Exploring Central Kansas

Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette:

EXPLORING CENTRAL KANSAS

Emporia has been my home for about 30 years. Therefore, it’s the hub of my road trips with Dave; it’s our Point A.

With our day trips, Point B is usually within a 2-hour radius of Emporia, which for the most part keeps us in the eastern half of the state. While I love eastern Kansas, I also long to explore the mysteries of the west.

In early August I stayed in Great Bend for a few days to visit family. While in Great Bend, we made short trips in the area and so for a while I had a new Point A.

On one of those days, I made a business trip from Great Bend to Newton and took some time to explore a few central Kansas towns which are on the far edge of my usual radius. I get excited when I have the chance to be in new territory.

I stopped in Hesston (pop. 3,701). I’d only been there a few times before. And one of those times was in 1990, a month after an F-5 tornado damaged about 20 businesses and more than 200 homes in town. In the spring of 1990, I drove to Hesston to run in a 5K race – and even though the town had been clobbered a month earlier, the race went on. They didn’t let an F-5 tornado keep them from having fun.

This is home to Hesston College. The two-year college, owned by Mennonite Church USA, has about 500 students.

Part of Hesston College is Dyck Arboretum of the Plains where the focus is on prairie plants. The arboretum has 28 acres with labeled wildflowers, grasses, shrubs and trees. Trails around the property pass by a xeriscape garden, a shade garden and native turf grasses. There’s a lake and island garden, a tallgrass prairie border, a hedgerow, a wildflower exhibit and more.

Moundridge

Moundridge (pop. 1, 629) was up next. When I was about 10, one of my best friends from church camp lived here and I addressed many letters to her post office box in Moundridge, but this was the first time I had ever actually seen the town. It’s a smaller community than I had pictured as a youngster. One of the things that caught my eye was that the main street in Moundridge is called Christian Avenue.

From Moundridge, I took county roads to Inman. I wanted to pay a visit to the Kansas Sampler Foundation of rural Inman. I had never been there in person.

At the Kansas Sampler Foundation’s barn-like headquarters, I found Marci Penner and WenDee LaPlant busy at work promoting rural Kansas. They were excited to show me some of the pages that have been laid out for the KSF’s upcoming 8 Wonders of Kansas book.

Harland Schuster of Morrill is the photographer for the project. Since he’s taking pictures of well-known Kansas sites that have been photographed repeatedly, Harland is looking for fresh angles from which to shoot these locations.

Marci Penner has been making the contacts for Harland and told me that locals have been excited to fulfill his requests. For example, he requested kite flyers at Coronado Heights. He asked for and received a fire department ladder so that he could photograph a diver from above at the Garden City swimming pool. Marci hooked him up with an airplane and pilot so Harland could take aerial shots of Mined Land Areas and Big Brutus in Cherokee County.

The 8 Wonders guidebook/coffee table book will be available next April and when you look through it just know that a number of bucket trucks were involved in the making of that book.

I left the Kansas Sampler Foundation headquarters and drove into Inman (pop. 1,191), a clean town with an active business district. Brightly-colored banners with names of individuals and business sponsors hang on lampposts and welcome people to Inman. Downtown is a 1906 telephone office and an 1887 Rock Island Depot with a caboose that are all part of the Inman Museum.

After that stay in Great Bend, I’ve decided that day trips are not enough. Point A should not be static. Maybe it could shift to Hays for a few days, then Colby, Garden City, Dodge City, Pratt. There’s just too much of Kansas that I have yet to explore.

Copyright 2010 ~ Cheryl Unruh