SPRING
By 2030, one out of every five people in the United States will be age 65 or older. By 2034, the nation will have more older adults than children under 18 for the first time ever. That’s why AARP is working with local leaders nationwide to help towns, cities, counties, rural areas and even entire states become more livable for people of all ages.
In a livable community, people of all ages can …
• Live safely and comfortably
• Enjoy public places
• Spend time outdoors
• Get around without a car
• Go for a walk
• Ride a bike
• Work or volunteer
• Shop, socialize and be entertained
• Access healthy food
• Find the services they need and
… make where they live a lifelong home.
Brookwood Retail Liquor
Cruise Holidays
Dillons
H&R Block
Heart and Home Design Co.
Interior Design Resources
Kansas Drug Testing
Linen Tree & Company
Madison Avenue Boutique
Pam Luthi Insurance Solutions
Prairie Trading Company
Ryan’s Pub
Shear Heaven Styling
SoulFire Nutrition
Stillpoint Massage and Body Work
Stitching Traditions
Tequila’s Mexican Restaurant
The Burger Stand
The Laundry Chute
The Taseful Olive
The Wild Bird House
TopCity Tech
Triple Edge Barbers
Wheatland Antique Mall
As we’ve begun doing every other edition, this issue of our magazine includes the Topeka Family Magazine section with stories and resources focusing on family audiences.
Our regular section of Topeka Magazine brings a feature on the 3-year anniversary of the city’s Black Restaurant and Food Truck Week organized by Chris Ware and his Warehouzz Management company. This year’s lineup included a few new establishments, some featured in these pages. Check out the full listing of venues and stop by any of the places throughout the year if you wish to support these local-owned businesses.
Whatever your plans are for this spring, we hope you have a healthful and enjoyable season. We look forward to greeting you again when our summer edition releases in June. Until then, enjoy the hot dogs and enjoy exploring Topeka.
—NATHAN PETTENGILL, EDITOR
Editor Nathan Pettengill
Art Director/Designer Alex Tatro
Copy Editor Leslie Clugston Andres
Advertising Representative Angie Taylor ataylor@sunflowerpub.com (785) 832-7236
Photographers Nick Krug
T.H. Peterson
Bill Stephens
Writers Thomas Averill
Jordan E. Brooks
Haines Eason
Marsha Henry Goff
Jeffrey Ann Goudie
Susan Kraus
Illustrator
Pat Abellon
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Topeka Magazine is a publication of Sunflower Publishing, a division of Ogden Publications. Director: Bob Cucciniello
Publisher: Bill Uhler
Ogden Publications 1503 SW 42nd St Topeka, KS 66609
sunflowerpub.com
topekamag.com
10 A PERSONAL MAP OF TOPEKA
Each of us has a personal geography of Topeka, created by our own experiences and memories—and spending months at home during the pandemic has motivated Tom Averill to explore his own mental map of the city, and invite us to do the same
17 COLORADO SPRINGS
Travel writer Susan Kraus brings us her latest pick for vacation destinations easily drivable from Topeka and packed with familyfriendly activities
20 THE RED PHOENIX BARBER
Wanda Collins walked into a profession dominated by men, then cut her way to the top
24 FOR THE NEXT GENERATION
The success of Topeka’s Black Restaurant and Food Truck Week is driven by a belief in the importance of Black ownership— for the Black community and for the city as a whole
TOPEKA FAMILY
04 FOSTER'S 101
Topekan Doris Didde Foster looks back on a life of family connections and adventure that defined her century
08 CULTIVATE GENEROSITY
Megan Phelps-Roper talks about breaking with her Westboro family and starting a new one
12 HOME ART PROJECTS: PAINTING WITH MARKERS
Topeka artist Jordan E. Brooks teaches children to use ordinary markers in a painterly fashion with this home art project
14 SPRING & SUMMER EVENTS
Like much of the world, we are catching up on activities and routines that we put aside during lockdown and the period of uncertainty immediately afterward. At the start of the year, we were able to revive our magazine’s and our publishing company’s annual awards for contributing photographers and writers. This edition honors and reprints two articles from Topeka Magazine which took awards across our publishing house for distinguished contributions over the past three years: Thomas Averill’s 2021 “Personal Map of Topeka,” which won Best Feature Story in 2021 and Jeffrey Ann Goudie’s “Cultivate Generosity,” which won Best Department Story in 2020. We’re honored to be featuring more work by these talented writers in upcoming editions.
The summer 2023 edition of Topeka Magazine arrives in June and includes stories concentrating on arts, culture, people, places and
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Douglass E. Stull, MD Richard G. Wendt, MD Adam M. Goodyear, MD James C. Huston, MDBecause I’ve lived most of my life in Topeka, I have a deep sense of what I call personal geography. I reside in my hometown of today, but also in memories that carry me into the past. I’ve been especially aware of this double vision over the past year, when Covid-19 has driven us all to stay home. Unable to see friends, eat in restaurants, attend events, visit museums, or go to movies, I have found myself imagining those people, places and experiences. I also remember backward, into my deeper past in this place. I am living a kind of double life. This layered vision started years ago, when I was a boy.
My father was irrationally afraid to fly, but he knew from his professional life as a Menninger-trained psychiatrist that it was a fear he should overcome, or at least not pass on to his children. So that we wouldn’t inherit this phobia, one day my father and mother took me and my siblings to Billard Airport in North Topeka. My mother later remembered that the airport, or a charter company, was having a special: flyers were charged not by the passenger, the time, or the distance, but by the pound. How inexpensive, then, to have us four children board a Piper Cub and have us flown over the landmarks of our lives on that bright, clear Saturday morning.
Aloft, like Penny from one of our favorite old television shows, Sky King, the ground moving away and everything below shrinking, I had the best view I’d ever seen, whether from Burnett’s Mound, or the bluffs above the Kansas River, or the Kansas State Capitol, where we climbed steep and
STORY BY Tom Averill ILLUSTRATION BY Pat AbellonEditor's note: This article was first published in spring 2021. We are reprinting it to honor its selection as Sunflower Publishing's Best Feature story for 2021.
precarious stairs to the top of the dome, the very highest place in town.
Our pilot buzzed that Capitol, then headed south above Kansas Avenue, which we recognized from shopping at Pelletier’s and Crosby Brothers. We flew south and east to Lake Shawnee, the home of our day camp.
In fact, one summer, my brother and I became legends when, thinking we had missed the bus, we walked from the stop at Southwest (now Whitson) School to Lake Shawnee. More than two hours after we should have arrived, we trudged into camp full of our exploit. Even the counselors, concerned because they weren’t sure where we’d been, admired our feat, and our feet: we had stamina and a sense of direction.
From Lake Shawnee, the airplane took us that same route we’d walked, only backward, through south Topeka, over the State Fairgrounds with its oval racetrack, over Washburn University, where we took art lessons, over First Congregational Church, where we attended Sunday school and then walked the few blocks east to Dairy Queen for a different kind of sundae, then over our school, and above our house on Stratford Road, so small and unremarkable among however many like it in our neighborhood, but nevertheless distinctly our own.
Next, the pilot banked south and west to fly over Burnett’s Mound, a frequent destination reached by bicycle and enjoyed with a sack lunch. Then north to our next favorite haunt, the Kansas River, to a place we called Horseshoe Cliff. Even from the air we could see the bike path across a field of grass, the bike trails cut among hillocks and steep bluffs, the ones we rode, proving our daring, sick with speed.
Each of us has a personal geography of Topeka, created by our own experiences and memories—and spending months at home during the pandemic has motivated Tom Averill to explore his own mental map of the city, and invite us to do the same
We followed the sandy old Kaw back across downtown to the airport and landed, home again to our parents’ waiting excitement. My father accomplished his goal: none of his children fears flying. More important, he gave me another way to know a place. To hold it all in sight, from above, is to feel a part of it, past and present. Topeka, from above, unfurled like a map, the map of itself, but also the map of our lives.
From 1967 to 1982, I lived in Lawrence and in Iowa City, Iowa. I took a position at Washburn to teach creative writing in 1980, and once that became a tenure-track position in 1982, I moved back to Topeka. Our daughter was born at the Holistic Birth and Growth Center at 6th and Washburn that same year, and we had more family in Topeka, and I could spend more time at home if I didn’t commute. At Washburn, I joined a group of faculty and alums who exercised together, running every day during the noon hour, exploring neighborhoods, the Shunga trails, the parks, the underpasses and overpasses of train bridges and
streets. We’d run between five and eight miles each day.
When I was in my forties, my goal each birthday was to run as many miles in a week as I was old. This became more difficult the older I became, of course, but having companions helped. These friends often indulged my whim to run past one of the sites of my personal geography, calculating my miles to match the age I was when I experienced the place. For example, on our first day we might run straight to SE 6th & SE Golden, a distance of about four miles, because my first days and nights in Topeka, where my family moved when I was four years old, were spent at what was then the Golden Glow Auto Court, little cabins that backed up against woods and fields. On the way there, I’d sometimes share a memory. From Golden Glow, of being bitten on the waist by a cow when I got too close to the fence behind our little cabin. The little toothmark bruises, no blood, were trophies to show off to my brothers.
The next day would be a jog west on 17th Street for First Congregational Church at 17th and Collins, for Southwest Elementary School at 17th and Arnold, then a side track to Gage Center, my first
Continued on page 14.
strip mall, where I stole a comb from Schaffert–Grimes Drug Store and took trumpet lessons at Midwestern Music. Then we’d jog west again for Capper Junior High at 19th and Hope, then swing by Mount Hope Cemetery, where I worked three summers when I was 17, 18 and 19, we runners hitting our 19-mile mark just as I was recalling the time Skip, the oldest member of the grounds crew at Mount Hope, took me to the crematorium the first time, tasking me with unscrewing the handles from the coffin containing the body we were about to lift into the oven. He waited until I was right next to the lid latch, then opened it for my first gasping look at a dead body. Six hours later, that body was ash. I was still ashen.
In this way, then, we’d get through my life and miles, perhaps marking my 47th mile and year at Stormont Vail hospital where my father died in the emergency room in August of 1996, when I was 47 years old. The next year, in January, while I was still 47, our son was born in that same hospital. All places contain memories and stories, of course, but the longer I’ve lived in this place, the deeper and more layered those stories have become.
With my exploring curtailed by the pandemic, Topeka has become nearly “virtual,” the past and the present more equal. Staying home, I can recall the old bowl of a swimming pool at Gage Park, where we feared the occasional outbreak of polio. I can see the zoo’s Monkey Island, and the caged gorilla who once grabbed a woman’s hand when she placed it close to the bars, which I witnessed with my friend Mike. I can pick up my Chinese carryout at Hunam, but remember family dinners after church at the Red Dragon, once on 21st, across from Topeka’s first Pizza Hut, housed in a white cinder-block building just a block or two from Seacrest Drug, owned by Joel Reibstein, the father of my friend David, with its soda fountain, where we ordered chocolate root beers. Myron Green Cafeteria at 715 Quincy is equal to any other downtown restaurant I cannot now patronize: one distant in the past, the others distant from my present possibilities. A lot of us, homebound in 2020 and 2021, have exercised imagination and memory to savor what was there for us in a past, in a place entirely unique to us. Still, I look forward to finding normalcy again. I look forward to lifting up and out, buoyed by the imagined, the remembered and the real that makes up my mental map of Topeka.
Several years ago, I was discussing with friends the notion of personal geography: How did we map our lives in the world? What places do we know intimately and best? Where do we feel most comfortable?
These spaces could be relatively small and immediate, such as the homes we lived in. They could be past and distant, such as our childhood neighborhoods or vacation sites often visited.
Among my friends, I was the only one in the group who had lived mostly in the same town from childhood into adulthood, and I drew a map of Topeka by hand, showing that from my current home I could visit most all of the important places of my life— homes, schools, birthplaces of children, work places, places my parents died and are buried—all within a five-mile radius. I pointed out that I lived close to much of my life by living so close to my past.
When our daughter turned 18, we invited a bunch of her friends to meet for dinner at a small restaurant where she worked. Then we surprised her: the Topeka Trolley pulled up, and everyone climbed in for a tour of her life—all of her significant places. The next year she went to the University of Kansas, then to Iowa, to Pennsylvania, back to Lawrence, then to New York, to Vermont, and to California. Soon, she’ll move to Massachusetts. Such is her nomadic life, much the opposite of my life, but equally rich.
Here (on pages 12–13 and listed on page 15), are the locations of my life in Topeka, significant places or locations of significant events marking out my geography of the city.
What does your personal map of Topeka look like?
—Tom Averill1) St. Francis hospital, 1953, the birth of my sister Libby, our first Kansan in the family
2) Golden Glow Auto Court, corner of 6th and Golden, 1953, first nights spent in Topeka
3) 4309 Stratford Road, 1953, first Topeka House
4) Ward Creek, 1955-1962, favorite play place
5) Southwest (now Whitson) School, 1954-1960, grade school
6) First Congregational Church, 1954-1967—also 1996 and 2009. After church we’d sometimes walk to the Dairy Queen at 17th and Medford
7) Lake Shawnee—day camps, the big walk, 1960—SE boundary of my childhood
8) Burnett’s Mound, day trips by bicycle—SW boundary of my childhood
9) Horseshoe Cliff, Kansas River, day trips by bicycle—NW boundary of my childhood
10) Boys Industrial School (now YCAT), 1954-1967—where my father was clinical director and where we swam over the noon hours many summer days
11) St. David’s Episcopal Church, where my Boy Scout Troop 41 met
12) Capper Junior High School, 1960-1963
13) State Capitol, to climb through the rotunda to the top
14) Pelletier’s and Crosby Brothers department stores
15) Gage Center: with Safeway, Schaffert-Grimes Drug Store, Midwestern Music, where I took trumpet lessons for years, Woolworth’s with a lunch counter, first strip mall built when I was a child
16) Topeka West High School, 1964-1967
17) 4400 block Holly Lane, 1964-1967, residence
18) Gage Park—Topeka Zoo and the Rose Garden and the old bowl of a pool—we were afraid of polio outbreaks
19) Topeka Fairgrounds, where we attended the State Fair every year
20) Washburn University, where I’d get off the bus for art lessons as a kid, and where I taught from 1980-2017
21) Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library, remodeled the year I arrived in Topeka, and where I’ve been a patron for many years.
22) Holistic Birth and Growth Center, 6th & Washburn, where our daughter, Ellie, was born in 1982
23) 700 block Green Street, 1982-1986, residence
24) 600 block Webster Avenue, 1986-2002, residence
25) 300 block SW Greenwood Avenue, 2002 to present, residence
26) Stormont Vail Hospital, where my father was pronounced dead in the emergency room, August 1996 and where our son, Alex, was born in January 1997
27) Ward-Meade Botanical Garden, a daily walk for many years
28) Brewster Place, where my mother lived from 2001 to her death in 2009
Looking back on a life of family and fun with Doris Didde Foster
A HOME ART PROJECT REPRINT OF AWARDWINNING PHELPS-ROPER PROFILE FAMILY CALENDAR OF EVENTS
This twice-yearly collection of stories is printed with our mission in mind: We share authentic stories to inspire and support all Topeka families and communities.
For this edition, we return to artist and educator Jordan E. Brooks, who brings us another homeart project for all ages. We also catch up on the life story of Doris Didde Foster, bring you a calendar of family-friendly events, and honor one of our award-winning stories about one Topekan’s courageous steps to define family on her own terms.
We hope you enjoy this installment, and we look forward to celebrating our city and the opportunities it provides together with you and your loved ones.
To you and to your families! On
Cover Doris Didde Foster blows best-wishes kisses to celebrate her 100th birthday. Photographby T.H. Peterson.
Editor Nathan Pettengill
Art Director/Designer Alex Tatro
Copy Editor Leslie Clugston Andres
Advertising Representative Angie Taylor ataylor@sunflowerpub.com (785) 832-7236
Photographers Bill Stephens T.H. Peterson
Writers Jordann E. Brooks Marsha Henry Goff Jeffrey Ann Goudie
Topeka Family Magazine is a publication of Sunflower Publishing, a division of Ogden Publications.
Director: Bob Cucciniello
Publisher: Bill Uhler
Ogden Publications 1503 SW 42nd St Topeka, KS 66609
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STORY BY Marsha Henry Goff
Foster, who lives in Topeka with her daughter and son-in-law, Belinda and Tom Flynn. Her story began almost 101 years ago when she was born in Nortonville, in a three-story farmhouse built by her father for a large family. The eighth child of her parents, she was three when her father died and her mother was eight months pregnant with their ninth child. Four older sisters, three of whom were educated at Mount Scholastica to become teachers, had left the home, so little Doris grew up with her brothers who were 9, 7, 5 and the infant born after their father’s death.
Her mother later told Doris it would have been so much easier had her sisters been able to provide more financial help to the family by teaching in Nortonville, but they were not hired because they were Catholic. At the time, the Ku Klux Klan, believed to control local elected officials on the school board as well as in the county and city governments, effectively barred Catholics from teaching in public schools or running for public office. Foster’s mother also remarked that life would have been easier had her husband had life insurance, but she
raised the five children remaining at home by selling the farm implements and renting out the farmland.
At 17, Doris found a job in Atchison cooking, cleaning, and caring for a young boy for $3 a week. After several months, her sister in Emporia suggested she come live with her, go to beauty school and have her tuition financed by her working siblings. Doris is proud that she paid them back once she found a job at Midway Beauty Shop in Atchison. “They had forgotten about it, didn’t even remember they gave me any money, but I gave it back because that was my agenda,” she recalls.
Until she was 21, Doris also gave much of her income to support her mother, then supported her mother during the last 10 years of her life. Taking care of each other was just something the Didde family did.
World War II brought excitement on the homefront for an attractive young woman who was adventurous and fun-loving. Doris recalls how she and her friends went to movies, and “on Saturday nights we rode in cattle trucks from the Y in Atchison to dances in Fort Leavenworth. Thirty girls sat on planks in the truck and we were strictly supervised. The three girls I lived with in Atchison were like sisters. I was not too interested in boys, but I loved the dances.”
She liked her job in the beauty shop and developed a large clientele, but her mother suggested she move to Topeka to help her sister with a new baby and work at someone else’s shop. “So I did,” Doris says, “but I hated it. When you’re a beauty parlor operator, you’re a person, not a number. I was a number there, and I hated it for a year or two, and then I got used to it.”
She later worked for what was then the Santa Fe Railroad, her first employer to provide benefits. She
“I was not too interested in boys, but I loved the dances.”
Though the Covid pandemic has affected mortality rates across all ages, including the very oldest, the pre-pandemic trend was definitely toward more Americans living well past 100 years.
A 2016 report from the Centers for Disease Control noted that, “although centenarians are still uncommon, the numbers of Americans aged 100 and over increased 43.6%, from 50,281 in 2000 to 72,197 in 2014.”
According to a 2018 U.S. Census Bureau, the number of Americans living past 100 is expected to rise greatly in the coming decade, from 82,000 in 2016 to 589,000 by 2060.
The latest (2021) census information for Kansas estimates that some 1.9% of Kansans are 85 years or older; it does not release information on the percentage who are over 100.
even became engaged to a soldier named Joe, but she and her fiancé never talked about marriage. They just wanted to enjoy each other’s company, and the engagement gave them more freedom. They corresponded throughout the war while he was abroad, but when he returned, she broke off the engagement. Joe died three years later of an illness contracted overseas.
Doris cared a great deal for Joe because among her keepsakes is a 75-year-old newspaper clipping with a picture of his dog, General, mourning his death. Man and dog had been together since Joe had found him in Oran, and General was with him throughout Africa, Sicily, the Italian mainland (where General landed with Joe on Anzio Beachhead), Northern France, Germany and Austria. General was discharged with Joe and came home with him in September 1945.
Doris met her true love and future husband when Harlan Foster came with her brother to Emporia where she lived after the war. Both men had trained to be pilots, but the war ended before they finished training. Harlan completed college on the G.I. Bill and, although Doris notes she was not in a hurry to get married, they wed in 1950. It did not matter to her that he was not Catholic. “I never pressured him to become Catholic; I think that is a personal decision.”
Their marriage produced six children before Harlan, who worked at Goodyear and farmed, died at 54. But Doris was more fortunate than her mother. She had remembered her mother’s comment about life insurance and made sure she and Harlan each had small insurance policies. With one child still at home and others in college, Doris earned extra money by baking cakes, gardening, and canning. She taught those skills to 4-H members and was honored for her involvement with that organization by serving as grand marshal of both Hoyt and Jackson County parades.
The Flynn household is an active one, and Doris plays a big part in it. The family hosts two exchange students, from Indonesia and Kyrgyzstan respectively, who attend Topeka West. Grandchildren and greatgrandchildren visit (Doris has 50, with another due) and she especially appreciated a week-long visit by a nearly two-year-old great-grandson, who enjoyed watching an Andrea Bocelli concert with her.
Because Belinda is a physical therapist, she knows the importance of keeping her mother moving. They visit the library every week, and Doris accompanies the couple when they play cards with friends. She also likes having her hair done and going to Walmart.
Life for Foster has been good, indeed, at 100 ... and on March 4, 2023, she put on a new outfit and got her hair done to celebrate 101.
STORY BY Jeffrey Ann Goudie
Editor's note: This article was originally published in spring 2020. We are reprinting it now to honor its selection as Sunflower Publishing's Best Department Story of 2020.
Megan PhelpsRoper holds her child, Sølvi, alongside her husband, Chad Fjelland. Photograph courtesy Megan Phelps-Roper Phelps-RoperAnyone who has lived in Topeka since 1991 will be familiar with Westboro Baptist Church’s homophobic pickets. These once-ubiquitous protests garner less publicity now, but their power to intimidate in the early 1990s—long before legalized same-sex marriage and the evolution of public opinion and policy regarding the LGBTQ community—can’t be overstated.
As a newspaper columnist, first for the Topeka Capital-Journal, and later for the Topeka Metro News, I wrote critically about Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) and found myself a target of the church’s venom. Members of the Phelps family—nearly the entire church congregation was part of a single extended family— sent out personalized, graphic and profane faxes.
Over the years, criticism of the WBC grew, and it was officially recognized as a hate group by organizations such as the AntiDefamation League. The WBC’s picketing of military funerals also caused national outrage and prompted multiple municipal and state lawmakers to enact laws protecting mourners from being directly confronted by the WBC demonstrations. There were also defections from within the WBC family, and I was delighted when, in 2015, Megan Phelps-Roper reached out to me and my husband, writer Tom Averill (also a target of WBC faxes), through Eric McHenry, a Washburn University English professor. Over pizza at a local restaurant, Megan and her younger sister Grace asked how the faxes and pickets affected us. I understood that they were seeking to understand people once considered enemies.
Later, I learned from Eric that Megan had written a powerful memoir about leaving the church; she was in negotiations with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, a New York house that also has published former Topekans Ling Ma, Ben Lerner, and Cyrus Console. A possible movie deal was also in the works.
The movie has yet to emerge, but the book Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church, was released in 2019 and tells—in clear, thoughtful and candid prose—the story of PhelpsRoper’s loving but harsh childhood and adolescence in the fundamentalist church. She writes of her awakening to the hurt the church’s hatemongering messages inflicted, especially as the group began to picket the soldiers’ funerals. Twitter served as an eye-opener when PhelpsRoper jousted with outsiders, most notably a Jewish blogger, and later, with a lawyer who became her husband.
Phelps-Roper now lives in a small South Dakota town with her husband and their daughter. She graciously agreed to answer a dozen questions about Unfollow on the heels of a whirlwind tour of the book.
Jeffrey Ann Goudie (JAG): As a Topekan who witnessed the pickets of the Westboro Baptist Church, and who was the subject of faxes as a newspaper columnist who wrote critically about the church, I found the first part of Unfollow hard to read. This is another way of saying that the writing is quite authentic. When you begin to flirt with the outside world, I breathed easier as a reader. Was the first part of the book harder to write than later parts?
Megan Phelps-Roper (MPR): It was definitely harder. I still experience an intense “split-screen” effect when I think about my years growing up: I remember what it felt like as I lived it, when I understood Westboro to be righteous and essentially unquestionable—but I am also often appalled and flabbergasted to reconsider our actions now as an “outsider.” It’s disorienting to feel both a sense of complete normalcy and horrifying regret about the same set of actions.
JAG: Your mother, Shirley Phelps-Roper, and your aunt, Margie Phelps, certainly did not conform to the Old Testament model of the submissive wife. At one point you refer to your mom and “her power-walking sisters.” How was it growing up with these strong women?
MPR: In spite of all the hurtful things I learned at Westboro, I am profoundly grateful to have been surrounded by so many strong, capable women. A huge part of the strength it took for me to leave the church was derived from the example of those women. They knew what they were about; they were passionate and dedicated; they played to their strengths, and they were—for many years—the loudest voices at Westboro. It was empowering and inspirational for me.
Photograph courtesy Megan Phelps-RoperJAG: You and your eleven siblings attended Topeka Public Schools rather than being home-schooled. Likewise, you were not shielded from access to movies, books, television, music and other popular media. How did this pop culture exposure affect your development?
MPR: For a long time, I thought it didn’t affect me much at all, because I had viewed everything and everyone through the lens that Westboro had given me (which is to say, it never made me consciously question the church). I recognize now, though, that that exposure was important—because it showed me what was possible. It wasn’t until I started questioning the church’s doctrines that I started to re-think my view of outsiders and their ideas. But if I’d never had that exposure in the first place, I wouldn’t have had viable alternatives readily available to help me find a different perspective.
JAG: You became the social media voice for WBC at an early age. You seemed to enjoy swimming in the snark-infested waters of Twitter. What is your current thinking about Twitter?
MPR: I was 23 when I joined Twitter, and I did love it. I still believe that we can choose to engage on the platform with more empathy and consideration—that it can still be a place for genuine connection with strangers—but because of the way outrage and cancel culture function on the internet now, it’s much harder to have public conversations on any sort of difficult topic. We have to find a way to cultivate generosity with respect to how we interpret the words of people with whom we disagree.
JAG: You made a brave decision to leave the confines of WBC because of the unfair treatment of your mother and your sister, Grace. A former high school teacher served as a friendly sounding board and guardrail during this period. Could you describe his influence?
MPR: I could not be more grateful for Keith Newbery. I had him for one class at Topeka West High School, but because of the way he treated me— fairly, kindly, generously, unafraid to openly discuss Westboro—I understood that he had good intentions. His openness bred trust, and when I left the church, his friendship was so much more than I could have hoped for. He directed me to books and ideas to broaden my perspective, helped me see where Westboro’s thinking was tripping me up, and gave me a safe place to express myself without judgment. Friend, mentor, therapist, and very funny—Newbery filled a lot of roles.
JAG: Who are your other mentors?
MPR: There are several—people I met while at Westboro and new friends I’ve made since leaving—but another essential mentor is Eric McHenry, a professor at Washburn University. He’s an incredibly thoughtful person who has a deep understanding of Westboro
and its history in Topeka. That knowledge and experience give him a unique perspective that has helped me in many ways, and Unfollow wouldn’t exist without his encouragement and assistance in writing about all of it.
JAG: Has there been any reaction to Unfollow from your family members, or other members of WBC?
MPR: There has been some reaction from WBC, all negative of course. I’ve even been the subject of a Westboro fax myself recently. I expected the negative words, of course, but I’m heartened by a brief conversation I had with my uncle (a Westboro elder) on Twitter, which included a small admission that they may have done some things wrong. It may seem small, but that acknowledgment gives me hope.
JAG: What is it like to return to Topeka now that you are no longer allowed to visit your family at the WBC compound?
MPR: It used to be almost exclusively painful and awkward. It’s still both of those things, but to a much lesser
Photograph courtesy Farrar, Straus and Giroux“We have to find a way to cultivate generosity with respect to how we interpret the words of people with whom we disagree.”
degree—and those feelings sit alongside a much deeper appreciation of Topeka than I ever had while I was at WBC. I miss life there sometimes, not just my life at Westboro but the city itself, and many people who live there. I just found myself typing, “I enjoy coming home now.” I think I’ll always think of Topeka as home.
JAG: Your future husband seemed to take a very cautious approach when you started expressing to him your desire to leave the church. How was this helpful to you?
MPR: It was important that I come to my conclusions on my own— that I be intentional and deliberate and learn to stand on my own two feet. I had never had any real independence at Westboro, never really had to do my own thinking, and it was a skill I desperately needed to learn.
JAG: When you first fled the church, you and your sister immersed yourselves in books. How did books help you in the aftermath of leaving the church?
MPR: Books helped me in all the ways that they help everyone: They give us a broader sense of other people’s experiences and help us see ourselves in them. They help us to feel like we’re not alone.
They give us language to articulate things we’ve felt but didn’t have words for—and may not have even been totally conscious of. They offer us different ways of understanding and interpreting the world. Books are everything.
JAG: Have you been surprised by the attention your book has received, with reviews in the New York Times Book Review and on NPR, among others, and an interview on Terry Gross’ “Fresh Air”?
MPR: I have been floored by the responses I’ve been getting. I never expected anyone to care much, and it has been so gratifying to think anyone would take the time to read and think about my book—let alone give it space in these incredible outlets.
JAG: What is life like for you now as mother of a toddler in a tiny town in South Dakota?
MPR: It’s still hard to believe my life is what it is now. I spent a long time thinking that I’d never get married or have children, and I think that’s made me appreciate my husband and daughter to an utterly overwhelming degree. It also amazes me that I have any real control over my life at all; I always joke that I still get excited to go to the grocery store without permission, and it’s still true!
STORY BY Jordan E. Brooks PHOTOGRAPHY BY Bill Stephens
Be sure to distinguish the different types of markers: water-soluble and permanent. Each of them plays a different role in this project. You use the permanent markers for your outline marks, and you blend colors in the interior design with the washable markers.
One of the skills of a great artist is the ability to blend and bleed colors in a composition to create interesting tones and shading. That’s a hard skill to come by, but an enjoyable one to learn. Young artists can discover or experiment with this technique in an affordable and non-messy way by using ordinary school markers in a painterly fashion to create watercolor-like impressions. As a bonus, this technique is also a fun way to recycle markers that are being little used or have almost run out of color. It’s a technique for all skill levels, young to old, and is perfect for a fun family activity.
Once you gather your materials, set up your area and open your creativity. Draw a composition on a blank piece of thick paper—it should be a single composition with plenty of room to fill in space between the lines.
Once you have outlined your composition, take a permanent marker and outline it. Then let it dry.
Now, use the washable markers for the interior parts of the composition. I like to think of these markers as representing our paint tubes because their colors can wash off easily and will blend with one another.
Use the washable markers to color in—or saturate—the interior of the thick lines you have drawn. Use a few colors near one another.
Experiment with value scale. This means being aware of how the amount of water affects the blending and intensity of colors. Using water to blend your colors also dilutes your marker drawings changes the saturation of the color—the more diluted, the less intense the color.
Experiment with color mixing. Use different types of washable markers, with different felt sizes and with different colors, to experiment how colors run and blend (or clash) when mixed together.
You might want to color in a few areas at a time, because before the markers can fully dry, you will use a paintbrush to brush the washable marker area with the damp brush tip.
Ideally, you will use a different brush for every section of color. Work your wet brush across the saturated areas of your compositions/design, being mindful that the wetter your brush, the more the colors will blend. By controlling your water, you control the intensity of the coloring and the blending. Remember to let the surface dry and to stop before your paper gets too soggy.
Mistakes will be made! Sometimes colors won’t blend well or the paper will tear from water saturation That’s fine. The only way to get better is to try again.
Challenge yourself by making a few very runny wet marks, pushing the saturation to the limit. You might get a bit messy, but the work area should be fairly easy to contain.
As with many art projects, no result is necessarily more correct than others, but you will find what pleases your eye most. The best result is one where the process of painting it allows you to learn, laugh, and create.
Enjoy. Have fun. Stay creative, friends!
Step by Step
STEP 1: SETUP
Place all your materials on a flat working surface
STEP 2: LAYOUT/DESIGN
Use a pencil to draw a picture or to design a pattern on your paper.
STEP 3: OUTLINE
Use permanent markers to trace the outline of your design (the areas that will not be blended with other colors).
STEP 4: DRYING
Allow the outline to dry for 10–15 minutes.
STEP 4: SATURATION
Start coloring in areas you want to blend with washable markers.
STEP 5: PAINTING
Lightly dampen a paintbrush in water. Work the damp brush over the saturated areas into areas of the composition less saturated with color. Blend by using the paint brush to bleed color over little by little. Be careful not to use too much water on the paintbrush. Allow a section to dry before moving to a different color or section of your composition.
March 18
A day full of food, music, and entertainment. Access to the Evergy Plaza in Downtown Topeka is free for the concerts and performances. The Driscoll School of Irish Dance performs at 11 a.m., and headline act Carswell and Hope take center stage at 2 p.m. topekairishfest.com
March 3–April 1
Something Rotten!
Nick and Nigel Bottom attempt to write the world’s first musical stage production in the London theater scene of the late 1500s, but they’re overshadowed by a playwright named Shakespeare whose productions are the talk of the town.
topekacivictheatre.com
March 3–April 29
Seasons
The Morris Art Gallery of the NOTO Arts & Entertainment District holds its annual juried exhibition of fiber work. explorenoto.org
March 13–17
Spring Spirits
Ghost Tours of Kansas and the Shawnee County Parks & Recreation Department team up to offer a spring-break program that allows children ages 10–15 to safely explore the lore and locations of haunted stories and places around Topeka. ghosttoursofkansas.org
March 13–17
Kansas Children’s Discovery Center
For the week of spring break, Kansas Children’s Discovery Center features some special events such as a daily 10 a.m. bubble dance party and 1 p.m. activities such as building the tallest tower and playing with slime. kansasdiscovery.org
March 18–May 7
Shades of Greatness
The Alice C. Sabatini Gallery at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library hosts a traveling art exhibit from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City that features works created by artists inspired by Negro Leagues Baseball history. tscpl.org
March 19
Before Bach’s Birthday Bash
Grace Cathedral organist Donald Livingston presents a concert of the music by J.S. Bach. Part of Grace Episcopal’s “Great Spaces” concert series. Free. greatspaces.org/schedule
March 21
Team Trivia
Norsemen Brewing Company hosts weekly Tuesday trivia competitions 6–9 p.m. Free. norsemenbrewingco.com
March 22
Sound Factory—Teens Make Music
Teen musicians are invited into the sound rooms of the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library’s Recording Studio to learn how to produce their own music and recordings. tscpl.org
March 23
Kids and ADHD
Family Service & Guidance Center of Topeka holds its monthly online seminar for parents, guardians and caregivers. Each month features a different theme presented by experts selected by the center. Free fsgctopeka.com
March 24
Senior Players
Topeka Civic Theatre’s troupe of senior-age improvisation actors presents an evening of comedy sketches. topekacivictheatre.com
March 25
Capital City Crushers
Topeka’s Roller Derby team opens their 2022 season with a bout against the Salina Sirens at their home rink of Sk8Away. facebook.com/CapitalCityCrushers
March 26
Harlem Globetrotters
Famous across the world for their wit, style and athletic prowess, the Harlem Globetrotters bring their interactive performance to Topeka. stormontvaileventscenter.com
First Friday
April 7 (and the first Friday of every month)
Galleries, studios and other venues open to the public for an evening of entertainment and art showings. artstopeka.org
April 1
Love Triangle
Topeka Symphony Orchestra presents an evening of music featuring the works of Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms—three powerhouse 19th-century musicians with a complicated relationship. topekasymphony.org
April 1
Concealed Revealed Art Auction
A collection of artwork goes up for sale with the proceeds benefiting the YWCA’s Center for Safety and Empowerment. jayhawktheatre.org and ywcaneks. org/what-we-do/cse
April 1–29
Redbud Festival
NOTO Arts Center holds a monthlong spring arts festival with outdoor concerts and events at the art district’s Redbud Park. explorenoto.org
April 7 and 8
Laugh Lines
Topeka’s improvisation comedy troupe performs at the Topeka Civic Theatre. topekacivictheatre.com/laugh-splash
April 7–23
Jerod Binkley Tulip Time
Thousands of tulips should be in bloom around Topeka during the annual tulip festival now named after the volunteer who helped begin the festival 30 years ago. A special Tulips at Twilight will be held at Old Prairie Town and will feature tulips illuminated by candlelight and lighted displays. parks.snco.us
April 20
Dazed and Confused
The Jayhawk Theatre presents the 1993 film classic about a group of high school juniors and seniors marking the last day of school in their rural Texas town. The film is part of the theater’s monthly Throwback Thursday series. jayhawktheatre.org
April 27
Anxiety
Family Service & Guidance Center of Topeka holds its monthly online seminar for parents, guardians and caregivers. Each month features a different theme presented by experts selected by the center. Free. fsgctopeka.com
April 21–May 6
The Crucible Topeka Civic Theatre & Academy presents Arthur Miller’s classic stage dramatization of one incident in the Salem Witch Trials. fsgctopeka.com
April 28–May 7
Artifice
The Helen Hocker Theatre Youth/ Adult Bathhouse Players of Topeka Civic Theatre present a farcical, humorous story about an artist whose work enjoys immense popularity after his death … except he didn’t die. topekacivictheatre.com
April 29
TopCity Half-Marathon & 5k Topeka’s half-marathon starts racers at the Kansas Capitol and brings them through the city to end in Downtown. topcity.run
April 29
Farmers Market
Begin your Saturday morning with either or both of these weekly farmers markets: 1) the Downtown Topeka Farmers Market at 12th and Harrison Streets, in the parking lots just south of the judicial center and 2) the Breadbasket Farmers Market on 1901 SW Wanamaker Road. topekafarmersmarket.com and breadbasketfarmersmarket.com
April 30
The WCTC Players Topeka Civic Theatre’s resident troupe of radio actors and sound effect experts presents an afternoon performance recreating classic shows from the golden age of radio drama.
topekacivictheatre.com
May 6
The Topeka Symphony Orchestra, with music director and conductor Kyle Wiley
Picket and the talents of actors and singers from Topeka Civic Theatre, presents the full musical concert of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s American musical Oklahoma! topekasymphony.org
May 3
Foreigner
One of America’s rock legends brings its Greatest Hits Tour to Topeka. stormontvaileventscenter.com
May 5
A Fine Art 6.0
The Morris Gallery of the Noto Arts & Entertainment District presents a showing of work from select regional photographers. explorenoto.org
May 7
Mozart’s Requiem
The Shawnee Choral Society presents its spring concert at Washburn University’s White Concert Hall. The Shawnee Choral Society is composed of experienced vocalists from Topeka and Shawnee County metropolitan region. shawneechoral.com and Shawnee Choral on Facebook
May 13
Laugh Lines
Topeka’s improvisation comedy troupe performs at the Topeka Civic Theatre. topekacivictheatre.com/laugh-splash
May 13
IFO Street Legends
Heartland Motorsports Park hosts a night drag race open to all makes. heartlandmotorsports.us
May 17
Brown v. Board of Education
Anniversary
A visit to the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site is in order on any day or month, but particularly on the 69th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that involved Topeka families helping to end legally sanctioned racially segregated public education in the United States. While there, pick up a physical or digital brochure to tour historic sites in Topeka linked to Bleeding Kansas, the Civil War and the civil rights movement. nps.gov/brvb
May 25
Talking to Kids about Tragic Events
Family Service & Guidance Center of Topeka holds its monthly online seminar for parents, guardians and caregivers. Each month features a different theme presented by experts selected by the center. Free.
fsgctopeka.com
June 3–4
Mulvane Art Fair
Annual outdoor art fair featuring work by local and traveling artists to benefit the Mulvane Museum of Art. mulvaneartmuseum.org
Travel writer Susan Kraus brings us her latest pick for vacation destinations easily drivable from Topeka and packed with family-friendly activities
STORYAND PHOTOGRAPHY
It wasn’t until the second full rotation of the vintage Ferris wheel—my hands tightly clenching the metal safety bar in front of me—that I braved opening my eyes to take in the amazing vistas of forest, mountains, and cliffs. Placing a Ferris wheel on the side of a mountain, with the seats dangling over the forest below, definitely increases the fear factor—particularly if one is afraid of heights. But the vantage point also provided one of the most incredible views of the natural scenery around Colorado Springs, an ideal summer destination if you want to be awed by nature and enjoy decadesold, family-friendly tourist parks.
This Ferris wheel sits on the North Pole Colorado Santa’s Workshop, which opened in 1956 and has been a familyowned and operated vintage amusement park ever since. About two dozen rides, all reclaimed and meticulously restored, are spread along paths that twist through the woods. The target audience is children under 12—and grandparents and parents who want to share the fun. There are elves, magic shows, music, glass-blowing, and holiday-themed amusement rides. Christmas is celebrated in July. It sounds hokey, and it is, but somehow it is also sweet and fun in a way that takes you back to the ’50s–’70s. The park is free, in summer and fall, to walk around—just purchase wrist bands for the rides. There are also, of course, appearances by Santa Claus. I hadn’t sat on Santa’s lap for 67 years, but he was game. Thanks, Santa!
I was taking five days to explore Colorado Springs. I’d been through many years ago and vaguely remembered Garden of the Gods and the Royal Gorge. Many years later these and other natural attractions continue to evoke awe and amazement.
In and around Colorado Springs, I hiked, saw waterfalls and wildlife, enjoyed sunlight reflecting off the red rocks and creating prisms in the setting sky. I river rafted (thank you, Echo Canyon Expeditions), paddling hard and shrieking in
BY Susan Kraus
the rapids. I saw the Manitou Cliff Dwellings, Cave of the Winds, and rode a cog railway up the 14,115 feet of Pikes Peak. I learned about a woman poet from Massachusetts, Katherine Lee Bates, who made the long train journey to Colorado Springs in 1893 to climb to the top of Pikes Peak and who wrote the poem “America the Beautiful” during that climb and journey.
On my last day, I returned to the Royal Gorge. The bridge remains the highest suspension bridge in the US. After a devastating wildfire in 2013, the public facilities have been rebuilt: a beautiful visitors center, restaurants, gondolas, playscapes, mountain climbing … and the nation’s highest zipline.
You may recall that I’m the same woman who’d had a minor freak-out on a kiddie Ferris wheel just five days earlier. But, after a fun week, I was feeling … feisty? Or maybe I’m at an age where I can no longer say, “I’ll try it next time.” It was now or never.
I chose now. I took a gondola over the gorge and then hopped up the little hill to where the zip lines launch. The reassuring staff strapped me in, gave some instructions, and then …. whoosh! I was in free fall 1,000 feet above a rushing river. But I wasn’t scared. I was more gob-smacked—by the sky, the gray-rock gorge walls, tiny people on the bridge waving. And me, no-longer-scared me … flying.
The North Pole—Santa's Workshop is built with children in mind, but its setting amid beautiful natural scenery broadens its appeal to all ages. The Royal Gorge is a stunning natural landscape worth the trip alone.U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum: A new addition to Colorado Springs. Stunning modern architecture, history of Olympic sports, lots of video immersion, digitally interactive and experiential. I also valued the opportunity to more fully appreciate the oft-neglected Paralympic events, athletes, and their accomplishments.
The Broadmoor Manitou & Pikes Peak Cog Railway (elevation 14,115+): You can drive up Pikes Peak, or, if you get anxious with sheer cliffs dropping off on one side of the road, take a bus tour, or take the Cog Railway. The new visitors center has exhibits, restaurant, film. If you’re a flatlander, you may (as I did) experience altitude sickness. Be very hydrated and do not ascend on your first day in Colorado Springs. Acclimate first.
Cheyenne Mountain Zoo: It’s their exhibits that blend into the foothills and herd of giraffes that stand out (pun intended). Rated one of the top zoos in the US, with skyride, carousel, shuttles. Plan ahead (www.comzoo.org) as there are lots of daily interactive feeding and training experiences, and timed tickets must be purchased in advance. The zoo offers lots of day and summer camp experiences, but they require advance registration.
Garden of the Gods: Over 1300 acres of red rock formations, with intersecting trails. Plan to walk (bring water) to more fully appreciate why Native Americans used to return annually to this area. Free but fees for guided or bus tours and special programs.
Money Museum: What you don’t know that you don’t know about money. Kids have an interactive play zone to learn something too.
ProRodeo Hall of Fame and Museum of the American Cowboy: Start with the short film on rodeo history, then explore exhibits on saddles, gear, cowboy and cowgirl culture. Check for when live exhibition team roping events are being held.
The Broadmoor Seven Falls: Pretty waterfalls, walkways, an elevator up to a vista view, and celebrating their 140th anniversary. Restaurant 1858 sits at the base of the falls and has a gold-rush theme and traditional Colorado fare.
World Figure Skating Museum and Hall of Fame: Not just the big names and their costumes, but exhibits that explain the physics of the spins and jumps, sport history and evolution, and a hall of fame. Oddly, it is open only Tuesday–Friday, 10 a.m.–4 p.m.
Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center: Chihuly glass and chandeliers juxtaposed with Native American art and crafts adjacent to classic painters of the West. It has it all. Art Deco meets the Southwest in the building design. Coffee, restaurants, patio with Pikes Peak view.
May Natural History Museum: If your kids like scary movies, or have an interest in nature, this is a must-see: an extravagant collection of rare (some extinct), huge, weird, exotic and creepy bugs! (Well, strictly speaking, invertebrates.)
Colorado Springs Pioneer Museum: In the downtown Alamo Square Park in a converted courthouse, full of spectacular marble and a beautiful birdcage elevator. Local and regional history, oodles of artifacts. Free.
Miramont Castle Museum: Tucked in at the base of Pikes Peak, this Victorian Manor house boasts nine styles of architecture and serves a four-course tea. Make reservations for the tea and enjoy a tour of the castle after.
Old Colorado City: The original capital of the Colorado Territory, Old Colorado City is a charming tree-lined historic district with over 100 locally owned shops, restaurants and art galleries. A great place to enjoy a First Friday Art Walk or stop for a bite to eat.
Restaurants: Colorado Springs allows you to eat very well: tapas and sangria on the patio at Tapateria, breakfast feast at Adam’s Mountain Café, Greek at Jake and Telly’s, and sugar-high delights at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. Locally sourced and home grown are the norm for area restaurants.
Wanda Collins walked into a profession dominated by men, then cut her way to the top
STORY BY Haines Eason PHOTOGRAPHY BY Nick KrugIt had been a long year, 2005. Fresh out of cosmetology school, Wanda Collins had found her way to a chair at Robert C. Matthews’ barbershop, Business Kutz. And, she had found herself in a very male industry.
Careers data site Zippia notes that, in barbering, women make up only 25% of the industry’s workforce. But, that didn’t stop Big Rob, as Collins knew Matthews, from bringing her aboard. Collins says Matthews saw the potential in his new hire and believed from the start that she had the skills and determination for the business, even if she was uncertain. But, despite who saw what, Collins did not yet have the clientele, and Big Rob’s male clients were a tough sell.
“Oh,” Collins recalls, “it was hard in the beginning. Guys wouldn’t trust me. I had to fight for customers. Financially, it was a struggle.”
This last statement is underscored by the fact that Collins was a single mother of three.
“Early on, the clients would come in and sit in a chair and wait for Big Rob. My chair would be empty, and they wouldn’t get in it,” she says.
Wanda Collins cuts a customer's hair from her shop, A Different Level Barber Shop and Salon.Business Kutz was a cozy shop that also sold clothing and shoes. But for Collins, the pressure inside this shop could build as waiting customers flipped through magazine pages and chatted up Big Rob, all the while not making eye contact with Collins.
One day, she’d had enough.
“This guy came in, and needed a cut then. The shop was full. I said I’d give him a cut, and he was in enough of a hurry that he got in the chair. All the waiting customers, they all saw what I could do, and they were impressed.”
Big Rob had been keen to add Collins’ cosmetology skills to his business, but he also wanted to show her his world and teach her his knowledge of barbering, such as using guards and clippers to create sharp lines and angles.
Perhaps Collins’ toughness and determination were immediately evident to Big Rob. Maybe these traits appeared over time. Whatever Rob saw in Collins, it resulted in his eventually turning his shop over to her, and then Collins established her own place in 2010 and moved again in 2020 to 10th Avenue, where she established her current business, A Different Level Barber Shop & Salon.
Being a contemporary barber requires a lot of skill, a bit of swagger, and determination. For Collins, that determination might have come from her youth spent playing basketball and running track that fostered her grit. Or perhaps it came from her mother, Willie Mae Mock, who Collins thanks for being such a strong presence in her life.
Collins also says no barber learns alone, and she points to businessmen and barbers who have been her mentors, quietly and respectfully listing two names in particular: Alonzo Harrison and Lonnie Williams.
Williams is gone now. He passed in 2017 and Collins recalls him as a “gentle giant.” He and Harrison, still alive and owner of what is possibly Topeka’s oldest Black-owned construction company, kept and keep Collins focused on what matters.
“Alonzo keeps me grounded, makes sure I’m on point with my business. He always says, ‘It’s going to be okay,’ and he’s right.”
But through her own challenges, Collins has nurtured a desire to give, to help others grow.
“I had a rough time raising three kids by myself,” Collins says, with a matter-of-fact tone. “But one day, these words just came to me—‘Rising every day determined.’”
And there was the color red, “like the phoenix,” she thought, recalling the mystical bird that rises from the ashes of its own fiery demise.
So Collins created RED Phoenix, a charitable endeavor for girls incarcerated at the Kansas Juvenile Correctional Complex. She mentors girls there, and, the third Sunday of each month, she does their hair.
“I want to be there for these girls. I have to be,” Collins says. “I teach them that who they are is not their circumstances.”
And when she leaves, she leaves behind great cuts and hairstyles as a reminder of the truth to her words.
Barbering is back, and cuts are more complex than ever, licensed cosmetologist and barber Wanda Collins notes. For a barber of Collins’ experience and skill, expect to pay well more than the $10 charged at your dad’s barbershop of yore. The price of a cut has risen along with everything else, but Collins notes that time is a factor. Customers want more detail and precision, and that means more time in order to allow customers to stand up and leave with the latest trends on their head.
Fohawks (Faux Hawks) are hot. Think nearly shaved, faded-up sides with a standard-to-long mane of hair on top. In some cases, the hair on top can be quite long, and, if this is the case, it will be held with product. Men and women both go for this look.
Southside fades feature a close trim at the front of the head that fades away toward the back. The hair may fade to skin level. The lines across the forehead and down the sideburns are sharp and clean. Some of these fades may also feature a cut into the forehead line.
Bald fades refer to how the fade finishes: at skin level. As a whole, the cut itself may look like any other, but the fade drops at its finish to the skin and disappears.
The Edger is short and sharp, brushed forward with a sharp brow line. Think of a do that is maybe a few inches long on top that, when it drops down the side of the head, ends abruptly in a sharp edge. Below the edge, the hair is close-cut. Some customers will also dye the hair above and below the edge two different shades or even two different colors.
The Comb Over describes something other than what you might be imagining: gramps and his bald pate sadly covered by some very long hair from the side of the head. Today, this cut refers to a product-heavy look that you might see on Cristiano Ronaldo or Justin Timberlake. The hair is mid-length, typically, and sideswept. Behind the sweep is a hard part. Everything is held and does not move.
Hair trends change. Currently, many of the biggest trends in men's hair involve clipper cuts with sharp lines and designs.
STORY BY Nathan Pettengill PHOTOGRAPHY BY Nick Krug and Bill Stephens
The success of Topeka’s Black Restaurant and Food Truck Week is driven by a belief in the importance of Black ownership—for the Black community and for the city as a whole
It’s past the lunch hour on a Thursday afternoon, but the door is still swinging and customers are still gathering at the HotDog & Smoothie Shack in west Topeka.
“Everybody that has come in here today, except maybe two people, has come in because of the event,” says owner Haley Lovelace after she has caught up with her customers and takes a break to tidy the store and drink one of her mango smoothies.
By “the event,” she means the annual Black Restaurant and Food Truck Week—a celebration that entrepreneur and promoter Chris Ware founded in 2021. It survived the pandemic and continued strong into its third year with 10 Black-owned businesses taking part. Featuring barbecue, soul food, African cuisine and more, the venues offered special deals throughout the last full week in February to close out Black History Month.
Ware says the increased visibility and business buoy the owners and the families they support, but he believes the coordination, mutual promotion, and unity at the heart of this event can inspire more achievements.
“We, the Black community, need to do this for us … for the next generation. They have to see Black faces as Black owners—Black real estate and Black ownership is huge for us as a people—period,” Ware says. “I want to highlight Black restaurants and food trucks and show the young generation that we can do it. To show I can have ownership, I can have my own business ... and I’m Black.”
You have the funding. You have the drive and ambition. Does that mean you’re ready to become an entrepreneur and start your own business? Chris Ware says you should evaluate your life, set up a checklist of some things you might have to forfeit in order to succeed. Ware had to sacrifice these luxuries to become an event promoter.
I love to travel, but that checklist says no, you can’t always travel.
A lot of my funding comes from me and my family, so to put on events, sometimes that checklist means we can’t go out to eat for a week.
When I’m working on an event, it cuts into my personal time.
Promoter Chris Ware began Topeka's Black Restaurant and Food Truck Week in 2021.Some of the young generation is already inspiring others.
In October 2022, at only 23 years of age, Lovelace opened her HotDog & Smoothie Shack next to the county motor vehicle annex near the northeast corner of Wanamaker and SW 17th Street. She says it took a $15,000 investment, confidence, and a steep learning curve.
This isn’t Lovelace’s first business. Prior to opening the café, she had owned and operated a courier business in Topeka. But a restaurant, particularly a brick-and-mortar restaurant, is a different challenge.
“It’s definitely been a journey. I had worked in the restaurant industry but never owned a place where I had to handle the delivery and work with the distributors and more,” Lovelace says. “The biggest challenge was getting people’s orders to them fast and making sure I kept supplies in stock. Now, I’m constantly doing inventory and ordering way more than I think I will need.”
Six months into her business, Lovelace says things have changed drastically for the better. She’s learned about the quirks of her niche in the restaurant industry, and she’s been able to apply lessons she had learned for her previous company.
Thinking of summer, she’s considering launching a mobile unit—a food truck that can bring tunes and hot dogs across the city. She has also expanded into catering after doing an event for Faith Temple Church on SW Lincoln Street. But whatever steps Lovelace takes next with her business, they will likely involve participating in events like this promotional week and networking with Black owners and other smallbusiness entrepreneurs.
“I think Black ownership is extremely important,” Lovelace says. “Chris had a great idea. There are not a lot of people like him trying to figure out how these businesses can come together and help each other grow. He did a good thing to help all these businesses.”
Entrepreneur and restaurant owner Haley Lovelace has this advice for anyone in Topeka considering opening their own small business.
Take time to promote before you open your doors.
I just got my keys and opened, but I wish I would have promoted more. If you know how to do promotion properly, then even a week or two weeks of promotion will make a difference.
Lovelace says she started with $15,000 but would recommend starting with $30,000 in order to get through the first months, launch the proper advertising, and have enough of a balance on hand for inventory, staff, rent, lights, gas, wifi, and other expenses before sales kick in.
Don’t neglect paying your quarterly taxes or checking what benefits and deductions your business might qualify for.
Even if you have someone taking care of your books for you, you should learn to do your own books in order to protect yourself and get a better handle on the breakdown of your expenses and your revenues.
Ware says promoting Black businesses, and promoting events in general, has been a natural growth of his work and life experience, going back to his childhood.
He grew up with parents who were both church pastors, so planning tent revivals and other events, handing out fliers, coordinating dates and times, setting up venues and then taking them down just came naturally.
“The things that I do now are just the same things I have been doing my whole life,” Ware explains.
Moving between Texas and Kansas, Ware’s parents settled in Topeka when he was 11, and he has remained here ever since, with his wife, Natalia, raising two children, now adults, and starting up a small farm outside of Topeka with some animals and eight horses.
“Being from Texas, all my uncles and aunts—we cowboys,” he smiles, pointing to his signature Western hat.
Those horses figure in many charitable events that Ware and his wife organize, as well as in local parades. But since opening Warehouzz Management in 2020, the bulk of Ware’s entrepreneurial work has been promoting a range of activities, starting with children’s birthday parties, weddings and working up to large-scale music events.
Ware’s focus isn’t by any means exclusively on the city’s Black community, but it is an important element of his work, and he sees strengthening the success of Black business owners as a way to strengthen the Black community and Topeka as a whole.
“Everybody shouts about ‘diversity and inclusion’, but we have to be owners in order for everybody from different races to collaborate,” Ware says. “There has to be some Black ownership or it just can’t happen.”
Networking is everything. I’ve done shows all over the States, but probably wouldn’t have if I hadn’t met people and made connections.
Visit festivals and talk to people.
You’re going to lose some sleep. It takes hard work and determination to be an entrepreneur.
You can learn from anybody … and sometimes you learn when not to listen to people.
Collaboration is key to growth anywhere, and in a city the size of Topeka we can all collaborate and still have enough customers to go around.
“… we have to be owners in order for everybody from different races to collaborate. There has to be some Black ownership or it just can’t happen.”
—Chris Ware
For Harrison B. Mitchell Jr, becoming a business owner was a transformative and fulfilling experience.
Born in Brooklyn, he came to Topeka in 1976, graduated from Highland Park and then worked for 25 years in restaurants in Kansas City, Lawrence, and Topeka, ending up as an assistant manager in Wendy’s. Burnt out by that business, he began selling natural oils for skin care and for home fragrance before taking the leap in June 2019 to cater a Juneteenth event and open his own catering business, Smokin’ H’s Meats.
Mitchell says one of the keys to a successful business is knowing how to scale up. He started with one meat smoker that he took to events and to the farmers market. From there he added more outings, a standing engagement every Friday at Manhattan Brewing Company, and all the work on his own shoulders. He prepares and cooks all of his dishes and sells a lot of brisket and baby-back ribs, but he also cooks up hot dogs, hamburgers, rib-eye roast and even smokes shrimp, developing new recipes over time, such as pulled-pork nachos with chicken-apple sausage that he prepared when he catered a Super Bowl watch party in Manhattan this year.
Mitchell also developed his rubs and two signature items: smoked deviled eggs and a honey-mango barbecue sauce.
“You make something that people can’t get at home … and customers keep coming back,” he explains.
There are challenges—Mitchell says he has to watch the fluctuations of meat prices carefully and plan how
much meat he needs to order for each event so that he doesn’t run out too quickly but also doesn’t have a lot of unsold, cooked meals.
And then there are the hours.
“You have to have a certain drive to keep doing this. You’re selling barbecue and constantly paying attention to it,” he says. “I gave up my weekends—I gave up all my times. If it’s Christmas, I gotta go smoke some turkeys. Thanksgiving, I gotta go smoke some turkeys for someone.”
Mitchell says his next step is to buy a second smoker, expand on some help he has begun hiring, and stay focused on growing his business without getting too far in debt. He credits an organization he is a part of—Black Entrepreneurs of the Flint Hills—as providing crucial advice and support, as well as Lazone Grays in Topeka. Mitchell says events such as Black Restaurant and Food Truck week are “important for the whole community.”
His advice to other entrepreneurs is to think strategically and not be afraid to charge what they are worth.
“I had never imagined that I was going to be a business owner, but this is something that I needed to be doing a long time ago in my life. Being able to be my own business and show my own personality is a big accomplishment,” Mitchell says. “Smokin’ H is my brand—it’s the biggest deal I’ve done other than have kids and be a part of that, and it could be something that they could continue if that is what they want to do.”
Ware says mobile caterers like Mitchell’s Smokin’ H’s Meats are the first ones to benefit from exposure to new customers, particularly ones from outside of Topeka.
“This week I have already gotten calls from KC, from Manhattan, from Junction City— people are already coming in from out of town to visit these places and bring them out of town for events—the food trucks and the caterers are really getting hit up,” Ware says. “We’ve always got someone from KC coming into Topeka with a food truck, so why can’t we go out and get some of that money as well?”
Ware hopes this initial three-year success of the Black Restaurant and Food Truck week has shown the community that it might be time to look at creating other events, such as ones focusing on Black health or Black beauty supplies such as hair and nails.
“Let’s be honest, we are the number one consumers of that, so let’s focus on that— Black vendors talking to Black consumers, why not?” Ware says. “I hear about how back in the day it was this, in the ’60s and the ’70s Topeka had a lot of Black unity. I want to get that back as far as Black and African American people, but also for everybody. It’s Topeka pride. I’m all about that because Topeka is such a great city to live in and to raise kids.”
Caterer Food Truck Storefront/Restaurant
Flavor Wagon facebook.com/flavorwagon785 785.608.2980
Hook and Que facebook.com/hookandque 785.554.6653
HotDog & Smoothie Shack 5938 SW 17 St. Suite 400 hotdogandsmoothieshack.com 785.506.2690
JLG Mexi-Q facebook.com/JLGMEXIQ 785.817.0464
Kononiantouch African Cuisine 785.969.0252
Nanny’s Soul Food 785.233.3322 facebook.com/NannysSoulFoodTopeka
SHopper’s Kitchen 4140 SW Huntoon shopperskitchens.com 785.670.8601
Smokin’ H’s Meats & More smokinghhh.com
Smoky Dunks facebook.com/dunkssmoke 785.383.8488
Soul Fire Food Co 2511 SE California Ave. soulfirefood.com 785.329.6660
