75TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE
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Our Story, Our Land Our Tomorrow ... Together O U R 7 5 T H A N N I V E R S A R Y P H O T O G R A P H Y I S S U E // T H E M E S O F Community, People, Wild, Skyline and Storms // W I T H Next Generation Kansas Talent // E S S A Y S B Y Jim Richardson, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, Cheryl Unruh, Tim Stauffer and George Frazier
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7 5 TH A N N I V E R S A R Y
inside
PHOTOGRAPH Chad Sanford
this issue
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A Kansas Way of Life Celebrating 75 years of publication, KANSAS! Magazine’s Anniversary Issue is an exploration of Kansas symbols and iconic images through the lenses of Kansas photographers. Following the themes of skyline, storms, wildlife, communities and people, these photos show off where we come from and who we aspire to be. 10 community 21 storms 30 people 39 skyline 50 wild
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ON THE COVER Sunflowers bloom in Greeley County. Photograph by Rachael Sebastian.
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KANSAS! MAGAZINE | 75TH ANNIVERSARY
A Way Forward Kansas high school photographers look to the future
Best KANSAS! Covers Our editor-in-chief shares some of her favorite recent covers
Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism
Andrea Etzel
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Laura Kelly Visit our website to learn more!
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Bridgette Jobe
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KANSAS! (ISSN 0022-8435) is published five (5) times per year 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. Periodical postage paid at Topeka, KS, and at additional mailing offices. Newsstand price $5 per issue; subscription price $20 per year; $36 for two years. All prices include all applicable sales tax.
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in this
issue Looking Back, but Still Looking to the Stars
In many ways, when KANSAS! magazine began in 1945, the state was vastly different from the one we know today. For starters, its population of 1.8 million residents was more than 1 million fewer Kansans who live in here in 2020. And the state was more rural, with only 20 cities in the state boasting a population above 10,000 people. And then there was the war; like the rest of the nation in 1945, Kansas was still adapting from the drastic civil and industrial changes brought about by World War II. Kansans had contributed by sending young men and women into the battles, but also on the homefront in farms, military bases, prisoner of war camps, industrial facilities, ammunition factories and more. With victory abroad, Kansans and state agencies began focusing on the good life around us. The State Highway Commission of Kansas, for example, urged residents and visitors to explore attractions of Kansas such as Coronado Heights near Lindsborg and the State Capitol in Topeka (while also touting the dashing soldiers of Fort Riley who could balance three men on two mules, and the Heart of America’s Sweethearts—The Morrill Triplets of Lebanon, Kansas). Toward the end of the year, in November, the Kansas Industrial Development Commission (which would become the Kansas Department of Commerce) released its latest newsletter: To The Stars. By 1957, that black-and-white newsletter became KANSAS! magazine and eventually developed through the state Travel and Tourism Division of the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks, and Tourism into the publication that it is today. Seventy five years since the magazine’s founding, much has changed in Kansas. But as the state’s latest tourism slogan—To the Stars—attests, we continue to look to our future and dedicate this publication to continue bringing the best aspects of life in Kansas today and for tomorrow.
around the
Online at kansasmag.com
state
For this special anniversary issue, we reviewed more than 1,000 submitted photographs and recent archival images and selected ones that represented the diversity and beauty of Kansas. Below is a map of the state showing where some of these (and additional images to appear online at kansasmag.com) photographs were taken.
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Doniphan County
Nemaha County
44
Gove County
61
Johnson County
12
29
Riley County
Finney County Online at kansasmag.com
Harvey County
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Cowley County
ABOVE Detail of tourism information page for State Highway Commission of Kansas 1945 road map.
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Elk County
75TH ANNIVERSARY | KANSAS! MAGAZINE
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7 5 TH A N N I V E R S A R Y
from the
editor When preparing to write my letter, I surrounded myself with issues of KANSAS! from the last 75 years, allowing the words and images from past editors and contributors to soak in. Celebrating a milestone such as this is often a time to reflect on our history, cherish the present, and have hope for the future. Originally titled “To the Stars,” our first issue was printed in November 1945. World War II had ended a few months earlier, and our state was preparing for a postwar industrial “boom” and a hope-filled future. What began as a modest business newsletter flourished to become a treasured multigeneration lifestyle magazine. I share the sentiment mentioned previously by Andrea Glenn, the magazine’s longest-serving editor (1978–2001), that our success has depended greatly on the continued loyalty of our readers. Eleven months ago, when we welcomed in 2020, few knew how challenging this year would be. The hardships many fellow Kansans have faced this year are unimaginable. Our hearts are with you all. We wish you and your family many blessings this coming year and hope this publication provides a reminder of what remains good in our lives. Our aim with this special photography issue was to craft a visual love letter to Kansas and to those who call it home. The beauty within our borders is truly breathtaking. In a time of uncertainty, I’ve looked for anchors, constants that keep us grounded. Kansas provides these through the resiliency of our people, the communities who band together, the rainbows after a storm, sunrises bringing the gift of a new day and the simple pleasure of watching monarch butterflies dance within wildflowers. The response we received from our call for images was remarkable; hundreds of images were submitted in each category. I want to thank everyone who submitted photography. I fell even more in love with the Sunflower State going through your work, and I hope all of Kansas enjoys being able to share these images of our state.
ANDREA ETZEL
EDITOR, KANSAS! MAGAZINE
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KANSAS! MAGAZINE | 75TH ANNIVERSARY
PHOTOGRAPH Andrea Etzel
@KANSASMag
a kansas way community / storms / people / skyline / wild
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KANSAS! MAGAZINE | 75TH ANNIVERSARY
of life
Colton Sturgeon | Gove County
Celebrating 75 years of publication; KANSAS! magazine’s Anniversary Issue is an exploration of Kansas symbols and iconic images through the lenses of Kansas photographers. Following the themes of community, storms, people, skyline and wild, these photos show off where we come from and who we aspire to be.
75TH ANNIVERSARY | KANSAS! MAGAZINE
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community
a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals
Brian Goodman | Dickinson County
“THE HOPE THAT DRIFTS INTO THE AIR” This magazine began its journey 75 years ago, in 1945. It was a different time. The world has changed and expanded—but for many of us Kansans, our communities have contracted.
Tim Stauffer Tim Stauffer is the managing editor at The Iola Register in Iola, Kansas. Before working at the newspaper, Tim taught at Wyandotte High School in Kansas City, Kansas. He and his wife, Violeta, have two children, Lucas and Sofia.
Allen County, where I live, had a population of around 18,500 in 1945. It’s now just over 12,000. I live and work in Iola, the same town where I graduated high school. Of a class of 110 students, I’d be lucky to name ten who stayed. Not exactly a long-term solution for growth. While Kansas is indeed growing, most of our counties are not. The only exceptions are those containing metro areas. The future of our state doesn’t look like our past. It doesn’t even look like our present. Our state is growing because of our minority populations, leading Kansas to become increasingly diverse. What does this mean? To me, it forecasts a more cosmopolitan Kansas, one that must figure out how to address our struggles together. A Kansas that will find new stars to reach, traveling further down the path John James Ingalls set out upon “to reach the unattainable.” As our communities grow and change, our understanding of what it means to be a Kansan will change as well. We are rightfully proud of our local roots, but I tire of Kansans who recite their generations-long heritage as if it were something more than an interesting conversational badge of honor. I’m a fifth generation. My great-great-grandfather was the first president of the Iola Town Company. See? I just did it myself. So I understand the instinct and how hard it is to avoid. But when does memory become nothing more than weight? Show me the family who just arrived from somewhere else, the parents buying their starter home with toddlers in tow, the crowd of uncles and aunties gathered to celebrate the first member of their family graduating high school in America. These are Kansas stories, and they are as true to the ideal of our state’s character—one of endless promise, of a vast land yearning for strong hands, of a chance to define yourself on your own terms—as any I know. There’s always been a quiet energy here. It’s the silence perched between a deep breath and whatever’s next. It’s what’s waiting in the wings. What is the Kansas that will come? Who will tell its story? We’re probably not listening well enough. Can’t hear it yet. Because community requires listening, a willingness to cede the stage, to settle into ourselves and really pay attention. Community is the hope that drifts into the air: of democracy, of solidarity. It is the belief that if we work together, we can create the Kansas we deserve. It is the conviction that we are increasingly connected, part of a story bigger than ourselves. That’s what I think I hear when I listen for the future of our state. It’s a hum that sounds kind of like the cicadas when you step onto the grass when the sun is low, pressing in as if it were an embrace, carrying us into a future where we—people with different backgrounds and heritage—can talk about how far we’ve come, how dear this state is to us, and how we are all bound to the communities we share.
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Rachael Sebastian | Finney County
Doug Stremel | Doniphan County
Anita Hirsch | Decatur County
Stephen Cross | Sedgwick County
Bill Stephens | Shawnee County
Michael Snell | Douglas County
about
that shot Jason Dailey Flint Hills Rodeo Rider SUMMER 2019
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VOL 75
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ISSUE 2
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KANSASMAG.COM
Originally published in the summer 2019 edition of KANSAS! magazine
Rules are meant to be broken. Jason Dailey’s rodeo image is no exception. A less experienced photo-editor might cull this image out after seeing how the sun-flared backlighting obscures our view of the cowboy’s face. A less seasoned photographer might have waited for a view of the cowboy’s face, perhaps as he sat upright in the saddle, so we could see who was losing this battle with a horse. But that would have missed the unique flavor of this rodeo. Before he took this image, Dailey had been shooting rodeos at Strong City in Chase County for many years. “I’ve been heading down to that area to capture horse culture in Kansas, from ‘dream’ rides to rodeos and the people who keep the traditions going,” he recalls. “My first instinct is to create portraits—a moment that can be controlled and repeated. I quickly realized I had a very short window for these portraits because once that rodeo started nobody was gonna get dragged away for a picture.” Once the action began, having the right equipment and being in the right position were essential.
“Grabbing my gear for the action, I brought my telephoto lens as well as my wide angle and ended up switching between them. With the sun still well above the horizon, I was a little worried it was too bright for anything interesting like I had in mind—a night shot with the dark sky behind the riders. The idea of a silhouette was intriguing, even though the spectators’ risers blocked some of the light behind the horse’s feet, the dust and flare helped with the separation.” Dailey realized each eight-second ride provided him two or three jumps and bucks and then his opportunities were over. He and his equipment had to respond quickly. “While the wide angle managed to soak up the lens flare for a great look, this image was taken with my zoom at about 90mm. These guys were moving fast, and I wanted to freeze every flying fringe, sailing strap and spraying speck of dirt,” he explains. The 1/2000th of a second shutter speed accomplished that, rewarding Dailey with this image of the horse in mid-air, a hat flying off, and the cowboy appearing to be hanging on for dear life. —Bill Stephens
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Brian Goodman | Morris County
Unique indoor display of antique and vintage Christmas Trees.
Always defying expectations, a visit to Topeka will leave you wanting to come back for more! Discover art, history, and fun in the Capital City by visiting our website:
VisitTopeka.com/DefyingExpectations
November 1st through January 3rd 10-4pm Wed-Sat | 1-5pm Sun
(785) 887-6148 www.lecomptonkansas.com
storms
a violent disturbance of the atmosphere with strong winds and usually rain, thunder, lightning, or snow
Casey Wilson | Lyon County
“WE LIVE IN WEATHER” We Kansans live in weather.We know what it is to experience four seasons in a day, and we have pockets full of stories about tornado-prone farms, stormy picnics, and blizzardburied front doors.
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg is the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate and the author of two dozen books, most recently How Time Moves: New and Selected Poems, which is full of poetry about time, place, and especially weather. You can read more about her works at carynmirriamgoldberg.com
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KANSAS! MAGAZINE | 75TH ANNIVERSARY
While some might race across I-70 to get to what they deem good scenery, we understand what it means to live under the sky and on the land. Whether we’re from the short grass prairie out west or the rolling Flint Hills, we have front-row seats to a skyscape of infinite color, wind, temperature, light, and the most astonishing mountains of clouds on the planet. This hasn’t changed in the last 75 years, yet so much else has. Today many might see the weather as just the backdrop rather than the most valuable player and superstar rock-and-roller it is. With air-conditioning during the dog days of summer, thermostat-summoned heat, and more of us indoors at a constant 70 degrees, it’s easy to forget who’s in charge. But farmers, ranchers, highway workers, gardeners, and any of us paying attention know how much a storm can change lives and how living in extreme weather also means living in wonder. When it comes to weathering microbursts or floods, we have a lot to show the world, especially as signs point to more frequent bouts of severe weather in our future. We know how to gather lightning-fast to carefully lift branches off a collapsed house in case someone is trapped. We can whip together a casserole on a dime to leave at the neighbor’s door. We’re good at waiting for the electricity to come back, hauling a chainsaw, and making do with peanut butter sandwiches. After all, we’ve been taught well by living where a blizzard can dump six feet of snow, a summer rain can flood our basement, a heat wave can ruin our crops, or a tornado can take our house. We’ve become good farmers of patience, compassion, resilience, and tolerance. Despite our differences, no Kansan will ask someone in need if they are a Democrat or Republican, Muslim or Jew, gay or straight before rushing over with a shovel or a cherry pie. We also know the grace and beauty of the sky, even more apparent these days when the pandemic keeps us closer to home and more apt to wander our own backyards. There, if we only look up , we can find our heart’s desire where we live, all around us in the sky.
Jessi Jacobs | Ellis County
Duane Hallock | Johnson County
Scott Bean | Marshall County
Dave Leiker | Lyon County
Gerald J. Wiens | Chase County
Eugene Thieszen | Thomas County
Steve Current | Cowley County
about
Jason Soden
that shot This photo of storm clouds by Jason Soden leaves many questions unanswered. The double rainbows usually appear after the storm has passed, but there is no evidence of newly fallen rain on the fields. Maybe the storm is heading toward the viewer. The dark clouds that dip toward the horizon and touch the land clue the viewer into realizing something has either just passed or is heading our way. The darkness is almost certainly rainfall. And lots of it. At first glance you would assume this was taken with a wide-angle lens
Konza Prairie Treasure because of the extreme width of the view, but closer examination of the compression of perspective causing the rows of trees to stack up is more indicative of a medium telephoto lens. One of the other unique aspects of this image is the opening through the dark clouds at the top and the view looking up toward lighter clouds. It offers a peek at blue sky and is almost like a trap door that has been pulled open to reassure us viewers below that all is well above. —Bill Stephens
fall 2015 | vol 71 | issue 3 | kansasmag.com
e Z issu The O
Originally published in the fall 2015 edition of KANSAS! magazine
75TH ANNIVERSARY | KANSAS! MAGAZINE
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people
the men, women, and children of a particular nation, community, or ethnic group
Rachael Sebastian | Finney County
“TO PEOPLE NOT YET BORN” Portraits are a kind of conspiracy, a willful partnership between the one being seen and the one doing the seeing. I have participated in many.
Jim Richardson Kansas native Jim Richardson is one of the nation’s most respected contemporary photographers and portrait artists. His images have appeared in Time, Life, Sports Illustrated, New York Times, National Geographic and have won numerous international and national awards.
This dance of the photographic portrait is a relatively new thing in human history, little more than 150 years old. From photography’s earliest times, subjects understood they could, just by having their picture taken, speak to people they would never know, to people not yet born. They, instinctively looked into the lens (and not at the photographer), surrounding themselves with possessions, signifiers of who they were—or who they wanted the world to believe they were. Savvy photographers seeking to capture the timelessness of a moment are masters of this transaction. Our subjects give us themselves, and in return we give them posterity. Fort Scott native Gordon Parks did that with “Husband and Wife, Sunday Morning, Detroit, Michigan,” an image of a handsome couple in front of his Rolleiflex, Bible in hand, Sunday best, eyes riveted, expressions timeless. Pioneer photographers gathered families in front of their dugouts, prized possessions (horse and wagon, plow, kitchen table, pump organ) artfully arrayed. B.G. Grondal captured not only stolid bankers and merchants of Lindsborg but also white-frocked college students in a field of daisies, now forever young in his photograph. New people building a new world. Kansans now gone speak to us: Amelia Earhart freshly nonchalant in leather flight jacket, ever the aviatrix; Carrie Nation stern and moral (sometimes with hatchet, sometimes without); the Dodge City Peace Commission (Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and others), dapper enough but violence lurking; residents of proud Nicodemus assembled outside their prairie town’s store and their first stone church. Through these, our ancestors tell us who they were—and by extension who we are—and hoped time would not time rob them of their identity. That conspiracy to cheat time continues today. Our portraits speak to who we have become. Our portraits capture us in every aspect of living: at weddings, with new babies, on sports teams, at clubs, enjoying parties, marking retirements—but not at funerals (we gave up the practice of photographing the deceased). Taken together, this mustering of portraits establishes who we are, we who constitute this state of Kansas. So then, if those pioneers spoke to us, are we not speaking, through our portraits, to generations yet to come, to unknown people in an unknown future? Perhaps we should ask, What do we want to say to them? When, in another 75 years, KANSAS! magazine prints another collection of portraits, what will the future reader see in our eyes, in our expressions, captured in our moments in front of the camera? What shall we show of ourselves to these children of our children? Most important let us ask, Will they be proud of us? Will they know that Kansas became a better place because we lived? And, pray God, will they wish they could have known us?
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Doug Stremel | Chase County
Kathleen Otto | Wabaunsee County
Kayla Kohn | Douglas County
about
that shot Katie Moore Katie Moore traveled with Annette Billings, a well-known writer from Topeka, on a pilgrimage to Fort Scott to write about the legendary photographer and writer Gordon Parks, a native of that town. After visiting the Gordon Parks Museum and touring Fort Scott, they looked for a comfortable place to do some photographs and found this bench. “I liked the bench for the photos because it was a comfortable place for Annette to sit, but also because the pattern in her dress was echoed in the stripes in the bench and the white color of the bricks on the wall behind,” Moore explains. The choice of a medium telephoto lens threw the background just slightly
out of focus, concentrating the viewer’s attention on Billings. “After viewing the finished images when I was editing them, I realized that there was nothing being added to the overall impact by using color, so I chose to convert the final selection to black and white. The brick wall is off-white, her dress is simply a light pattern against a dark background, both perfect fits for a black and white treatment,” Moore comments. Although not consciously emulating the photo styles of Gordon Parks, Moore’s photo does pay homage to Parks, who is known for his use of black and white imagery in his journalism and artistic portraits. —Bill Stephens
Poet Annette Hope Billings in Fort Scott Literary issue
KANSAS BOOKS INSPIRE
Local Journeys and Grand Dreams SPRING 2018
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ISSUE 1
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KANSASMAG.COM
Originally published in the spring 2018 edition of KANSAS! magazine
Edgar Meza | Finney County
Kathryn Woelk | McPherson County
Chanute
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When you see the Lawrence Promise Seal you can rest assured that practices are in place to keep you and your loved ones safe.
LawrencePromise.com
Image: Clinton Lake, Lawrence, KS
21 N. Lincoln ~ 620-431-3350 information@chanutechamber.com www.chanutechamber.com
skyline
an outline of land and buildings defined against the sky
Bill Stephens | Shawnee County
“WHAT’S AHEAD?” As a kid growing up in rural Kansas in the ’60s and ’70s, I spent a lot of time looking out of car windows.
Cheryl Unruh Growing up in central Kansas, Cheryl Unruh developed a fierce love of the open landscape and the Kansas sky. Her two books of Kansas essays, Flyover People and Waiting on the Sky, each received the Kansas Notable Book Award. She lives in Emporia.
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KANSAS! MAGAZINE | 75TH ANNIVERSARY
My hometown of Pawnee Rock had few goods and services, so once a week my mother, brother and I headed “to town,” usually Larned, for groceries, library books, and, in the summer, the swimming pool. During these rides, my eyes reached as far as they could across the flat Arkansas River Valley—all the way to the end of the earth where the land stopped and the sky began. That view is forever imprinted on my brain. I feel the pull of the horizon daily. Heading toward it satisfies my obsession with distance and space and freedom. That horizon lures me with a single question: What’s ahead? My husband and I have made countless excursions within the state. As white lines flicker by on the highway, there’s something reassuring about how one’s eyes rest so comfortably upon the horizon. The Kansas skyline is zenlike, often a crisp, clean line. Sometimes that line is softened by gentle hills, or by trees that mark a shelterbelt or a stream. Every ten or twenty miles we’ll spot a grain elevator, an exclamation mark announcing a small community, an opportunity to explore whatever unexpected delight the town holds—perhaps a mural, historic structures, maybe a cafe with coconut cream pie. As our car tires grind onto sand-covered residential streets, I’m reminded of my childhood when I rode my bicycle thousands of miles within the Pawnee Rock city limits. I knew every building on every street. This is the Kansas I know. But what is the Kansas that we can become? Our skyline has changed some over the years. An old wooden barn has sturdy and unpretentious architecture, but now metal barns huddle up with new country homes. Cell phone towers stand on high elevation points. White blades of wind turbines cartwheel over the prairie where wooden and Aermotor windmills once caught the breeze. I’m curious how our skyline and our state may change in the future. What if we dreamed big? What if each town had its own power source, wind or solar? What if small towns became centers of innovation and those communities began to thrive again? What if we invested in family farms and regenerative agriculture so more Kansans could buy healthy, locally raised food? One thing I’m sure of is that Kansans are resourceful. We can find a way, whether it’s to the stars, or to a better future. And with the world changing rapidly, now is our chance to consider what we want to create here, what kind of life we want to build for ourselves. It’s a good time to ask: What’s ahead?
Michael Snell | Riley County
Mark Alexander | Chase County
Doug Stremel | Shawnee County
Michael Gillaspie | Clark County
Stephen Ozga | Gove County
Marilyn Friesen | Greenwood County
Michael Gillaspie | Ottawa County
about
that shot Doug Stremel Lone Tree SPRING 2017 | VOL 73 | ISSUE 1 | KANSASMAG.COM
H O M E
S T A T E
ARTISTS tulip
territory
revisiting GREENSBURG
Originally published in the spring 2017 edition of KANSAS! magazine
Clouds and trees and skylines are favorite subject matters for Kansas landscape photos. This image by Doug Stremel combines all three in a minimalistic yet effective combination. “This photo is one from many as part of my ‘Lone Tree’ series,” Stremel explains. “I discovered this little Russian olive tree in the Flint Hills during a summertime visit. I’ve been back for many more visits—each time hoping to capture something a little different.” “It was midday, and there were spectacular puffy white clouds dancing through the sky. Midday isn’t normally an ideal time to shoot landscapes, but many times that’s when the best clouds are filling the sky,” he adds. One of the basic tenets of composition is to divide the frame into a top third, a middle third, and a bottom third. Strong compositional elements, such as faces or horizons are supposed to fall on one of those
dividing lines. The photographer chose not to follow that rule. “I break the rule of thirds intentionally and frequently when shooting Kansas landscapes,” Stremel explains. “It helps illustrate the ‘big skies’ and ‘endless horizons’ that you see all around the state. I used a 16-28mm wide zoom lens to help tell the ‘lone tree’ story. Midday clouds are always super bright, so I normally underexpose the image so I don’t lose detail in the whites.” Seeing the photo opportunity and capturing the image in the camera are just half of the job. In postproduction on his computer, Stremel tweaked the exposure, contrast, and color adjustments using Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. Leaving massive amounts of real estate for the clouds, Stremel instinctively invites us to populate the sky with our own thoughts and memories. —Bill Stephens
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Scott Bean | Wabaunsee County
wild
living or growing in the natural environment
Doug Stremel | Marshall County
“THIS INCREDIBLE SHOW” Recently, I spent a night camping alone near the edge of a bluff that overlooks the sandy wash of the Smoky Hill River in western Kansas.
George Frazier Kansas native George Frazier is a software architect, outdoors writer and author of the book The Last Wild Places of Kansas: Journeys into Hidden Landscapes.
Despite the blissful comfort of my soft sleeping bag and the crisp air on my cheeks, midnight came and went and I couldn’t fall asleep. Moonlight shone through the mesh of my tent, and a Glastonbury Festival of crickets buzzed off and on, like an alarm clock just beyond reach. Tired of tossing and turning, I got dressed, put on my stocking hat, and stepped out into the midnight prairie. Though light pollution has ruined dark skies across much of America, this isn’t the case in south central and western Kansas. What I saw nearly leveled me. The moon was three-fourths full and the sky looked like the other fourth had been run through a wood chipper and spread across the heavens as bright specks of stars. Unfurled like a scroll, the Milky Way glowed with yellow zodiacal light, despite the waning gibbous. I tipped my hat to the moonlight and the mosh pit of crickets down in the cedar break; without them I would have missed this incredible show. Kansas is not known for its wild places. Part of the reason is optics: 98 percent of Kansas lands are privately owned. With so much of our landscape inaccessible to the public, much of America and many Kansans have confused a lack of access to wild places with nonexistence. But don’t be fooled. Kansas played a significant role in the environmental history of this nation and still has wild places that are part of our national wilderness legacy. We still have the Flint Hills, the largest repository of never-plowed tallgrass prairie left in North America. We still have the rugged badlands of the Gypsum Hills and Arikaree Breaks. We still have a patchwork of relict deep soil prairies, each one a fragile miracle, testimony to earth’s resilience. We still have old growth oak, hickory, cottonwood, and pecan forests, some with trees that were alive in colonial times. We still have large wetlands that protect endangered migratory birds like the whooping crane. We still have the silent emptiness of the high plains. Kansas still has wild places. Compared to states with ready public access, it can take more effort to find and experience them. Where to start? Try Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Chase County, or Konza Prairie in Geary County, or Cimarron National Grassland in Morton County, or Ancient Trees Trail at Cross Timbers State Park in Woodson County, or Big Basin Prairie Preserve and St. Jacob’s Well in Clark County, or Little Jerusalem Badlands in Logan County, or Elk River Hiking Trail in Montgomery County, or grab a kayak and float any section of the Kansas River. Or just get out of your tent and look around. What you discover will be worth keeping you awake at night.
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Marilyn Friesen | Barton County
ANITA HIRSCH | ????????? COUNTY
Colton Sturgeon | Shawnee County
Gerald J. Wiens | Cowley County
Rylee Liebau | Elk County
Mark Alexander | Harvey County
about
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How Rural Southwest Kansas Communities Rallied to Recover from Fire
Originally published in the fall 2019 edition of KANSAS! magazine
Dave Leiker has been an explorer of the Flint Hills for decades. One of his favorite subjects are the herds of wild mustangs living their lives free to roam on the Kansas land. “I had photographed them in all types of weather: snow, pouring rain, but always from the roadside. This assignment offered an opportunity to enter into their domain, walk among them and photograph them in a more intimate way,” Leiker explains. The photo assignment for KANSAS! magazine took him to the Vestring Ranch near Cassoday, where he climbed into a pickup with the ranch owner and drove into one of his pastures. “Then I walked across the grasslands until I was surrounded by horses. Curiosity drew them in close enough for studies of their interaction and markings. At other times they would run across the horizon, as you see in this photo. There is a natural chaos to the movements. To get good photographic compositions I kept an eye out for balanced, harmonious groupings,” he adds.
Leiker wanted to capture groups of horses as well as some close-in studies. Given the nature of wild mustangs, he expected them to keep some distance, so he used a 70-200mm zoom lens to give him a good deal of reach when needed, but still an ability to pull back and capture groups. This photograph used the full 200mm length of the lens with the camera’s shutter speed set to 1/500th sec to help freeze motion. The process is not finished when the shutter is clicked. “To bring out the hidden richness of the scene and re-capture how it appeared to the human eye, I used an HDR [high dynamic range] application to remap the tones. In Photoshop I added a duplicate layer in multiply mode to further deepen the textures so only the sky was affected. The result communicated some warm atmospherics in what may otherwise have been a pretty bland image,” Leiker notes. —Bill Stephens
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a way forward Kansas high school photographers look to the future
Jersey Johnson | Gove County
ANITA HIRSCH | ????????? COUNTY
Aiden Droge | Shawnee County
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Johanna Walker | Leavenworth County
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