By Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette: MOTHERS AND DRESSES The other day when I was shopping online, I accidentally ended up on a page full of dresses. Alongside the dresses were ads showing mothers and daughters celebrating Mother’s Day together. Now I wouldn’t buy my mom a dress; she prefers …
Little House on the Prairie
Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette: LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE Every afternoon, Mary Louise Wilhite read to her second grade students at Pawnee Rock Grade School. Following our after-lunch recess, my classmates and I came in from the playground, windblown and energetic. But we settled down quickly when we sat …
Road Trip to Sedan
Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette: ROAD TRIP TO SEDAN Spring seemed to be stalled out somewhere, so Dave and I drove south one Saturday to see if we could locate the lost season and drag it north. It was early April and even near the Oklahoma line, we didn’t …
Shadow on the Hill
Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette: ‘SHADOW ON THE HILL’ On a sunny Saturday in May, 1925, Decoration Day, Florence Knoblock was found brutally murdered on the kitchen floor of her farmhouse near Burlington. Florence was married to John Knoblock and was the mother of a 4 year-old boy named Roger. …
Tiger Hunting
Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette: TIGER HUNTING It’s not often that one reads about tiger hunting in Kansas, but there’s a new book out on the subject. The book is fiction, of course; tigers don’t roam the creek beds and pastures of Kansas – as far as we …
Where the Lilacs Bloom
Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette: WHERE THE LILACS BLOOM Winter can be a bully; it’s been shoving spring aside for weeks now. Spring break is always cold and wet so that was no big surprise, but during February and March we often get a week of dancing-in-the-sun warm days. …
Keim Bakery
Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette: KEIM BAKERY When I hear of a Kansas place that I want to visit, sometimes that place sticks in my brain like a bookmark. And I can’t get rid of the bookmark until I make the trip. Keim Bakery in Ottawa had been on my …
An Underlying Order
Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette: AN UNDERLYING ORDER “Lefty-loosey,” I thought to myself as I twisted a screw. Standing on a step-stool, I was removing the glass shades on a ceiling fan in order to clean them. Each tulip shade was held in place by three tiny screws. Because of …
Moving Toward Spring
Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette: Strawberry pie – Hays House MOVING TOWARD SPRING For months our sky had been holding its breath. Finally in late February the sky exhaled, and a huge cloud of white flakes fell to earth. We found ourselves in deep snow, which is just what we …
Remembering Adam
Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette: REMEMBERING ADAM “When we got here, we went out to the farm to look at the dirt,” Amy told me. “That’s what Dad would’ve done,” she smiled. Amy and her husband Rod live in Lenexa and had just arrived at the motel in Great Bend …
The Way We Worked
Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette: Tom Parker (photo by Dave Leiker) THE WAY WE WORKED “I saw unspeakable things done to cattle, and I lived through things I didn’t know I would,” Tom Parker said with a smile as he told me about his year-long photography project. Over the past …