to the Great American Cowboy. They have been featured performers at the Story Circle, held after the main concert during Symphony in the Flint Hills, and they travel throughout the year doing private parties, theater shows, cowboy festivals and livestock events.

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The couple now own three chuckwagons that they have either restored or rebuilt. Those projects, in turn, led to the addition of several other wagon projects housed at the Dawson’s 2 Bar D Ranch north of Alma, Kansas. When ready to convert a wagon into a chuckwagon, Geff uses Charles Goodnight’s original plans with a few custom additions to meet modern needs.

He points out that Goodnight, a cattle rancher, built the first chuck box in 1866. Prior to that time, a cowboy’s daily food provisions included what he could carry in his saddlebags.

Understanding that a cowboy could best withstand the rigors of the trail on a full stomach and knowing that a trail drive could last up to five months, Goodnight added a box filled with cooking utensils and supplies to the rear of an army wagon. By adding a few other essentials, he created a mobile food wagon that was soon emulated by other trail bosses.

Eventually, companies started selling chuckwagons, but Geff points out that cattle drives and

Dawsons’ Cowboy

Corneybread Ingredients • • • • • • • •

2 (8.5-ounce) boxes Jiffy Cornbread Mix 4 large eggs 1/2 cup (1 stick) melted butter 1 cup sour cream 1 (14.75-ounce) can creamed corn 1 (7-ounce) can Mexicorn, drained 1 cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese, or more 1 teaspoon salt

Directions 1.

Line a camp Dutch oven with a Dutch oven liner or aluminum foil.

(A camp Dutch oven has legs and a flanged lid.)

2. Mix all ingredients together and place in prepared camp Dutch oven.

3. Arrange coals on top and bottom of camp Dutch oven and bake on the campfire until cooked through. Batter may also be added to a greased 13x9-inch casserole dish and baked in the oven at 350 degrees for about 40 to 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Dawn and Geff Dawson (above left) cater meals for ranches and events in central Kansas.

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KANSAS! MAGAZINE | FALL 2020

chuckwagons of the Old West did not last long, just about 20 years.

“However, today there are still big ranches that use Goodnightinspired chuckwagons to feed their cowboys,” he says.

Dawson’s chuckwagons also attract attention at parades, horse and trade shows and other Western-themed events. During the 2017 Symphony in the Flint Hills, hosted by John and Mary McDonald on their Deer Horn Ranch, Geff and Dawn guided one of their chuckwagons pulled by a powerful team of draft black Percherons. Following a breathtaking re-creation of an original longhorn cattle drive across the tall grass prairie, it was a sight to behold.

Dawn jokes that Geff was born in the wrong century since the Old West inspires about everything he does. But he contends, “I think there is a little bit of cowboy in all of us.”

While chuckwagons have become a business sideline, the underlying reason for the Dawsons’ enthusiasm is best expressed by Geff. “It is a way to preserve the Western heritage we all dream about.”

Dawsons’ Cowboy

Chunky Beef Stew “This recipe will feed approximately 40 people,” Dawn says. “[It’s] a delicious, hearty stew that will have cowboys lined up at the chuckwagon two days ahead of time.” The recipe can be cooked over an open fire or in an oven; unlike many other recipes, the ingredients in this recipe can be downsized in equal proportions for smaller groups.

Ingredients •

• • • • • • • • • • • •

2 (3-pound) beef roasts (such as chuck or arm, also referred to as pot roast), diced into 1” cubes and sprinkled with meat tenderizer 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) olive oil 2 teaspoons ground cumin 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper 1 teaspoon cayenne powder 4 large sweet onions, diced 5 pounds red potatoes, diced or cubed; peel half and leave the other half unpeeled 5 (14.5-ounce) cans Swanson Beef Bone Broth 3 cups water 1 (7-ounce) can Mexicorn, undrained 1 (7-ounce) can white shoepeg corn, undrained 5 cups or 2 pounds carrots, sliced 6 fresh ears of corn, chopped in 1 to 2” pieces with the cob left on during the stewing

Directions 1.

2.

3.

4.

Put the diced beef in a big stew pot with olive oil, cumin, black pepper, cayenne and 2 of the diced sweet onions. Once meat has begun to brown and the juices have accumulated, drain off and set aside those juices.

Continue to cook the meat, browning on all sides for best flavor. This can take a while with that much meat. Smaller batches are quicker, but less beef broth accumulates.

Once the meat is browned, add the remaining ingredients except the ears of corn (add them about an hour before serving).

Transfer to a very large cast-iron stew pot, place over the fire and cook at a simmer for as little to 3 and as many as 5 hours depending on how long it takes the fire to cook the meat and vegetables tender. Or, put in a large covered roasting pan and cook in the oven at 350 degrees for 3 to 5 hours or until meat and vegetables are tender. (Tip: To make this as tasty as possible, make sure your meat cooks until it is very tender as the big chunks need to be easy to eat with a spoon.)

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By Meta Newell West | Photography by Bill Stephens

Emmett’s Place

The third-generation owners of Louisburg Cider Mill continue to harvest and expand on their founder’s dream

M

ore than 45 years after Emmett O’Rear began pressing fresh Kansas apples into cider, his Louisburg Cider Mill has become recognized throughout Kansas and across the United States. Each year, thousands of people visit the 80-acre mill and orchard located three miles west of Louisburg in Miami County. The property holds festivals and events, and its Country Store sells cider and specialty goods throughout the year— all tracing back to a small farmhouse, barn and orchard that O’Rear and his family devoted their lives to.

Born in Missouri and raised in Michigan, O’Rear went on to design cars for Henry Ford, then moved to Arizona where he ran a restaurant, and built homes. He had always wanted to own an orchard, but it

Louisburg Cider is a product of the ’70s, a reflection of the culture of the time, the whole-foods and non-industrial movement.”

OPPOSITE Josh Hebert is a third-generation owner of the Louisburg Cider Mill.

ABOVE Visitors gather at a recent fall Cider Fest hosted by Louisburg Cider Mill.

–Josh Hebert

was toward the end of his career and with the hard work, determination and fortitude of his family, especially daughter Shelly and her husband, Tom Schierman, who made that dream come true when he bought his acreage in Miami County. The Schiermans were instrumental in the incorporation of the business in 1977 and then later took over ownership.

In 2015 their daughter, Alexis, and her husband, Josh Hebert, became the third generation of owners, and they run the operation today.

Josh attributes the mill’s nearly half-century of success to the cider’s blend of sweet and tart apples. But he further explains, “Louisburg Cider is a product of the ’70s, a reflection of the culture of the time, the whole-foods and non-industrial movement.” Reflecting this approach, the cider was not filtered.

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HOLM TR CHIS USEUM AIL M

Open May thru November Call for current days of operation Hours: 1-5 PM 502 N. Washington Wellington, KS 67152 620.326.3820 | facebook.com/ctmuseum www.ctmuseumks.com

November 1 through January 1 170 victorian, antique Christmas trees and ornaments 10-5pm Wed-Sat | 1-5pm Sun (785) 887-6148 | www.lecomptonkansas.com

ADD YOUR DESTINATION OR ATTRACTION in KANSAS! Magazine Contact Sunflower Publishing for details sunpubads@sunflowerpub.com 785.832.7264

I’m always humbled by the way people express their connections to this place.”

–Josh Hebert

By the time donuts were added to the product line, the part-time business had moved from a roadside stand to the barn where the apples were and still are pressed. Back then, customers could fill their own jugs of freshly pressed cider from a stainless steel vat.

Just one year after its opening, the mill opened an on-site commercial store to sell these donuts along with the cider, and also held its first Ciderfest, a musical family-friendly harvest celebration.

That same year, a favorable article in the Kansas City Times brought droves of regional customers to the mill, helping to put Louisburg Cider Mill on the map. In 1981, a wholesale order from Dillons signaled a need for additional capital improvements and expansions to the infrastructure that would allow the mill’s Country Store to operate year round. The store gradually expanded its product line to include gift items along with a variety of ciders, apple and pumpkin butters, jellies, flavored lemonades, sparkling ciders, and frozen cider slushes. Eventually

OPPOSITE Rows of apple cider are displayed at Louisburg Cider Mill’s on-sight store.

PHOTOGRAPH Bill Stephens

DESTINATIONS & ATTRACTIONS

Natural fiber and apple pulp were intentionally left in the cider, resulting in a slightly cloudy look, a trait that is now associated with their brand name. That cloudiness, along with the apple’s natural sugars and malic acid, provides the drink much of its flavor.

In the ’70s, there were just a few cloudy ciders, but Josh notes, “Now it’s become more standard.” Some studies have also shown that in comparison to apple juice, the cloudy version of cider contains more antioxidants and benefit to the body.

Another product of the late 1970s, though perhaps less of a health food, was Shelly’s now-famous apple cider donuts.

The original recipe was created to use the excess cider often available in those early years. Warm from the fryer and dipped in cinnamon and sugar, those donuts are definitely an attraction. “One we cannot afford to be without,” Josh adds.

These days, the mill’s Country Store makes and sells dozens daily—and hundreds of dozens every weekend throughout the fall. It’s a process that customers can watch through a window in the Country Store (when donuts are being baked—during fall this goes on all day). Donut mix is even available for those wanting to make them at home.

Apple Cider

Marinade

Best on poultry or pork and can be made in advance and refrigerated.

Ingredients • • • •

2 cups Louisburg Apple Cider 1 cup soy sauce 1 cup olive oil 1 tablespoon garlic, grated, or to taste

Directions 1.

2.

3.

Combine all ingredients.

Pour over poultry or pork.

Marinate 6 hours in the refrigerator.

Apple

Butter Bread Makes one 9-inch loaf

Ingredients • • • • • • • • • •

3/4 cup Louisburg Cider Mill Apple Butter 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves 1/2 cup water 1/2 cup canola oil 11/4 cups packed brown sugar 2 large eggs 13/4 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 3/4 teaspoon salt

Directions 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Grease or spray a 9-inch loaf pan.

Preheat oven to 350° F. In mixing bowl combine the apple butter, cinnamon and cloves.

Whisk in the water, then oil, the brown sugar, then add eggs one at a time. Mix until smooth.

Sift together flour, baking soda and salt.

Combine with the apple butter mixture and mix until smooth.

Pour into prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven for 65 to 70 minutes.

Let stand for 10 to 15 minutes to cool slightly before removing from pan. Cool completely on a wire rack.

the mill introduced a line of craft sodas sold under the brand name of Lost Trail. Starting with root beer made from an old family recipe, the mill’s small-batch microbrewery gained national attention when it was featured on Food Network’s Unwrapped. The mill now manufactures nine different flavors of craft sodas that use pure cane sugar.

As the store and mill grew, the family added special events; Lost Trail Days, an Easter egg hunt, flea markets and craft fairs.

Fall activities begin the middle of September and run through Halloween. The Family Farm features a corn maze, you-pick pumpkin patch, hayrides and various farm-play activities for kids and adults alike. Meanwhile, the Country Store provides visitors with live music, food trucks, caramel apples, popcorn and fresh pressed cider and donuts throughout those autumn weekends. Ciderfest now spans two weekends and includes 80 or more arts and craft vendors. And, of course, cider-pressing demonstrations are always a main attraction and offer an opportunity to watch apples being unloaded, cleaned, and sorted, then ground into apple pulp that is then pressed into juice.

It’s a process that Emmett O’Rear would likely be pleased to witness so many years after he founded the mill. And the orchard and land that O’Rear bought remain a place where generations gather.. Josh becomes a little nostalgic as he says, “I’m always humbled by the way people express their connections to this place. It creates a deep desire and responsibility to carry on the traditions in a way that honors the past.”

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KANSAS! MAGAZINE | FALL 2020

Guests tour the grounds, mazes and donut stands at the annual Cider Fest. OPPOSITE Customers browse the Country Store at the Louisburg Cider Mill.

PHOTOGRAPHS (CLOCKWISE FROM OPPOSITE) Bill Stephens, Courtesy Susan Johnston-Louisburg Cider Mill (4)

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Having created new paths and new approaches in their lives, these Kansans represent values and a spirit we hope to take with us into the future

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F

or more than 25 years I had the honor to host Sunflower Journeys, a series of programs about Kansans that reached viewers across the state.

It was a role that allowed me to meet and spend hours talking with many fascinating individuals.

One of them, biofeedback pioneer Elmer Green, shared many stories and became a close friend. He once told me about a vision-dream that helped convince him to move to Kansas and establish his psychophysiology laboratory at the worldrenowned Menninger Clinic in Topeka. After sharing anecdotes such as that, Elmer would typically follow up with a laugh and a grin, asking, “Isn’t that entertaining?!”

Elmer, along with his wife and research partner, Alyce, is one of the Kansans included in this special anniversary edition feature about our state’s “explorers and innovators.” Think about the role that explorers and innovators have played in our history. What comes to mind? Does the act of exploration involve particular skills or character traits? And what prompts an individual to engage in activities that may be considered innovative? Now, think about how those individuals and those traits relate specifically to Kansas history. Who comes to mind? Those familiar with our state might think of early European explorers such as Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, who led a Spanish expedition into the heart of this territory in 1541. There is also Lieutenant Zebulon Montgomery Pike, who explored the region for the U.S. Army in 1806, after the Louisiana Purchase. Those two men were, indeed, explorers in the traditional sense. But they weren’t necessarily Kansans.

What about Martin and Osa Johnson? Perhaps you have visited the Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum in Chanute or have read about the self-described “motion picture explorers” and their early documentary travels in the first half of the twentieth century to locations in Africa and the South Seas. They were not only explorers in the traditional sense but also Kansans.

I’m equally fascinated by more modern Kansans committed to exploring the counties and landscapes closer to home. Some are professionals, such as guidebook authors Marci Penner and WenDee Rowe, who spearhead the Kansas

Explorers Club. Others are residents who enjoy traveling through the back roads and byways of the state and covering ground that is nearby, but not entirely familiar.

Of course, discovering something new is worthless if we cannot appreciate the differences we encounter. And that is why innovation—the ability to bring a new perspective to the landscapes and realities we already know—is equally valuable.

Kansas has a rich history of innovators who have developed new technologies or created novel approaches in their chosen fields. Examples include aviation entrepreneurs such as Walter Beech and Clyde Cessna, automobile manufacturer Walter Chrysler and integrated circuit pioneer Jack Kilby. I would even say that President Dwight D. Eisenhower should be considered a great innovator for envisioning and establishing the interstate highway system.

And there is a case for Lynette Woodard, a University of Kansas basketball standout player and coach who merged the worlds of entertainment, collegiate and professional sports by becoming the first female member of the Harlem Globetrotters.

I think the best innovators and explorers are often motivated by a vision, either of an unknown location or an untapped possibility. When I worked on my television program, our team sought to create a journey through our state’s history and geography. To map this expedition through time and space, we often envisioned the nature of the Kansas character, or at least our aspirations for what it should be, as embodied by exceptional individuals.

The Kansans included in the following pages are innovators and explorers who have succeeded at various creative and rigorous endeavors. Some of them may already be familiar to you; others you might be encountering for the first time. Of course, there are many others we could have included as well. But as important as our featured explorers and innovators are as individuals, we also ask you to think about the spirit they represent and the values we want to carry into our state’s future. I trust you will find that doing so will be informative, revelatory and, as Elmer Green would anticipate, “entertaining!”

—Dave Kendall

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ILLUSTRATION Stephanie Gage

I

n a 2013 speech to the San Gabriel Water Valley Forum, Erin Brockovich said that while growing up in the Sunflower State, her mother and father taught her “the greatest gifts we have are our family, our health and the right to clean water and good land,” a prescient sentiment that has shaped this Kansas native’s high-profile career.

Like many explorers, Brockovich was driven by a curious, restless nature. She briefly attended Kansas State University before earning a fashion degree from Wade College in Dallas, Texas, and relocating to Southern California. There, she was a Kmart management trainee, an electrical engineering student and a beauty pageant winner.

Her watershed moment as an activist arrived when she was working as a file clerk and learned that a gas and electric company had contaminated the public

water supply of Hinkley, California, with a carcinogen. Her fight to protect families led to a $333 million public settlement and inspired the 2000 film Erin Brockovich, which received five Oscar nominations, including a Best Actress win for the actor who portrayed Brockovich, Julia Roberts.

Rather than retire on the $2.5 million she was rewarded for the case, Brockovich used the money to launch years of environmental activism. She fielded requests for assistance in ground water contamination complaints in every state and several foreign countries, sought to hold corporations responsible for frackinginduced earthquakes in Oklahoma, and represented women whose health may have been compromised by a birth control device.

The New York Times best-selling author and former talk show host can currently be seen on Netflix in The Devil We Know: The Chemistry of a Cover-up, a 2019 documentary focused on a West Virginia community affected by the production of a chemical used to create Teflon. In August 2020, she published Superman’s Not Coming: Our National Water Crisis and What WE THE PEOPLE Can Do About It with grassroots success stories and practical advice for community action.

Explorers are often thought of as people who go into uncharted territory—and that is exactly what Brockovich has done and continues to do. Not only as a file clerk who was unafraid to cast herself into the legal sphere, but as a savvy and meticulous researcher who plumbs the depths of documents. In a 2002 New York Times Magazine article, Brockovich discussed her approach. “Imagine getting hundreds of these boxes. You come to the 40th box, what does your attitude become? ‘Forget it. There’s nothing here,’” Brockovich says. “Well, I go through it paper by paper. You will see me in my office, on the floor, all the files around me, and I won’t talk to you, I won’t take phone calls.”

Committed to discovering hidden truths and dangers in order to protect communities, Brockovich’s work embodies the state motto, “to the stars through difficulty” and has inspired others to believe that perhaps they, too, are well-equipped to weather challenges in unfamiliar and sometimes hostile terrain.

—Kim Gronniger

ILLUSTRATION Ric Dunwoody

G

eorge Washington Carver is one of Kansas’ favorite sons.

And for good reason; he was a man of many talents. Most of us know him as a scientist, but he was many other things: a businessman, a farmer, an inventor, an amateur accordionist, an educator and—during his youth—an artist. In fact, Carver’s first foray into college was to become a painter. Much later in his career, when he first accepted the job to head Tuskegee University’s agricultural department, one of his caveats was to have one room in the dormitory to live and another for his art supplies and projects.

All through his life, he combined the creativity of an artist with the rationality of a scientist.

To this day, Carver remains one of the most important botanists and chemists in American history. He developed crop rotation techniques to improve soils depleted by repeated plantings of Southern crops like cotton. He came up with hundreds of uses for a variety of plants, most famously sweet potatoes and peanuts. And that is just the short list of his innovations.

Carver was born in Diamond, Missouri, sometime before the end of the Civil War. Born on a slaveholding farm in Missouri, kidnapped and rescued at an early age, Carver would learn to read and write after the abolition of slavery and longed for a formal education. He later said that he had heard the schools for African American children in Kansas were better than schools in Missouri, so he headed a few miles west into Fort Scott and the thriving black community there.

In all, Carver would spend only eight years in Kansas before going on to attend two different colleges in Iowa, most famously Iowa State University. After finishing studies in Iowa, he become the “Wizard of Tuskegee” when he accepted Booker T. Washington’s invitation to become a professor at the famous Tuskegee University in Alabama, which is also the place he lived the longest and where he is buried. So, since he was born in Missouri, lived in Iowa and did his most famous work in Alabama … can he be considered as a Kansan? Well, that depends on what exactly constitutes a hometown or home state. Many of us have two or three and some people—say, military kids—have a dozen of them. Perhaps what makes a hometown or state are community, bonds, friendships, and memories. And on those grounds, Kansas has a strong case.

Carver lived in several areas of Kansas from about the ages of 11 to 19. He lived for short stints in Olathe, Paola and Kansas City. But most of his time in the Sunflower State was spent in Fort Scott, Minneapolis and areas of Ness County. In Fort Scott, he attended Fort Scott Colored Public School, which was created by the Northwestern Freedmen’s Aid Commission from Chicago. From Fort Scott, Carver moved up to Ottawa County where he attended Minneapolis Public School. According to reports in the Minneapolis Messenger, the young Carver was a mainstay on the honor roll and was “perfect in deportment.”

Another local newspaper, the Minneapolis Journal, reported on October 5, 1881, that Carver was respected beyond the schoolyard as well. “Geo Carver, lately employed in Seymour’s Laundry, is going to set up for himself two

doors east of Midgley’s Livery Stable, and will be prepared to do gent’s washing in his former excellent manner.”

Two years later, on December 22, a short-lived newspaper called The Progressive Current wrote, “George Carver, one of the most intelligent colored men of this part of the state is engaged in writing a book entitled Step by Step or the Golden Ladder. The book is written in the interest of Mr. Carver’s race of people … we can only wish George success in his undertaking to better the condition of a race of people so long held in subjection.”

Though Carver would go on to contribute to many scientific journals and his other writings would be anthologized, it is unclear what happened to that youthful book project. And soon Carver had other plans. After graduating from high school in Minneapolis, he traveled by wagon to Ness County to try his hand at homesteading.

Near the unincorporated town of Beeler he owned land, built himself a sod house, plowed his 17 acres manually and had a small conservatory of plants and flowers. He also was reported to play a lively accordion for town dances and belonged to the local literary club.

Not everything that happened to Carver while he lived in Kansas was pleasant. He left Fort Scott because he witnessed the lynching of a black man. And when he applied to Highland College, he was turned away because they would not admit a black student. However, according to biographer Gary R. Kremer, Carver often said that his memories of time spent in Kansas, especially Ness County, were precious and remained dear to him throughout his life. And for that, Kansas should be honored that this gentle, determined and brilliant man recognized the area as one of his chosen homes.

—Melinda Briscoe

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ailed by history books as one of the founding fathers of our state’s largest city, James R. Mead came to the Kansas territory in 1859, a 23-year-old Iowan lacking money and experience as he set off to explore a largely uncharted landscape. By the time he died in 1910, he’d left a huge mark on Kansas as an explorer, buffalo hunter, advocate for the Native people with whom he traded, visionary businessman and historian.

In 1864, Mead opened a trading post that was the first business in Wichita, and in 1871 he helped start a railroad that turned Wichita into a prominent shipping town for cattle drives coming northward from Texas. His friendship and business partnership with Jesse Chisolm, arguably America’s best-known cattle driver of that era, also helped grow the region. Both a prominent street and a middle school in Wichita bear his name today.

Mead also served as a Kansas senator and representative. He was active in the Kansas State Historical Society, drawing on his eyewitness experiences of Kansas’ earliest days.

Mead’s memoir, Hunting and Trading on the Great Plains, 1859-1875, provides a fascinating account of the Kansas he described where “civilization stopped at Council Grove.” Describing a valley off the Saline River, Mead wrote, “There are no signs of ax or

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ILLUSTRATION Kassidee Quaranta

JAMES R. MEAD

white man’s presence in any of it. I had found a stream unknown” that led to “a paradise of game: buffalo, elk, black-tailed [mule] deer, … turkeys in abundance, beaver, otter and hungry wolves in gangs.”

Mead’s book describes encountering animal herds in the Smoky Hills whose numbers rivaled the wildlife on the plains of Africa. He writes of seeing a distant hill covered with dark timber—and then realizing when the “timber” moved that it was a herd of thousands of bison.

Mead’s description of this paradisiac landscape can be difficult for modern readers who know the speed and the reasons for which it was lost. Without any compunction, Mead joins in great buffalo slaughters and describes how his party scattered chunks of buffalo meat laced with strychnine and found they had successfully poisoned some 50 gray wolves by the next morning.

He also documents wildlife no longer found on the Kansas plains. Along Stranger Creek, south of Leavenworth, he wrote of “flocks of gaily-colored Carolina Parakeets,” a species extinct for over 100 years. Mead also wrote of scissortailed fly-catchers he saw while bear hunting in the “country of the wild horses” we now call the Gypsum Hills.

Unlike many of his time, Mead wrote with great respect for the Native people he encountered. His book mentions armed confrontations with Cheyenne, Sioux, Kiowa and Comanche during turbulent times, but his descriptions of legendary warriors, like Kiowa chief Satanta, focused on who they were as a fathers, friends and tribal leaders.

He represented, in relatively good faith, the Wichita tribe at the Treaty of the Little Arkansas in 1864, and he chronicled the horrors of an 1867 cholera epidemic that claimed so many lives of the Wichita that a stream whose banks were covered with unburied victims was named Skeleton Creek.

Bitterly aware of the impact of the “civilization” that he advanced through western Kansas, Mead documented his disappointment with the landscape he found on his final return tour through the areas he had once explored. He ended his book with a quote he attributed to a tribal leader he encountered: “The sun does not shine as bright, the grass is not as green, the air is not as pure and the water not as sweet as it was before the white men came.”

—Michael Pearce

ILLUSTRATION Kassidee Quaranta

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hen Kansas basketball lost two straight games in 1951 and was trying to find its identity, head coach Phog Allen called his brilliant assistant Dick Harp into his office and told him to change the defense.

Harp’s response was to institute an innovative pressure defense, propelling KU to 13 straight victories, culminating in the 1952 national championship (28-3 record) and revolutionizing college basketball.

Soon, Harp’s defense was being adopted on other courts. San Francisco coach Phil Woolpert visited Lawrence in the summer of 1953 to study Harp’s defense and then applied it in winning two NCAA titles with Bill Russell in 1955 and ’56. Legendary coach John Wooden used Harp’s defense and won a record 10 NCAA titles, including seven straight (1967–73). Wooden once said the “arrival of the Kansas pressure defense was one of the turning points in college basketball.”

Harp, who practically did all the coaching in Allen’s latter years and saw what the game was becoming, had already established a legacy as a true innovator and basketball genius before being tapped to replace Allen as head coach from 1956–64.

“Dick was one of the most underrated coaches the college game has ever seen,” Bill Lienhard, a member of the 1952 Jayhawks, said in 2000 after Harp died.

Dean Smith, the late North Carolina Hall of Fame coach, once stated Harp “had the brightest basketball mind of anyone I’ve ever known.” Smith, who also played on Harp’s ’52 KU team, wrote about that experience in his 1999 autobiography, A Coach’s Life. “That team employed a great innovation: a pressure man-to-man defense that absolutely smothered opponents by overplaying. … The idea was to cut off the passing lanes and make it hard to complete even the simplest pass. … This was unheard of at the time, really the first instance of man pressure as we know it.” And, Smith added, “The Kansas defense had a lasting influence on the game.”

Now, more than 68 years later, many college basketball teams play some version of Harp’s defense.

Harp was also a great innovator in recruiting African American players in the early 1960s, when the majority of

DICK HARP black athletes weren’t given an equal opportunity. His former assistant coach, Jerry Waugh, respected how Harp’s integration began with recruitment.

“How adamant Dick was when he took over [ for Allen that] the black athlete would not be denied,” Waugh says.

In 1962, only 45 percent of the country’s collegiate teams had black players on their roster, and those teams averaged only 2.2 Black players each. Harp’s 1959–60 team had four, and his revolutionary 1960–61 team had seven, with four starters (a decision that defied unwritten codes to never play more than three Black athletes at any one time). This was five years before Texas Western made history with its all-Black starters beating all-white Kentucky for the 1966 NCAA championship.

An idealist, Harp was far ahead of his time. By comparison, the SEC didn’t integrate until Perry Wallace became the first black hoops player at Vanderbilt in 1968.

Harp, a very religious man, also always brought equality to the pews by bringing his black players into white church services. “(He) integrated more churches than the Pope,” Butch Ellison, a member of the 1959–60 and 1960–61 teams, said in 2007.

Kansas sports has many champions and legends. But Dick Harp should never be forgotten because of his revolutionary defense and unwavering commitment to racial equality.

—David Garfield

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n 1881, while helping his father, nine-year-old Clayson LeRoy Brown caught and crushed his arm in a corn sheller. The arm had to be amputated, and the young Abilene resident would wear a gloved artificial arm and long-sleeved shirt for the remainder of his life. It was an accident that greatly determined, but did not limit, Brown’s course in life.

After graduating from Abilene High School with the class of 1890, C.L. (as he became known) attended college, then worked briefly in Wichita and Iowa as a laborer, a teacher, and a businessman. He and his wife, Maude Elizabeth Irwin, moved their family back to Abilene to assist his father with refitting the family’s gristmill as a source of electricity for the growing city of Abilene.

By 1898, the first electrical transmission line connected Brown’s mill to Abilene.

From this single line, the family business grew to become the United Power & Light Company, serving 12 power plants in 135 towns and over 150,000 customers.

Brown’s entrepreneurial spirit led him to develop a local telephone business, which rapidly expanded through Dickinson County and into Topeka, Newton, Hutchinson, and Wichita. By 1925, this United Telephone Company served as many as 50,000 subscribers across Kansas.

Brown continued to diversify his business interests, acquiring small independent telephone companies across Kansas and holding interest in

utility companies from eleven different states.

His business ventures expanded to include the Piggly Wiggly grocery store chain, United Life Insurance Company, hotels, a news service, and an oil company. Many of Brown’s business ventures fell into bankruptcy during the Great Depression, but some of the larger ones, including the telephone company, survived. In 1986, the United Telecommunications company that Brown formed would emerge as the Sprint Corporation, relocating their headquarters from Abilene to Kansas City.

Kansas has been home to many successful and innovative businesspeople, but what sets Brown apart is his early commitment to philanthropy, civic support, and concern for the welfare of his workers.

Because Brown’s core values revolved around hard work and financial conservation, he required his employees to save 10 percent of their earned income.

In a 1918 company newsletter, Brown wrote, “Eat less, drink less, and smoke less, and wear your clothes a little longer. Make it a principle. Make it a religion.

Make it a habit. There is not a human being in the United States who cannot exist on nine-tenths of what he does exist on. Save the other tenth.”

But Brown did more than preach to his employees. He also established the United Employees Benefit Association, chaired by his fellow River Brethren church member, David J. Eisenhower ( father of Dwight D. Eisenhower).

The company-based welfare department provided struggling employees and their families with loans, scholarships, clothing, and electric services.

Brown also supported a hospital, a shelter for indigent citizens, and a home for young female telephone operators. His family foundation endowed more than one million dollars to charity between 1926 and 1930.

After becoming a self-made millionaire, Brown reportedly told friends that if his childhood accident had not cost him his arm, he “probably would have been a farmer, and a good one.”

But, instead, he remained an entrepreneur and philanthropist his entire life, and when Brown passed away in 1935, at the age of 63, his legacy continued to serve area communities through the Brown Memorial Foundation, Brown Memorial Park, and Brown Memorial Home for the aged while the story of his early business success and technological innovations is preserved at Abilene’s Museum of Independent Telephony.

His life provided a model for innovative business leaders with a commitment to their community and the people in it.

—Patricia E. Ackerman

ILLUSTRATION Shannon White

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essie E. Woods was born in 1909 on her family’s Stafford County farm near Seward and, upon her death in 2001, buried only a short drive away, in Stafford County’s Fairview Cemetery, near the graves of her parents, William and Clara Schulz.

That might seem to indicate that Woods spent most of her life on the same patch of land, but she was one of our state’s most adventurous and high-flying personalities, beginning with her teenage elopement.

Woods was 19 when her family attended an aerial barnstorming show in Ulysses and she fell for one of the featured pilots, Jimmie Woods. He also worked as a salesman for Wichita’s Swallow Aircraft Company, the company formed by E.M. Laird, who recruited aviation notables Clyde Cessna and Lloyd Stearman to join him.

In terms of star power, however, Woods was the big recruit. She soon learned to repair and fly planes and perform as a wingwalker. During the infancy of the aviation era, wingwalkers were acrobats who would walk onto the wings of a plane mid-flight and perform death-defying feats, sometimes jumping from the wings of one plane to another.

Many would die.

But Woods only got better.

From 1928 to 1938, she was the star attraction of the Flying Aces Air Circus, one of the nation’s longest-running aerial circuses. One of her featured skills was descending a rope ladder of a plane in flight and hanging upside down by her knees. She often walked the wings barefoot and with no harness or parachute while her plane flew at 60 mph or more.

In the 1993 book On the Wing: Jessie Woods and the Flying Aces Air Circus, Schulz Woods describes what it was like to clamor across one of those early planes. “I was prepared to hang by my knees, swinging my arms wide and arching my body against the wind. Part of the act required me to push away from the ladder with my foot, extending the other. I wasn’t wearing a parachute. I couldn’t wear a parachute! We were too low for a chute to have opened if I had needed it and the bulky mass would have thrown me off balance for the acrobatics that I was supposed to perform.”

By the end of the Great Depression, many of the flying air shows were shutting down. Soon, the nation’s aviation industry was focused on military production. During World

War II, Woods trained Army cadets who later became fighter and bomber pilots. In 1967, she was named state of Washington’s Pilot of the Year. And, in 1985, she was inducted into the OX-5 Aviation Pioneers Hall of Fame. Years later, Woods would appear on late-night talk shows regaling Johnny Carson and David Letterman with stories. She would be named

by Women in Aviation International as one of the top 100 women who most influenced the industry’s first 100 years.

History did not always remember Woods as well as it did some of her more famous peers. It wasn’t until late 2019, nearly two decades after Woods died, that board members of the Lucille M. Hall Museum for Education and History in St. John became aware that Woods was buried in their town’s cemetery.

“That’s the first I knew about her,” says Anna Minnis, the board’s president. Now, Minnis and other board members hope to create an exhibit about their hometown aviation hero to accompany the humble grave marker, a small stone slab holding a plaque with the dates of her birth and death and a depiction of sunlight beaming through a cloud and onto the words “Pioneer aviatrix and wing-walker.”

But she was so much more. Her entire life from start to finish, was one of joyful exploration and daring.

In 1991, at the age of 82, Woods wingwalked one last time at the Sun ‘N Fun Air Show in Lakeland, Florida. Photos and video from that day show her long, agile body with her unmistakable profile as she smiled and waved from the wing.

As she described that last flight to the Wichita Eagle, “It was like I had never stopped doing it.”

—Beccy Tanner

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hen we think of Kansas explorers, we generally think of individuals who have gone into distant lands, skies or heavens. But Elmer and Alyce Green were explorers of a different type—ones who charted the margins between mind and body.

Elmer Green pioneered the medical practice of biofeedback while researching it at Topeka’s Menninger Clinic, and, through years of advocacy, he and his wife, Alyce, helped mainstream biofeedback—the process of a person listening to and partially regulating their own body as an assistance to well-being—through writings, seminars and film. Biofeedback, though, was only the first step on a lifelong journey into a deep understanding of human consciousness. The journey culminated later as Alyce succumbed to Alzheimer’s and Elmer focused on facilitating her transition to death with dignity and full spiritual awareness.

The result of this exploration is The Ozawkie Book of the Dead: Alzheimer’s Isn’t What You Think It Is, a three-volume work that is both Elmer’s love letter to his wife and a means to honor her memory. Overlapping biography, psychology, spirituality and procedures for care, it is a work whose premises of consciousness, afterlife and the ascension of the soul are probably on the periphery of current American religious thought.

But if the ideas of The Ozawkie Book of the Dead are looked upon as a fringe theory, they must also be considered as an authentic outgrowth of Elmer’s life. Born in Oregon in 1917, Elmer and his family moved to Minnesota when he was five. There, at the age

of six, he experienced his first dream vision, and its profound emotional impact would leave him open to spiritual exploration throughout this life. Though he would have an otherwise typical midwestern childhood, Elmer encountered the concept of meditation in his teens and, through a spiritual mentor and together with Alyce, would go on to explore past lives, work on astral projections of his soul and delve into obscure aspects of spirituality.

Elmer graduated from college in 1942 with a degree in physics, but the war effort swept him, Alyce and their family into its orbit. They would emerge from the war years with four children and travels to military posts in Idaho, California, Nevada, British Columbia, Kansas and Tinian (an island now part of the U.S. commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands).

In 1964, the couple’s careers led them to Kansas. They bought a home in Ozawkie and Elmer established a psychophysiology laboratory at Topeka’s Menninger Clinic. Here, he made his mark as a researcher while devoting his professional and personal life to expanding the concept of biofeedback and its potential for expanding human consciousness. In 1969, Elmer co-founded the Biofeedback Research Society and, in the same year, Alyce and Elmer cofounded the scientifically grounded mind-bodyspirit gathering, the Council Grove Conference.

For some 30 years, the Greens plunged into biofeedback, spirituality and science of human consciousness.

It was at Menninger that Elmer was given the freedom to push the boundaries of his science and spirituality—he developed his best-known research projects in the late sixties there after studying Indian yogi Swami Rama and Dutch philosopher and naturopath Jack Schwarz.

While much of the Greens’ work on astral travel and soul-guidance remains outside of mainstream American thought, their core work of exploring a human’s ability to partially stabilize and positively regulate one’s own body has had widespread effects in medical communities. Alyce died in 1994 and Elmer followed her in 2017. And while the Menninger Clinic left Topeka for Houston in 2003, the Greens’ legacy was not abandoned in the departure. Nancy Trowbridge, the current director of communications for Menninger, worked alongside the Greens and says their spirits live on in an organization that reflects the Greens’ values of “holistic and person-centered approach to wellness.”

—Haines Eason

ILLUSTRATION Ric Dunwoody

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any Kansas-born artists, musicians, actors, and other creative types came of age and into their careers in other states and countries: horror hostess Elvira was born Cassandra Peterson in Manhattan but grew up in Colorado Springs; Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was born in Smith Center but moved to Santa Ana, California, at the age of two. The eponymous Katrina Leskanich of Katrina and the Waves was born in Wichita but moved around with her military family. These are just a few. But some entertainers are born-and-raised Kansans whose connection to the state and their family in it informs their performance. One of these is the singular talent and one of the most innovative contemporary R&B singers and actresses—Janelle Monáe.

The Kansas City, Kansas, native’s debut release, a 2003 collection of demos titled The Audition, laid the framework for what would turn into a seven-part suite modeled after the 1927 German expressionist science fiction film, Metropolis. Casting herself in the character of an android named Cindi Mayweather, Monáe began exploring concepts related to futurism and identity, as expressed in “Tightrope,” the lead single from her 2010 full-length debut, The ArchAndroid, which she kicks off with the line, “Some people talk about ya like they know all about ya.”

For the majority of the 2010s, Monáe’s music was cloaked in the abstraction that was Cindi Mayweather, a tuxedo-sporting, genderfluid, quiff-sporting character, yet—as NPR’s Sydnee Monday wrote for NPR when Monáe released her third LP, Dirty Computer, in 2018—“Even when Monáe sings in character, the sense of something immediately true to her own life bobs into and outside of these voices.” The piece, appropriately enough, was titled “Janelle Monáe Is the 21st Century’s Time Traveler.”

The list of fellow musical innovators who have been attracted to Monáe’s work reads like a who’s-who of creative geniuses in the music world. The aforementioned “Tightrope” features Outkast’s Big Boi, who—along with André Benjamin—would be one of the musician’s earliest mentors. Her Black Lives Matter song, “Hell You Talmbout,” a recitation of the names of African Americans killed by police, was covered by David Byrne during his American Utopia tour as the closing encore.

And as was revealed after the release of Dirty

Computer, that album drew in the talents of Prince, whose influence and work can be heard in the single “Make Me Feel.”

In 2016, the musician made her acting debut in the acclaimed dramas Moonlight and Hidden Figures. While Monáe had songs featured on the soundtracks for both films, her roles in both allowed her to continue on the path that had led her to attend the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City.

Her success also seemed to allow the performer to become increasingly innovative and open about herself. While Monáe’s work up until Dirty Computer was forward thinking, with live shows that featured a massive band and Monáe dancing up a storm in front of it, there was something akin to a distancing going on. By 2018, things had changed. Monáe’s Dirty Computer saw the musician able to speak to many facets of her life heretofore unaddressed in such a frank manner. She came out as pansexual, publicly embraced her relationship with actress Tessa Thompson (best known to the public for her starring role of Valkyrie in the Marvel superhero films), and put out an album-length series of videos, all of which looked to these topics and more. It’s such a change from her previous albums, critic Robert Christgau, writing for Vice, said, “this one is more personal than the android dared.”

Songs like “Pynk” were explicitly queer and woman-centric, while “Django Jane” not only shouts out her adopted hometown of Atlanta, but her actual hometown when she raps, “Straight out of Kansas City, yeah we made it out there.”

While Monáe may now be a citizen of the world, and beloved all over, she still has her connections to Kansas. As she said to Justin Curtoe in a piece for Kansas City Magazine in August of 2018, Dirty Computer is an album for all the “young women, people of color and queer people” in the region: “This album is for you. I hope you feel seen, I hope you feel heard, I hope you feel celebrated.”

—Nick Spacek

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ILLUSTRATION Stephanie Gage

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egaled as the “Queen of the Air” during her lifetime and celebrated to this day as Kansas’ most famous pilot, Amelia Earhart will always be remembered for her career as an aviation pioneer. But the same fearless spirit that propelled her life as a pilot also drove her to become one of the nation’s first 20th-century celebrity brands. Earhart the innovative entrepreneur is as equally fascinating as Earhart the aviation explorer.

In the beginning, however, the girl who grew up at her grandparents’ home in Atchison wanted to be neither. Her first dream was to become a doctor. In 1917, while in Toronto, she received training from the Red Cross and served at the Spadina Military Hospital. This work led her to contract pneumonia and maxillary sinusitis, leaving her with a scar and small drainage tube on her cheek. After working as a nurse, her studies at Columbia University were put aside when she had to help her family in California. It was there, in 1921, that she purchased her first plane, a Kinnear Airster that she named The Canary. Both her dreams of studying medicine and her aviation hobby were dealt a blow after she made a bad investment in a friend’s gypsum mine and lost her inheritance from her grandmother. But she was able to continue flying with income from a variety of odd jobs including work as a gravel truck driver, a stenographer, a telephone operator, and a photographer.

Earhart’s celebrity status began in 1928 when she became the first female to complete a transatlantic flight as a passenger aboard the Friendship with co-pilots Wilmer “Bill” Stultz and Louis “Slim” Gordon. After this accomplishment, Earhart published her first book and traveled the country, giving lectures and accumulating product endorsements. Most of the brands she represented were aviation-related, such as Mobil Oil, Pratt & Whitney aircraft and Hornet engines. But she was also paid to endorse Longines timepieces, Horlick malted milk tablets, Beech-Nut gum and even Lucky Strike cigarettes, whose ads proclaimed that Earhart smoked to relieve stress through that first flight. The endorsement conflicted with Earhart’s

non-smoking, squeaky-clean image, and she eventually donated the Lucky Strike proceeds to Admiral Richard E. Byrd’s second Antarctic expedition.

After Earhart’s solo flight across the Atlantic in 1932, her celebrity grew.

She began to use her status to explore some of her personal interests. Because she had been used to having a limited income and had always been affected by the lack of sensible clothes for female pilots, Earhart had long made her own clothing. Now, she could expand on that talent. Tall and slender, she cut a stylish figure that defied stereotypes, and she would carry that personal flair into the fashion world. She created a “Hat of the Month” program to help fund the “Ninety-Niners,” the women’s piloting organization that she founded, and she also designed jumpsuits and flying suits for other female pilots.

In 1933, encouraged by designer Elsa Schiaparelli, Earhart created a clothing line that was eventually sold nationwide in department stores such as Macy’s. Earhart’s designs featured 25 outfits, dresses, skirts, and pants, which were sold as “separates,” instead of the typical one-piece dresses. Earhart also featured blouses with longer shirttails, loose slacks with pockets and zippers, washable fabrics such as parachute silk, and even textiles from airplane wings decorated with propeller-shaped buttons and tags. Earhart’s creations, priced between $25 and $55 per item, were tagged with her signature fashioned as contrail of a tiny plane. Earhart also sold patterns through Woman’s Home Companion magazine. Though Earhart’s clothing lines were short-lived, the Fashion Designers of America named Amelia Earhart one of the ten bestdressed women in America.

When Earhart’s plane disappeared during a global flight attempt in 1937, she became forever associated with her piloting career. And while she certainly deserves her accolades in aviation, Earhart also embodied an innovative spirit that had already accomplished so much beyond one field and would have led to many other equally formidable accomplishments. Ad astra, Amelia.

—Christine Steinkuehler

ILLUSTRATION Stephanie Gage

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orn in 1857 and brought to the Kansas Territory as a baby by his parents, Lewis Lindsay Dyche grew up hunting, trapping and working on the family farm in what would become Osage County. At the age of 16, he enrolled at the Kansas State Normal School in Emporia, studied hard and graduated in three years, then enrolled at the University of Kansas, where natural history professor— and eventually university chancellor— Francis Huntington Snow mentored him.

The two scholars would regularly travel to Colorado and New Mexico to collect specimens, including large mammals such as elk, bison and moose.

Dyche continued this work when he trained in Washington, DC, with William Temple Hornaday, chief taxidermist for the United States National Museum at the Smithsonian Institution. In time, Dyche became a zoology instructor at KU, and his taxidermy and museum exhibit design skills would become a national sensation.

“Lewis Lindsay Dyche achieved one of the greatest deployments of taxidermy with his Panorama of North American Mammals—Kansas’s magnificent showpiece in the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair showing 121 mammals across forest, plains, mountain, and desert environments that attracted 2.4 million visitors,” says Leonard Krishtalka, director of the Biodiversity Institute & Natural History Museum. Going beyond the responsibilities of a scholar, Dyche also built a small room inside the faux rocky outcrop displaying mountain goats and spent nights there through the duration of the fair, in order to protect his exhibit from vandals. “On its return to Kansas, the Panorama’s enormous popularity led the Kansas Legislature to fund the 1903 construction of a new Natural History Museum at KU, aptly named Dyche Hall, in which the centerpiece exhibit is his panorama, now expanded to tropical and arctic animals and plants,” continues Krishtalka.

In 1894 and 1895, Dyche joined separate expeditions to Greenland with legendary explorers Frederick Cook and Robert Peary to hunt polar bears, walrus and other large arctic mammals

to add to the collection at Kansas University. Afterward, he wowed Kansas audiences with his “magic lantern” lectures, projecting photos on glass slides of his adventures in the arctic. His gathering of specimens, which contributed to the demise of large mammals in a small way, was in line with Euro-American scientific thinking at the time and the belief that taxidermy displays were possibly the only way to preserve samples of the animals as westward expansion decimated wildlife populations.

After retiring from teaching at the University of Kansas, Dyche became the State Fish and Game Warden in 1909. He died of pneumonia in 1915 and is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Lawrence. Visitors can still see Lewis Lindsay Dyche’s iconic panorama at the Natural History Museum at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, an enduring legacy to one of the state’s greatest explorers and educational innovators who brought the science and wonder of natural history to the public.

—Amber Fraley

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SpaceWorks A Kansas crew of expert technicians restores, recreates and sometimes reimagines iconic space artifacts for public displays

Lisa Waterman Gray PHOTOGRAPHY BY Justin Lister STORY BY

Shortly after the Cosmosphere opened its doors in 1982,

CLOCKWISE FROM UPPER LEFT The SpaceWorks team has created areas such as the educational camp mission simulator. Jack Graber heads the Cosmosphere’s team of technicians and problemsolvers in the SpaceWorks division. One of the team’s recent projects is the Astralis module simulator.

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curators and officials realized they required technological expertise to maintain some of the Hutchinson-based museum’s prize exhibits and expand its display into what is now the largest collection of American and Soviet/Russian space exploration artifacts. By the late 1980s, this team of experts—SpaceWorks—was in place. It has since gone on to fabricate some of the museum’s showcase items and to collaborate with institutions such as NASA on key restoration projects.

SpaceWorks’ five technicians have learned to be creative as they work with wood, metal, plastics and other materials in an off-campus Hutchinson workshop full of table saws, an aluminum milling machine and other devices, including a mechanism capable of lifting up to five tons of gear. The team uses this equipment to create spot-on replicas and fabricate display cases, as well as to provide artifact transportation and installation. The technicians also frequently become reverse engineers, working from original blueprints and old photos to conserve and restore machinery that was once cutting-edge but is now no longer in use.

“We’ve completed some of the most important preservation and entertainment projects regarding humans’ exploration of the stars,” says Jack Graber, the head of the Cosmosphere’s SpaceWorks division.

One of SpaceWorks’ showcase restoration items is the Apollo 13 Command Module, Odyssey. After the devastating explosion felled the spacecraft in 1970, it was gutted and its parts and hardware were parceled out to various locations. SpaceWorks obtained some remains of the craft in the 1990s and worked to restore it from 1995–1997.

Shortly after this project, SpaceWorks restored Mercury capsule Liberty Bell 7 and then created a touring exhibit. Work began in 1999, nearly 38 years after the capsule sank

KANSAS! MAGAZINE | FALL 2020

Cosmosphere

(800) 397-0330 1100 N. Plum Street | Hutchinson The Cosmosphere is generally open Mondays–Saturdays, 9 am–7 pm and Sundays, noon–7 pm, but be sure to check in advance in case of holidays, special events or pandemic-response scheduling.

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and was eventually recovered from the Atlantic Ocean. The capsule was kept submerged underwater in a tank for the first portion of work that removed the seawater salt residue. Then, the main restoration began with approximately 7,000 hours of labor by 12 full-time staff and 8 volunteers. At a cost of $250,000, the team examined, cleaned, and reassembled 30,000 parts. They also removed and examined 10 miles of wire.

More recently, when NASA wanted to honor the 50th anniversary of its Apollo 11 mission by recreating Mission Control at Johnson Space Center, SpaceWorks stepped in to restore vintage control consoles to their 1960s character. It was no small task, as the consoles—each five to six feet in length and four to five feet in depth and height—had sat in the Houston control room for more than two decades.

Taking their clues from oral histories with former flight directors as well as from archival material, technicians began to meticulously replicate the consoles’ original appearance and functionality. The SpaceWorks team first removed corrosion and debris on the consoles and then stripped away hardware that had been added later (during the space shuttle control room era). Because the consoles’ original cathode-ray tubes (CRTs) were no longer usable, the technicians illuminated buttons and switches using modern technology.

The project took approximately three years, from NASA’s initial inquiry to completion. In October 2019, the finished project received a President’s Award for

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Honoring Apollo 13 The Cosmosphere planned special events to honor the 50th anniversary of Apollo 13. While these celebrations were placed on hold due to COVID-19, you can see films, photos and stories about Apollo 13 and the SpaceWorks restoration project at special Cosmosphere website: cosmosphere.lpages.co/apollo-13-50th-anniversary

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History of Cosmosphere International Science Education Center & Space Museum The Cosmosphere traces its roots to 1962, when Hutchinson resident Patty Carey opened a small planetarium on the Kansas State Fair Grounds. Four years later, the project found a home on the Hutchinson Community College Campus, and a group of boosters began the organizing work that eventually led to the creation of the 35,000-squarefoot Kansas Cosmosphere, which opened in 1982.

The SpaceWorks team works on a variety of projects for the museum from their off-campus workshop.

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National Leadership from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The entire SpaceWorks team was sent down to Houston for the ribbon cutting, following their gear, which had arrived in customized transport.

“The first two rows were shipped back to NASA via a Super Guppy [transport plane],” says Jim Remar, the Cosmosphere’s president and chief executive officer. “Everything else shipped via 53-foot trailers, in special shipping cradles fabricated by SpaceWorks.”

In addition to their work at the Cosmosphere and with NASA, SpaceWorks has helped prepare exhibitions for various American and global museums and traveling shows, as well as for numerous film projects. The division created 80 percent of space-related equipment used in the movie Apollo 13 as well as items for First Man and For All Mankind (Apple TV).

For the team in Hutchinson, each restored or recreated article is a chance to make a local contribution to efforts to remember and honor the world’s astronauts and cosmonauts as well as the scientists and crews who made their exploration possible.

KANSAS! MAGAZINE | FALL 2020

Today the Cosmosphere, a longtime Smithsonian affiliate, boasts three levels of permanent galleries, including a gallery depicting early German rocketry and the Astronaut Experience gallery featuring approximately 100 artifacts associated with the U.S. shuttle program, the Russian space station, the International Space Station, and more.

Visitors can also view documentaries at the 4K digital projection theater, enjoy a show in the Justice Planetarium, and gasp at small explosions during daily live science demonstrations in Dr. Goddard’s Lab. During summers, the facility houses children’s educational camps of various lengths that allow students opportunities such as working with a Astralis capsule simulator, drones, robotics and more.

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