K-State Research and Extension

1998 Profiles

Tom Mertz - TradeNet
Today, let's visit the world's largest supplier of memo boards. Do you know what memo boards are? Those are those smooth plastic sheets with magnets on the back that you can stick on your refrigerator and write notes on. They come with a pen which writes on those plastic sheets and they can be wiped off and written with again. They're really handy C they save paper and are nice and visible.
Anyway, that's what memo boards are. But who makes those things? Today, we'll visit the largest supplier of such memo boards in the world. And would you believe? It's found in a small Kansas town.
This is the story of TradeNet Publishing, Incorporated. The president and owner of TradeNet is Tom Mertz.
Tom grew up on a farm between Manhattan and Wamego on the Zeandale road. He graduated from K-State and returned to the farm, but there were already several brothers there. He met and married a young woman named Eilleen who was a veterinary student at K-State. When Eilleen graduated from vet school in 1984, they moved to Iowa so she could join a veterinary practice there.
One day Tom had a job interview with a company to sell ads that go on those vinyl telephone book covers. Tom says, AAs I drove home that day, I thought to myself that those ads would be more effective and visible if they were posted on the refrigerator.@ That made him think of those magnetic, write on, wipe off memo boards which would be a good place to post such ads.
He decided to give this idea a try, so he started making memo boards in his house at night and selling them by day. The idea caught on.
In 1987, they moved back to Kansas where Eilleen bought into a veterinary practice. Tom established his company to make memo boards and called it TradeNet Publishing. He diversified the company to include a number of specialty and advertising items.
Now listen to this: Today, that company which started in Tom's home employs more than 80 people, is a market leader in promotional products, and sells 30 million refrigerator magnets every year. And yes, it's the world's largest supplier of memo boards --found in the eastern Kansas town of Gardner, population 4,277 people. Now, that's rural.
I must admit that Gardner is not your typical rural farm town. It's not a big city, but it is located in eastern Johnson County on the outskirts of greater Kansas City, and it's growing very fast.
Tom Mertz says, AThis town is still small enough that a person can be active in the city and the chamber, and be on a first name basis with the mayor.@ Tom himself was selected citizen of the year in Gardner, and TradeNet was named small business of the year.
There's good reason. TradeNet has a 48 page full color catalog of a whole range of promotional items, from the memo boards to full color personalized refrigerator magnets, laminated items, and magnetic business card products. Business is booming. At our house, we need lots of refrigerator magnets to post all the valuable works of art created in crayon by our little girl.
Today, TradeNet is shipping to all 50 states, Canada, and Puerto Rico, and business is doubling every 36 months.
What is the reason for such success? Tom says, AIt's the good people who work for us. We hire top performers and pay them accordingly. We stay light on management staff, and put computer systems in place that help us be more efficient than our competitors. The company is organized as an ESOP, so the employees will get the benefit of financial appreciation.@
If you are interested in TradeNet products, the company can be reached at 1-800-884-7301. That number again is 1-800-884-7301.
It's time to say goodbye to the world's largest supplier of memo boards. Perhaps most people wouldn't expect to find the world's largest of anything in a small Kansas town C except the world's largest ball of twine in Cawker City--so it's exciting to find such a successful business. We salute Tom Mertz and the people of TradeNet Publishing for making a difference through hard work and entrepreneurship. Their products may be appearing soon on a refrigerator near you.

Sister City Clerks
Have you ever heard the phrase "sister cities?" Today we'll hear about two towns which are very similar in size and are located in the same county. We're not talking about sister cities, though, but rather something that sounds very similar: sister city clerks. Today we'll meet two sisters who are city clerks of two neighboring towns. They are the only pair of sister city clerks in the state, and more importantly, they are maintaining the highest standards of service to rural Kansas.
Meet Natalie Clark and Kim Marshall. Natalie is city clerk of St. John, Kansas and Kim is city clerk of Stafford, Kansas. Both towns are located in Stafford County in south central Kansas.
Stafford County altogether has a population of 5,232 people, making it the 70th smallest populated county in the state. The county seat is St. John, with a population of 1,335 people. Eleven miles away is the town of Stafford, with a population just nine persons fewer: 1,326 people. Now, that's rural.
These two rural towns are very similar in size, and their city clerks have a lot of similarities too. Of course, they come by it naturally.
Natalie and Kim's family has deep roots in Stafford County. About five generations have been raised there. Natalie and Kim and their parents moved back to Stafford County in the late 1970s.
Kim married and moved away, but in March 1994, moved back to be closer to family. She also wanted to raise her daughter in a small town setting. Then the Stafford city clerk retired, and Kim applied and got the job.
Meanwhile, sister Natalie had graduated from K-State in secondary education, business and computer studies. She married Bill Clark, who was from St. John, and moved back. She was a substitute teacher and stayed home with their son. Then in 1995, there was a vacancy in the St. John city clerk position.
Natalie says, "If my sister wouldn't have encouraged me, I probably wouldn't have done it." But she applied and got the job.
It turned out to be a challenge. The previous clerk had already left, the treasurer resigned, and there was no city superintendent. Natalie says, AThank goodness for Dena Mansel, our billing clerk, who was present to offer stability.@ And Natalie's sister Kim came over and helped, and the new position was launched successfully.
The two sisters find there are lots of similarities in their positions. Both cities have the same utility services of electricity and water. Both cities even use the same software for billing. So when one has a question, the other can probably help. When one runs out of forms, they can even get quick replacements from the other.
Now, this is not to say that the two towns are identical. In fact, like many Kansas counties, there are rivalries between the two neighboring towns. Some of the rivalry goes back to disputes over location of the county seat, and they are played out in modern times on the athletic fields.
But Natalie and Kim can bridge those differences and work together for mutual benefit. Not only do they help each other, they travel together and room together at the city clerk association meetings, thus cutting the cost in half for their respective towns.
Even with the challenges of limited budgets and too many federal mandates, the two sisters like living and working in small towns. Here's an example.
One day in the summer of 1994, Kim got a call at the city office. Someone had driven by a particular house and saw a big water leak in the lawn sprinkler system. Water was shooting up in the air. So they reported it to Kim at the city office. Well, it was noon hour and no one was home, so what could be done? But Kim knew the homeowner and knew where he usually had lunch, so she called him at the restaurant and told him about the leak.
Kim says, "I didn't want to be too nosy, but I thought he'd want to know, and he was very grateful that I called." Now that's the kind of customer service you'd never get in New York City. You'd probably still be in their voice mail by now: "Press 1 for office hours, press 2 for billing information," and so on ad nauseum.
We're thankful for the dedicated and personal service which a person can get in small town Kansas. No, these aren't sister cities, but they are cities with sister city clerks. We commend Natalie and Kim for making a difference through their service and dedication.

Julie Noe
Today let's go to a toxicology lab in Tokyo, Japan. The scientist in the lab is a member of the Society for Environmental Toxicologists and Chemists. Today his professional journal arrived in the mail from the society. And where do you suppose that this technical and sophisticated international journal was edited?
Not New York or LA. This sophisticated publication was edited by an entrepreneurial journalist who is located in rural Kansas. Her story is today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Julie Noe. Julie is the entrepreneur who offers this free-lance editing and publishing service. Among other clients, she provides journal editing for the society I described.
These journals are literally distributed world-wide. Yet Julie edits these from the office in her home, which is located in Goff, Kansas.
Goff is located in Nemaha County in northeast Kansas. Goff itself is a town of 157 people. Now, that's rural.
How in the world did someone in Goff come to be editing such international, technical journals? Well, stay tuned.
Julie Noe grew up in southern Louisiana and Tulsa, yet her family had roots in Kansas. Julie graduated from SMU with a degree in print journalism. She worked in Dallas for seven years in publishing positions with the Society of Petroleum Engineers and the American Heart Association.
In 1995, Julie wanted to make a change. She wanted to start her own business and to buy a home and establish some roots. But she says, AI didn't want to do that in Dallas. I wanted to live in the country.@
As I said, Julie's family was originally from Kansas. In fact, Julie's grandparents lived on farms in Brown and Nemaha Counties. She had spent time in the summers on those Kansas farms, so she decided to move back to the family's home area and set up her free-lance copy-editing business.
The beauty of this business is that it could really be located anywhere. Much of her work she can do through e-mail, so it really doesn't matter where her office is. There's certainly no requirement that it has to be in some big office building downtown in a city.
So Julie found a location in Goff. It is not far from her relatives and the city of Topeka. And Julie says, AIt's just one hour and fifteen minutes from an international airport.@
So the location had some plusses. And Julie found the cost of housing was a great deal.
She says, AI bought a house and a quarter-acre of land for a fourth of what it would have cost me in Dallas.@ She started her own business, and is also pursuing a graduate degree in journalism from K-State.
Because of her employment with the engineers and the heart association, Julie was experienced in writing and editing on these scientific topics. Today her business includes the editing of scholarly articles about medicine and environmental sciences, plus other projects as diverse as cookbooks, a newsletter for the Metropolitan Ballet of Topeka, and some book projects relating to medicine.
Wow. I'll bet there aren't many people in Goff who can speak and write so fluently about such things as arteriosclerosis thrombosis. Of course, it's probably not something you talk about at the coffee shop. Yet through these journals her work is going to locations all over the country and even to society members in Britain, Europe, and Asia.
Guess what. You don't have to live in New York or LA to participate in the global economy. This entrepreneur is using the technology of the computer, e-mail and fax machine to operate her business from rural Kansas.
I asked Julie what were the biggest challenges of being in a small town. She answered it was the lack of access to services for her computer, and the earlier deadlines for things like express mail. But she says, AIt's nice to have the flexibility of being here. And when I wake up I can hear birds singing and the wind rustling in the trees, things you can't get in the city.@
It's time to say goodbye to our scientist in Tokyo, Japan. I'm proud that the international journal which he reads was edited right here in our State. And I'm proud of Julie Noe, whose talents and entrepreneurship are making a difference in rural Kansas.

Dr. Jacobson - Mobile Vet
Has your doctor made a house call to your house lately? Mine hasn't either. In modern times, we've learned that you go to the doctor's office when you're sick. It's true for veterinarians as well. We've learned that when Fifi -- or whatever our pets' name C needs health care, we take her to the veterinarian's office.
But what if the veterinarian's office came to you? Sound impossible? If you think so, then you haven't met the entrepreneurial veterinarian that we'll learn about today. His story is today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Dr. Dane Jacobson. Dr. Jacobson is this innovative veterinarian who is pioneering a mobile veterinary practice in rural Kansas. His business is called The Mobile Vet. He practices his medicine in a unique, state-of-the-art mobile clinic, which he can take to you or to wherever he is needed.
The Mobile Vet is based in Dr. Jacobson's hometown of Wamego, in Pottawatomie County between Manhattan and Topeka. His experience is much broader than Wamego, however. After growing up at Wamego, Dane Jacobson got his doctor of veterinary medicine from K-State. He met and married Kim, who is an interior design graduate of K-State.
Dr. Jacobson's career includes diverse experience. He was in a small animal practice in Massachusetts and a mixed practice in Maryland. Then he and Kim came back to the midwest, where he served in a couple of diversified livestock practices in Nebraska. Along the way, he had read about these mobile vans which some veterinarians were using for their clinics.
Doc Jacobson says, AI'd heard of these but just dismissed them out of hand. I figured there wouldn't be room enough for me.@
In 1994, he was at a continuing education meeting in Kansas City when one of these RVs happened to be sitting at the curb. So as he walked by, he decided to take a look. He came away impressed with the efficiency of the vehicle and the amount of room inside.After a lot of research and planning, Dr. Jacobson found a used unit on the East Coast and retrofit it for himself. In August 1997, the Mobile Vet began operating in his hometown of Wamego.
These mobile vet clinics are essentially RVs that have been rebuilt and specially tailored for veterinary use. To me, the inside looks kind of like an airplane, with the space used very efficiently and all types of equipment securely stowed away. Listen to the veterinary services that can be performed within this 23 foot mobile unit: Routine health exams and immunizations, x-rays, blood testing, heart monitoring, dental cleaning, complete pharmacy, and anasthesia and surgery. There's electronic scales, in-house diagnostics, and an on-board microscope and centrifuge. Can you believe it?
And the beauty of it is that the vet clinic comes to you. With a mobile phone and laptop computer, Doc Jacobson can function virtually anywhere and be just a phone call away.
Of course, state law requires that a veterinarian must practice in an inspected and registered facility. So Doc Jacobson set out to register his mobile unit. The Board of Veterinary Examiners toured the new unit, approved his certification, and told him his was the first ever mobile practice registered in the state of Kansas.
One day each week, Doc Jacobson drives the unit to the nearby towns of Alma and Westmoreland so people there can have care for their animals. Alma is a town of 872 people. Westmoreland is a town of 639 people. Now, that's rural. These rural towns wouldn't have a veterinarian in their town if not for the Mobile Vet.
Dr. Jacobson likes the flexibility of the mobile unit. He says, AInstead of sitting in a clinic and waiting for somebody to show up, I can go where I need to and have the cell phone with me.@ And he and his wife and three sons like the quality of life in the Wamego area. He says, AWe both knew we wanted to be in a progressive small town. Sometimes we have to go away to appreciate what we have here.@
Has your doctor made a house call to your house lately? Not mine either. But the veterinarian has! We salute Dr. Dane Jacobson for his innovative effort to provide state-of-the-art animal care in a way that is making a difference, and bringing veterinary care in a new way to rural Kansas.

Tonny & Susan Mollerskov
Imagine you have a document that you need to send overseas -- let's say, to the nation of Denmark. It's written in English but it needs to be in Danish. What do you do? Of course, you contact a translator.
And where do you suppose you would find a Danish translator? In Kansas City or Chicago? In fact, you can find a Danish translator today in the town of Denmark in rural Kansas.
That's right. A Danish translator in Denmark, Kansas. It's almost too good to be true, but it's so, and it's today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Tonny and Susan Mollerskov. Tonny is a professional Danish translator who lives in Denmark, Kansas. The story of how he came to be in Kansas is really about a love story and a lot of faith.
Susan is from Kansas City originally. She was living and working in Overland Park when a friend loaned her a cassette tape of Danish music. To her surprise, she really liked it and began looking for a CD of the music. She ended up contacting Copenhagen in Denmark to track down the music. Meanwhile, her mother suggested that she join one of those international pen pal clubs. Susan did and started writing. One of the people to whom she wrote in Denmark was Tonny Mollerskov.
Tonny had graduated from a language college in Denmark, Europe with a business language degree and was a professional translator in Europe. He had visited the U.S. several times as a tourist. He corresponded with Susan and a relationship started to build. In 1988 he came to the U.S. to see several friends, including Susan whom he had never met in person. Tonny says, AIt was love at first sight.@ The two had a whirlwind courtship.
Susan says, AHe wanted to get married in Denmark and I wanted to get married in Kansas.@ As a compromise, they wondered if there was a Danish community in the midwest where they might be married. A friend in Iowa was looking through some maps and she happened to find the community of Denmark, Kansas.
So Tonny and Susan went for a drive out to central Kansas to the town of Denmark. Susan says, AAs you come into town from Highway 18 you come into a beautiful valley, and the first thing you see of the town is a small church. We knew right then that this was where we wanted to be married.@
So they were wed in Denmark after all. And after the wedding they returned to Kansas City where Susan had her job. Tonny restarted his professional translation business. A translator in Kansas City referred several clients to him. He joined the American Translators Association and the business began to grow. Tonny says, AI give God the credit for this business.@
Eventually the business grew to the point that Susan could leave her job. She had wanted to live in the country, so she and Tonny thought about where to go. Ultimately, the answer was Denmark, Kansas.
The town of Denmark is in Lincoln County in central Kansas. You won't find Denmark on the index of your road map because it is not an incorporated town. Susan estimates the neighborhood of Denmark may have a hundred people. Now, that's rural.
Yet from this rural setting Tonny Mollerskov is operating an international translation service. He has customers, for example, in such places as LA, New York, Chicago, Texas, and Florida. Their work projects are usually sent to him by fax or overnight delivery. After documents are translated, they are often delivered by modem back to the client through the Mollerskov's computer.
Tonny and Susan represent the new breed of free-lance professionals, who could live anywhere but choose to live in the country. Instead of being isolated, they are in close touch with customers all over the country using modern electronic communications. It is very important to them that the local telephone company installed digital telephone switching and fiberoptic phone lines before they came to Denmark.
But this story really isn't about technology. It's an old-fashioned love story with a lot of faith. Says Tonny, AGod has really blessed us.@
It's time to say goodbye to our Danish translator. He's Danish, alright, and he's even living in Denmark, Kansas. We salute Tonny and Susan Mollerskov for making a difference as they operate an international business in rural Kansas.

Elk Falls
AMake a negative into a positive.@ Have you ever heard that advice? It's good advice, but difficult to do.
For example, let's say you're in a really small town with just a few people and limited money. Like many really small towns, you have declining population and rundown roads. You want to promote the town, but how do you compete with the big cities or the big tourist attractions?
Maybe the answer is to make the negatives into positives. Maybe those factors of small-town character can be marketed to others.
If you don't think it's possible, then come with me to the town of Elk Falls, Kansas, for today's Kansas Profile. Elk Falls is in southeast Kansas in Elk County, east of Wichita and due south of Emporia. The town of Elk Falls has a population of 124 people. Now, that's rural.
But would you believe that, in the past seven years, this town of 124 people has had many thousands of visitors from every state and several foreign countries? It's true.
How could such a small town accomplish such a feat? By making the negatives into positives. The citizens of Elk Falls chose to promote and celebrate the very smallness of the community, and the results have been remarkable.
In January 1991, citizens of the town organized a group called Friends of Elk Falls. Retired Hollywood actor Barry McGuire, who moved to Elk Falls 20 years ago, provided a key spark. Other community leaders are Mack Byard, Paul Bocquin, Steve and Jan Fry, and others. The Friends of Elk Falls organization produced a promotional brochure about the community C but it's unlike any promotional brochure that you've ever seen before.
For example, the brochure advertises Elk Falls as a Aliving ghost town in the heart of the Kansas Ozarks.@ Instead of the Yellow Brick Road, this brochure promotes the Grey Gravel Road.
The brochure includes a supposed quote saying Elk Falls is AWorth going out of your way for!@ The brochure says the quote is from a Herbert Hoover speech to the Society for the Promotion of Exaggeration in Tourist Brochures. The brochure offers the visitor the opportunity to have his or her name inscribed on a piece of gravel and dropped in the pothole of their choice.
That kind of tongue-in-cheek approach is refreshing. This community doesn't take itself too seriously. Do you know any other town that has an annual outhouse contest?
And for a small fee the visitor can receive a certificate designating him or her as an honorary citizen of Elk Falls. There is only one condition: The new citizen must promise never to move there... Actually, it's all in jest. Elk Falls welcomes new citizens, especially those desiring to make a positive contribution to its progressive efforts.
This approach is working. And once people visit Elk Falls, they find there are more attractions than expected. There is a small and attractive falls on the river, a lot of interesting history, a nice bed and breakfast, pioneer homes, and a surprising collection of craftsmen.
Tour coordinator Arliene Irby says AEven though our downtown is only one block long, we can keep people entertained for eight hours.@ Elk Falls has a restaurant, pottery shop, and other businesses, plus a variety theater that performs for groups by reservation.
And what are the results? The visitor registration book in the visitors center shows many thousands of names. Visitors have come from such nations as France, Germany, Italy, Nicaragua, and Nigeria. In 1995, the Economist magazine in London, England wrote that of all the communities in the U.S. that were reinventing themselves, Elk Falls, Kansas should probably be awarded a prize for the bravest effort.
Make a negative into a positive. It's good advice, all right, and it's been taken to heart in Elk Falls. We salute the people of Elk Falls for their hard work and creative spirit C and most of all, for their caring about their community which is making a difference.

John Tacha - Bureau of Lectures
Today let's go to work on the assembly line. No, I'm not talking about a job in some factory, I'm talking about school assemblies. You know, the ones where all the students come into the school auditorium for some presentation.
Did you ever stop to wonder how the schools found those programs? Imagine you're a school principal at a school in California, for example. Where do you suppose you would call to find a good, educational program for a school assembly? Would you believe that you might make such a call all the way to Kansas?
Well, it's true, and it's today's Kansas Profile.
Meet John Tacha. John is owner and president of a company in Kansas which organizes and presents these educational programs for school assemblies. It's a unique and fascinating business, called the Bureau of Lectures and Concert Artists, which is located in Lawrence.
John Tacha explains that a man named Guy Keeler was on the staff at the University of Kansas many years ago. Guy Keeler noticed that people in the small rural areas all-too-often didn't get to see the performances that were available in cities. So Mr. Keeler had the idea of taking cultural programs out to show at schools in the rural regions of the state. These programs were called lyceums.
John Tacha remembers those lyceums in schools. John himself is from the northwest Kansas town of Jennings, population 167 people. Now, that's rural.
A lyceum made a nice addition to the educational programming in such rural schools. John went on to Fort Hays State and was a teacher and coach at Concordia for ten years. At that point, his wife got a position as an instructor at the KU law school so they moved to Lawrence. John took what he thought would be a temporary position with Guy Keeler's company which provided lyceum programs to schools.
Twenty-five years later, John is president and owner of the company. So much for a temporary position....
Guy Keeler had begun the lyceum programs as an outreach of KU, but eventually this activity was spun out from the university into a private business. Guy Keeler ran it for many years, but after he died John Tacha bought the company. Today these programs which used to be called lyceums are educational programs for school assemblies.
Typically, these are programs which last for 45 minutes to an hour of live performance. They range from native American indian dancers to robotics. Some are pure entertainment, such as juggling, and some are pure education, such as science. Most are a mixture of the two. In a program called Do the Read Thing, for example, a performer uses magic and juggling to get across an educational message about the importance of reading.
John Tacha's company identifies these talented performers, screens them to be sure they are appropriate and reliable for schools, promotes these programs to schools and then organizes performance schedules for them across the country.
When John bought the company, it was offering these programs in Kansas and four other states. But listen to this: today the company provides nearly 6,000 programs per year in states from coast to coast C literally from Virginia, for example, to California. So it is literally true that a school principal half a continent away might be calling Kansas to find quality programs for his or her school assembly. It also means that good live educational programming can be made available in rural schools.
As an educator, John sees the importance of reaching young people. He says, ASome of our performers may be handicapped, or have a special, positive message that rings home with kids.@
John also appreciates the rural values. He says, AThere will be a time when people want to get back to small towns, and with technology, they can.@
He says, AMy folks still live in Jennings. Dad is 96 and Mom is 86. People in towns like that are the best people in the world.@
It's time to say goodbye to the assembly line. No, not a job in some factory, but a company whose line is delivering high quality, reliable programs for school assemblies nationwide. We salute John Tacha and the people of his company. Their work is making a difference, not only in Kansas, but for schoolchildren across the country.

Steinar Storruste
Remember the old fairy tale where Rumpelstiltskin spins straw into gold? Today, we'll meet an entrepreneur in Kansas who's trying a modern day variation of the same. He's not spinning wheat straw into gold, but he's converting it to a higher value product. And it's not magic. He's using international technology and expertise to do so.
This is the fascinating story of Naturall Fibre Board and its President, Steinar Storruste. This is the first in a two part series on manufacturing particle board from wheat straw.
With a name like Steinar Storruste, you might have guessed that Steinar is not exactly a native Kansan. In fact, he's from Norway originally. He got a bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Manchester in England. He came to the U.S. and got a masters in business from Pacific Lutheran.
While there, he began a consulting business on Scandinavian-U.S. trade. He later worked in the recycling industry. At one trade show he met some people from the midwest, and decided to make the move.
Now you might think that someone from the northern land of Norway would be attracted to a city in the northern U.S., such as Minneapolis in Minnesota. Well, Steinar Storruste came to Minneapolis, alright, but it was Minneapolis, Kansas, population 1,936 people. Now, that's rural.
What attracted this entrepreneurial Norwegian to the plains of central Kansas? Well, Steinar had worked in recycling of various products, including natural plant fibers such as straw. The wheat fields of central Kansas had lots of straw, and Minneapolis, Kansas had a good deal on an industrial building.
Steinar says, "I knew of a plant back in Norway that was making fiberboard from straw." In November 1994, Steinar formed the Naturall Fibre Board company. In 1995, Steinar moved the fiberboard plant from Norway to Minneapolis, Kansas. He began testing production and made more than 60 improvements in the manufacturing process.
Steinar says, "We buy big bales of wheat straw from local farmers, remove remaining grain and joints, grind it up, and blend in resin polymer. Then this mix goes through forming heads into a big hydraulic press, which produces 4x8 sheets of fiberboard."
He says, "Compared to the particle board people use now, our fiberboard costs the same but is formaldehyde free, more resistant to water, has better screw-holding and hardness, and is not as heavy. And it's much cheaper than wood."
The fiberboard is being used in mobile homes, the furniture industry, boxing and crating, and increasingly in construction. Some people are attracted to the fact that this is an environmentally friendly product, made from a renewable resource. As you might expect, California and Colorado are good markets for the product.
Do you remember the actor Dennis Weaver, who played McCloud on TV and was Chester on Gunsmoke? Dennis Weaver wanted wheat straw board for his house, because it was natural and environmentally friendly.
I like it because it is a value-added product, converting a waste product like straw into a higher value, consumer product. Steinar says, "In Kansas, 12 million tons of straw are burned up or plowed under every year. Here's a plant that is using an annually-renewable supply and using local products and labor."
Steinar is constantly working to improve the product. His research showed that it worked better if all the grain and joints were removed from the plant fiber. One national corporation quoted him a price of $100,000 for a system to separate such grain. So in true entrepreneurial fashion, Steinar instead went out and bought an old combine from a farmer for $500, and they're using that to get out all the grain.
Naturall Fibre Board now has a network of dealers that go from coast to coast and border to border. And what does this transplanted Norwegian think of small-town Kansas by now? Steinar Storruste says with a smile, "Other than the snow skiing, this is a wonderful place to live."
No, this is no Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale. This is a real business in a rural town. And it's not gold that's being made from straw in this rural town, but perhaps it is a golden opportunity. We're thankful for entrepreneurs like Steinar Storruste, whose innovation and hard work are making a difference for rural Kansas. We'll learn of another example of adding value to Kansas straw on our next program.

Dave Studebaker - Cen Kan
Today, let's go out to a wheat field and harvest the straw...Wait a minute, that didn't sound right. We harvest grain, we don't harvest straw.
Well, of course you're right, it is grain that we harvest from our fields. The straw is just the worthless stems left standing in the field after the grain is harvested. But what if that straw wasn't worthless? What if we could find a way to add real value to that straw?
Today we'll find a group of entrepreneurial leaders who are answering that question, in our second and final program in this series on processing straw in rural Kansas.
Meet Dave Studebaker. Dave is President of Cen Kan Enterprises, which is the company that is doing this processing. Cen Kan was formed by eleven farmer cooperatives in south central Kansas. Dave Studebaker is also the manager of one of those cooperatives, the one in the Harvey County town of Walton, Kansas. Walton is a town of 284 people. Now, that's rural.
Dave Studebaker says, AWe were looking for a way to add value to something that our farmers already had.@
Currently, after farmers harvest wheat, they need to get rid of the straw to make room for the next crop. They do so by picking it up, burning it off, or plowing it under. Whichever way, it requires some effort, and there's limited money in selling the straw as bedding.
Then some visionary leaders like Dave Studebaker and the leaders of Cen Kan began to wonder if that straw, which was essentially a waste product, could be converted into something of higher value. Extensive research led them to initiate this project to process wheat straw into particleboard.
In 1997, Cen Kan opened a wheat straw particleboard plant near Hutchinson. In early 1998, the plant began to operate around-the-clock.
Here's how the process works. Cen Kan contracts with farmers to purchase their straw. Farmers harvest their wheat, bale up the straw, and eventually deliver it to the plant. The straw is ground up, mixed with a tiny amount of environmentally-friendly resin, and compressed into 4 by 8 sheets of particleboard.
Dave Studebaker says, AThis type of particleboard has a number of advantages over the particleboard made from wood. For example, the strawboard is user friendly, has no formaldehyde gases, and has higher moisture resistance than wood. It is seventeen percent lighter than wood, with the same or greater strength. And it looks good C it smells like wheat.@
I guess that's because it is wheat. The board is 97 percent straw, mixed with 3 percent of non-formaldehyde resin. It can be used in various ways, such as computer tables, countertops, table tops, floor underlayments, pallets, or to line interior walls.
I think this is exciting. Here is an example of the private sector taking an annually renewable product that is virtually a waste and making it into a higher value consumer product that is also good for the environment.
Dave Studebaker says, AIt doesn't make sense to be grinding up good trees to make particleboard. And we're removing the straw in an environmentally friendly manner.@ In California, the state is paying farmers not to burn their rice straw in order to cut down air pollution.
Using strawboard in place of wood can conserve our trees. We'll be alright in Kansas, unless the EPA discovers a spotted owl in our wheat fields.
Dave Studebaker says, AThis project will eventually be a win-win situation for our farmers and their cooperatives.@
For example, a ton of wheat straw from the farm is worth about $30 a ton. By the time it is processed into particleboard, that straw has an equivalent value of about $200 a ton.
That's a lot of value added. The Cen Kan plant is employing 24 people. They hope to have strawboard sales of three million dollars in the year ahead.
Well, it's time to go out to the wheatfield and harvest the straw....No, we're still not to that point yet, but we do have entrepreneurs in rural Kansas who are seeking innovative ways to add value to that straw through further processing. We salute the people of Cen Kan for their leadership which is making a difference in the rural economy.

Judy Akers - Castle Rock Ranch B&B
If you're traveling across country, it's a challenge to find just the right place to stay. It's complicated if you have kids or pets. Have you ever wondered what people do who are traveling cross country with horses?
Think about it. When horse-owners move or go to horse shows, they load the horses in the trailer and take off. But what do they do when they stop for the night? You can't exactly invite your horse into the motel room with you. And there's not an Equine Super 8 on every corner where you can check your horse in for the night.
Imagine a place which offers first class overnight lodging not only for people, but horses too. We'll find such a remarkable facility in rural Kansas.
Welcome to the Castle Rock Ranch Bed and Breakfast. It's a gem of a place, located in the scenic Smoky Hills of central Kansas. The co-owner of this beautiful place is a familiar name to K-State sports fans: She's Judy Akers, who was a highly successful women's basketball coach for K-State from 1968 to 1980. Judy went into real estate in Phoenix after she left coaching, but by the mid-1990s, she was ready to get back to Kansas.
Judy says, AI'd seen too many freeways, and I wanted to get back closer to family.@ Judy's mom still lives in Salina near where Judy grew up, and sister Jane Rowlett is an administrator at K-State in Manhattan.
Judy and a friend from Salina named Terri Stevenson looked for a business they could operate; possibly a bed and breakfast. Eventually they found the Castle Rock Ranch, west of Brookville. They loved the home and the setting, but there was one problem: the previous owner had built a nice barn for her show horses, and she wanted a lot of money for it. So that was a sticking point, but eventually they came to terms and Judy and Terri bought the place.
That barn, which was a negative at the time, has now turned into a drawing card for the place. But what really draws people are the pretty surroundings and the comfortable lodge itself.
The modern ranch house is built around the original 1917 farm house. Now the building has been expanded to 5,700 square feet, with all the modern amenities. All rooms and suites have private baths. There's a stone fireplace sitting room, a banquet room, two outdoor hot tubs, and a network of wooden decks outside.
Each room comes with a full country breakfast and a panoramic view of the scenic Smoky Hills. For example, the ranch takes its name from a large stone outcropping atop a nearby hill called Castle Rock. This is a side of Kansas that the casual observer or the Interstate traveler is amazed to see. Instead of flatlands, there are hills and rocks that look like they belong on the moon. But all this isn't in outer space, it's located just 8 miles south of Interstate 70.
And then there's the wildlife; the deer, coyotes, and wild turkeys that share the surrounding pastures with the cattle. And what about that horse barn?
Wow, what a barn. It includes 4 stalls, automatic waterers, skylights, softwood bedding, bathing area C that's for the horses, mind youC and a two acre pasture. That means they can offer overnight horse stabling. And sure enough, travelers from California to Ohio have stayed at Castle Rock Ranch to put up their horses out in that barn.
This isn't just a B&B, it's a three-B: bed, breakfast, and barn.
Of course, most of the guests aren't traveling with horses, they're just people like you and me looking for a relaxing getaway. Castle Rock Ranch has hosted everything from weddings and Christmas parties to corporate retreats. And people have come: from coast to coast, and as far away as Japan. They can go on hiking trails or just sit back and relax. They can sightsee at the nearby lake, see a movie at the outdoor drive-in movie theater in Kanopolis, or go eat fried chicken family style at Brookville, population 229 people. Now, that's rural.
If you would like to contact Castle Rock Ranch, call toll-free at 888-225-6865. That number again is 888-225-6865.
Well, now you know where people traveling with horses can put them up overnight. But more importantly, you know of a first class place where people can go for a relaxing getaway in the scenic hills of central Kansas. We commend Judy Akers and her family and Terri Stevenson for making a difference by promoting and appreciating this Kansas way of life.

Mila Bandel - Leadership Cheyenne County
Do you ever feel like you're in a corner? That's a tough place to be. You feel like you're hemmed in and there's no way out.
Today we'll meet a group of people that is in a corner, in one sense at least C but they're not feeling hemmed in, they are working together and building leadership for the future. If that sounds confusing, just stay tuned C this is today's Kansas Profile.
Let's start with the corner. When I look at the Kansas map hanging in my office, I see the northwest corner of Kansas. That's where I find Cheyenne County, in the very corner of the state. Cheyenne County borders Nebraska to the north and Colorado to the west.
Of course, those state borders are just artificial lines. It's just a map on the wall. Those folks don't feel like they're in a corner.
But this does mean that it's a long way from the corner of the state to the state capitol, for example, which can make it tough on a county. And besides that, Cheyenne is a very rural county. With a total population of 3220 people, it is the 14th smallest populated county in the state.
So how does a county that size respond to the challenges it faces? In Cheyenne County, there are some very positive answers. First, the county is planning strategically for its future, and beyond that, it is actively working to develop leadership for that future.
Meet Mila Bandel. Mila is a K-State Research & Extension agent in Cheyenne County and a founder of a program called Leadership Cheyenne County.
Mila explains that the need for a leadership program was identified when Cheyenne County went through a strategic planning process a few years ago. The Extension service and Cheyenne County Economic Development Corporation jointly got a state grant and organized a countywide leadership program. The program is now in its third year and operating on its own funding.Mila says the purpose of the program is to recognize future leaders and help them develop leadership skills, gain greater knowledge of the county, and stimulate interest in taking leadership positions.
Each year county citizens are invited to apply or to nominate individuals to participate in the program. Twelve citizens are selected annually. Those citizens go through a leadership course consisting of seven sessions, beginning in October. Topics of the sessions include personal leadership skills and team building, economic development, city / county government, agriculture and agribusiness, and state government. There is a graduation ceremony and banquet at the end of the program. Two or three members from each class then help plan the sessions for the following year.
These sessions aren't just lectures -- far from it. They include dialogue with area leaders, group activities, discussions, and tours. The group even experiences such things as visiting a high school, meeting with county commissioners, having lunch at a sale barn, and making a three day trip to Topeka to meet with legislators and experience state government in action. I wonder which they liked better C the government or the sale barn?...
The Cheyenne County program has been recognized as an excellent example of a county-wide leadership program operating in a very rural county. Some of the meetings are held in the county seat of St. Francis, but the group also has sessions in the neighboring town of Bird City, population 529 people. Now, that's rural.
Results have been excellent. A diverse set of participants has gone through the program, with occupations ranging from homemakers and farmers to lawyers, loan officers, and medical personnel. And in only three years of operation, the program has produced new city council members, fair board members, and others more involved in community organizations.
Mila Bandel says, AIt's a great opportunity to involve people. We're really pleased with it. We encourage all counties to give it a try.@
If you would like more information about starting a county leadership program, you can contact us here at the Huck Boyd Institute at 785-532-7690. That number again is 785-532-7690.
Do you ever feel like you're in a corner? Well, Cheyenne County may be in the corner of the state map, but that's no limitation to the people there. They have a broad vision of what is possible. They are building leadership for the future through this county-wide effort. We salute Mila Bandel and the people of Cheyenne County for making a difference through this initiative.
In that county, we might say that leadership is a cornerstone of the future.

Greeley County
AGo west, young man.@ Do you remember who made that famous quote? It was Horace Greeley, a New York newspaper publisher back in the 1800s.
Today, we're going to take Horace Greeley's advice. We're going west to the far western edge of Kansas. In doing so, we'll find a connection to Horace Greeley that goes far beyond what most Kansans realize. Stay tuned for a little Kansas history, and today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Linda Firner. Linda is County Clerk in Greeley County. Linda and Nadine Cheney of the county historical society helped us with our search of this Kansas connection with Horace Greeley.
In 1841, Horace Greeley established the New York Tribune. It was to become a leading national newspaper of its time.
Greeley himself was an interesting character. At the age of 21, he came to New York from a farm in New Hampshire with ten dollars in his pocket. He became a nationally prominent newspaperman. Greeley was also highly partisan. In fact, he was a founder of the Republican Party. He is credited to have said: AI did not say all Democrats are saloon keepers. I said all saloon keepers are Democrats.@
His more famous saying was AGo west, young man, and grow up with the country.@ This quote was from an editorial Greeley wrote in 1855 titled ATo Aspiring Young Men.@ Greeley was also an ardent abolitionist. Greeley wrote that he wanted Kansas to be Auntainted by the pestiferous blight of slavery.@
Such pro-western, anti-slavery views made him a popular figure in some quarters of Kansas. Greeley ran for the presidency against U.S. Grant in 1872 and died later that year. Loyal admirers of Greeley named streets, towns, and schools in his memory.
One of those was a man named W. C. Gerard, who came from New York out to western Kansas. He had known Horace Greeley, so he organized a town company and founded Greeley County in his honor. There was a town in the new county named Chappewa, which was renamed Tribune in honor of Greeley's newspaper. J.U. Brown, an early day lawyer, published the first newspaper in the county.
Appropriately, this county is located on the far western edge of the state. And when I say far west, I mean it. Greeley County is even in the mountain time zone.
Greeley is also a very rural county. In fact, it is the smallest populated county in the state, with a total population of 1,803 people.
The book 1,001 Kansas Place Names by McCoy and Hults tells us more about the remarkable connection between Horace Greeley and the names found in the county.
People in this county had high loyalty to Horace Greeley, and they carried the naming theme a long way. Not only was the county named Greeley, there was also a town named Greeley Center. Another town in Greeley County was given his first name: Horace. And it gets better. As you heard, the county seat was renamed Tribune, after his newspaper. Greeley's successor as editor had a post office C WhitelawC and a village C Reid C named after him. And to top that, there was even a town named Hector, after Horace Greeley's dog. Wow, that's loyalty.
The name Horace Greeley lives on in our history, but unfortunately not all of his namesakes survived. Today, there are only two incorporated towns in the county. One is Tribune, the county seat. The other is the town of Horace, population 173 people. Now, that's rural.
The other communities are gone. The towns of Greeley Center, Hector, and Reid, have now dissolved, along with the post office named Whitelaw. They would be considered ghost towns in our modern day.
But the people of Greeley County are true to their western heritage. They are hard-working, independent people who are close to the land.
The oldest building in the county is the first courthouse built in 1890. It was called the Hub, because it was the center of activity. Not only is that building still standing, it now houses the Horace Greeley museum.
AGo west, young man.@ It was good advice when Horace Greeley gave it more than a century ago, and there are still excellent opportunities in the wide open spaces of the west. We salute Linda Firner and the people of Greeley County, who are making a difference in their time just as Horace Greeley did in his.

Charles Mann - Aviation Simulation Trainers
Recently I was on an incredible flight. We had a great pilot. We took off from the airport at Daytona Beach, Florida. Our pilot banked the plane so we could have a good view of the airport, and then he took us out over the ocean so we could see the beach. He even flew us over the Daytona Beach racetrack. And then, because we asked him to, he crashed the plane.
No, I'm not talking to you from the afterlife. The flight that I'm describing wasn't really up in the air C fortunately for usC but it was realistic in virtually all other respects. This flight was a demonstration inside a flight training device. These sophisticated devices allow airplane pilots to be trained in life-like conditions. These devices are being produced and sold world-wide by a company in rural Kansas. It's today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Charles Mann. Charles is Executive Vice President of Aviation Simulation Trainers Inc., the company which produces these flight training devices.
Charlie Mann owned a flying school in Arizona and was flying for Northwest Airlines, when he was in Massachusetts and visited a company called Aviation Simulation Technologies. He was so impressed with their flight training devices that he bought one before he left.
He stayed in touch with the company and in 1983, bought the company with the help of a friend who happened to be a banker in Kansas. Charlie Mann later moved to Kansas and then relocated the company here also.
So what exactly is it that this company makes? Well, they build life-size flight training devices in which you sit and virtually fly a plane. Essentially, they are full-size cockpits, realistic in every detail, complete with sound, gauges, and controls that work. At each window there is a computer-controlled TV monitor which can be programmed to show a visual image of the airport for which you are training. For example, on the day we visited, we saw a computer program showing the Daytona Beach airport and surroundings.
The computer automatically adjusts the sound and controls to make conditions as life-like as possible. For example, when you are traveling at higher speed, it creates increased pressure on the controls just as a plane would experience in real life. The sound and the view of the ground is incredibly realistic.
This type of training device enables a pilot to train in virtual real-world conditions without burning fuel or jeopardizing lives. For example, we asked Charlie Mann to crash our plane just for the fun of it. It didn't hurt a bit.
More importantly, it can provide more effective teaching. For example, it enables the instructor to stop the action and point out mistakes as they happen, rather than after the fact. It also enables them to simulate the loss of a fuse or other emergency without putting lives at risk.
These advantages mean that every hour in a flight training device is worth three hours in a real airplane.
Now, as you might expect, you don't pick up one of these units down at Western Auto. In fact, fully loaded, they might cost you about $450,000. That also means that the jobs at the company are technical, high skill jobs, which we'd like to see more of in rural Kansas.
Company headquarters is located at the airport near Burlington, in Coffey County in east central Kansas. When it first came to Kansas, it was located in temporary quarters in the nearby town of New Strawn, population 476 people. Now, that's rural.
But when I walked through this plant, I happened to spot a Christmas card posted on a bulletin board. The card was from the Royal Jordanian Air Academy. That tells you that these flight training devices are in demand world-wide.
Sure enough, Charles Mann has sold these devices to flying schools, universities, companies, and governments all over the world. K-State - Salina owns two units. Sales have been made as far away as Australia, Jordan, Greenland, Japan, Turkey, Spain, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia.
Yet this high-tech company is located in rural Kansas. Charlie Mann says, AThis is a wonderful county. Our people are very, very good. They'll give you a full day's work for a full day's pay.@
It's time to bring this plane in for a landing C and fortunately not a crash-landing this time. We commend Charlie Mann and the people of Aviation Simulation Trainers, for making a difference with high-tech entrepreneurship in rural Kansas.

David Smale
Recently I was in a business' waiting room, and I picked up a book to pass the time. The book happened to be about the Florida Panthers hockey team. Now, I live a long way from Florida, and I know nothing about hockey. But this book was really well done.
And imagine my surprise when I found that this book was written by someone whose name I recognized, who is an author right here in Kansas. He's today's Kansas Profile.
Meet David Smale. David is the author and publisher of a series of sports books, including the one about the Florida Panthers. This is his story.
David was born in Kansas City. His dad worked for TWA, and while David was young the family transferred to New York. David went to college in Michigan and returned to Kansas City to marry a girl whom he had met in the first grade. Actually, they had met in church, but they knew each other in the first grade. Talk about long engagements...
David grew up in a family that enjoyed sports. David says that he went to kindergarten already knowing how to count to 720, because that's how many baseball cards were in a set.
David's journalism career began with working for Newsday in New York, where he covered sports. Then he came to work for the Kansas City Star and after that, took a position with Manhattan Christian College in Manhattan, Kansas.
He was in graduate school at K-State, and one night he was sitting in class with Kenny Mossman, the K-State sports information director at the time. They were discussing the fact that the last basketball season in historic Ahearn Fieldhouse was approaching.
David Smale said, AYou should do something special to commemorate that.@ Kenny said, AWell, we're having special t-shirts printed.@ David said, ANo, you need something more permanent, like a book.@ Kenny said, AWell, you're a writer, why don't you write one?@
And so he did. David did a lot of research on Ahearn and basketball, and the result was his first book AThe Ahearn Tradition.@
David partnered with a friend to publish the book. The friend was Vern Osborne from nearby St. George, population 465 people. Now, that's rural.
Vern and David promoted the book around Kansas, and a lot of people enjoyed it -- including me. One day he was out promoting the book and he happened to be put in a small group with Bob Chipman, the head basketball coach at Washburn. That led David to write a historical book about the Washburn basketball program.
One book led to another. David Smale has now written books about UCLA, K-State football, the Florida Panthers hockey team, the University of North Carolina, the Washington Capitals hockey team, Mississippi State, and the Kansas City Chiefs.
That's a lot of sports history. For example, David says that while researching the UCLA book, he met Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, and John Wooden on three successive days. Talk about sports fan heaven...
David has another book in progress. It's about the top 40 athletes in all sports in K-State history. That book is due out in May 1998. Hmm, I wonder if my family is listening. I think Father's Day is shortly after that, isn't it?...hint, hint...
David now works in a publishing company in Kansas City as well as running his own publishing business with his family. He's been married for nearly 17 years to that girl he had known in the first grade. Their son was born while they lived in New York, in the Big Apple. Their daughter was born in Wamego while they lived in the Little Apple.
David Smale says, AI much prefer the latter. Kansas has friendly people and the wide open wheat fields. I think it's beautiful.@
If you would like to order the new K-State book or some of his other works, contact Rainbow Publishing at 1-888-385-BOOK. That number again, which you can call toll-free, is 1-888-385-2665. Or you can visit their website at www.rainbowpublishing(one word).com
I guess it's time for me to put away my book about the Florida Panthers hockey team. Here in Kansas we're a long way from Florida, and not exactly in a hotbed of hockey. So what a coincidence to find this book written by an author from Kansas. David says, AI believe God has a plan for our lives.@ We commend David Smale and his family for making a difference through their writing and publishing.

Curtis Machine Co.
Today I'm going to get in gear. Yeah, I know that was my New Year's resolution last January, but I really mean it this time. I'm going to get this program in gear.
And if I'm going to get in gear, there's no better place to go than the place which produces more right angle, spiral bevel specialized gearboxes than anywhere in North America. Would you believe that this leading manufacturer is found in rural Kansas?
It's true, and it's today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Stuart and Janie Curtis. They are co-owners of Curtis Machine Company in Dodge City, Kansas. Curtis Machine Company is one of the world's leading manufacturers of gearboxes. You know what gearboxes are, they're metal containers which hold gear wheels that turn and transmit mechanical power. An engineering professor would probably cringe at that definition, but that's my layman's way of describing it.
Anyway, the Curtises make gearboxes, and we're going to get in gear to learn their story.
Curtis Machine Company began in 1946 in Dodge City, which at that time was a town of about 9,500 people. Now, that's rural.
Mr. Curtis began the company with a lathe, milling machine, and welder in a 20 x 30 foot building constructed behind his home. One of the first jobs they contracted for was a gearbox. By 1950, additional machines were purchased to perform sub-contract work for the aircraft industry, and the company grew.
His son Stuart Curtis got bachelor's and master's degrees in Engineering from K-State and returned home to the family business. Today, Stuart is President and CEO of the company. Wife Janie, who has degrees from both K-State and KU, is vice-president of sales and marketing. Their two sons, Stu Jr. and John, also got engineering degrees at K-State and are now in the business. Stu worked at Boeing before coming back to the home company, and John went on for a masters in nuclear engineering at MIT.
So it shouldn't come as any surprise that these are some of the best gearboxes in the world. Specifically, the Curtis gearbox line includes right angle, straight bevel, spiral bevel, and parallel shaft power transmission units. In a nutshell, that means this company makes things that help machines go better. And they're doing so world-wide.
For example, if you've ever seen a Toro lawnmower C and they're all over C the chances are there is a Curtis gearbox inside. Curtis gearboxes go all over North America and to such places as Australia, Europe, and Malaysia. Curtis Machine is a world market share leader for its type of product.
Between 1975 and 1990, the facilities at Curtis Machine have expanded seven times and more than 100 employees were added. Curtis gearboxes dominate the commercial mowing and steering market. Mercedes Benz trucks and buses usually use Curtis gearboxes, made right here in Dodge City. Curtis gearboxes are even used in satellite earth tracking stations.
Janie Curtis says they have a customer in California which has a Curtis gearbox in a machine that manufactures microchips. And 90 percent of the frozen pizza in the world is produced by devices with Curtis gearboxes.
Hmm, pizza and computers. Now all this engineering stuff is getting closer to home.
Curtis Machine is now marketing and communicating world-wide over the Internet. Their website is impressive, at www.curtismachine.com. You can even access that website in the English language version, the French version, or the Spanish version. At that website you'll see more gears in the background than at a Rotary convention.
The company has been described as Anew technology in the old west.@ Another appropriate slogan at the company is AQuality people, quality products.@ Janie Curtis says, AWe appreciate the work ethic of our people and lots of sunshine in Dodge City.@
Today, this program has finally gotten in gear C specifically, into gearboxes. I find it exciting that this international leader in producing gearboxes is found right here in rural Kansas, and it's a home-grown and in-state educated company. We salute Stuart and Janie Curtis, plus Stu Jr. and John and all the others at Curtis Machine who are making a difference through quality design and world-wide impact.
With that, I guess it's time to shift gears.

Max Mize - Mize & Co.
Some people have connections. These are people who can get things done, because they have connections. Today, we're going to meet a man who has connections C in fact, about 13 million of them.
Wow, what kind of connections am I talking about? In this case, I'm referring to electrical connections -- specifically, connectors for automotive and industrial products such as batteries, cables, and wire. One company with these products has become a remarkable international business C and it's headquartered in rural Kansas.
Meet Max Mize. Max is chairman of Mize and Company, which makes and markets these products. It's today's Kansas Profile.
Max Mize's father began the company in 1936. He sold tire patches along a route from Kansas City to Oklahoma City, and then went into Army surplus.
When Max was 10, his dad hurt his knee so that it was very difficult for Mr. Mize to get out of the car. But the business had to go on, so Mr. Mize took Max with him. They would stop at a business and Max would go in to find the owner and get him out to the car, where Mr. Mize would close the sale.
All this meant that Max got an education about business at a very early age. That entrepreneurial training would come to serve Max well.
Max went to KU, then to the service, and returned to the family business, which now was concentrating on selling automotive wiring supplies. Max developed a catalog to promote their products, and the business grew.
In 1976, the company bought a building in Kingman, which is in Kingman County due west of Wichita. Max says, AI thought we'd never grow into it.@ But in less than ten years they were so overcrowded that they bought another building in Kingman.
The company manufactures and distributes a variety of automotive, electrical, and industrial products, such as clips, battery terminals, booster cables, clamps, cords, hoses, wire, wire terminals, zerks, and other products.
One year Max noticed some companies importing tools, and he thought, AMaybe I could do that too.@ So he bought some hose clamps from Taiwan, and found the process worked well. Then while sourcing products overseas, he started selling overseas.
Today this company, which started on a shoestring, is a multimillion dollar business. Its sales and service activities have expanded to include the entire continental U.S., Canada, Mexico, Chile, Bermuda, Trinidad, Countries of the United Emirates, Australia, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and many more. Yet the company remains based in the town of Kingman, population 3,302 people. Now, that's rural.
It's so exciting to see a home-grown international business operating successfully in rural Kansas.
Max Mize's latest innovation is something called a pigtail peg hook. You know what a peg hook is, it's one of those metal hooks that fits into the holes of the peg board in your garage. If you're like me, those darn hooks fall out the peg board when you're trying to hang something on them. Well, Max Mize's peg hooks are designed to fix just that problem. His peg hooks have a helical coil design C that means it's curled like a pig tail C which enables a person to twist them into place on a peg board so they hold solid. Now that's an innovation I can appreciate.
Of course, the other business continues. Today the company buys something like 13 million fittings from Taiwan. Mize products are used in such items as the UPS trucks which you see going everywhere. The Mize company has patents in the U.S. and Europe.
What an incredible story. It's a long way from Mr. Mize's old automobile to Max's sales trips to Beijing. But Max says, AThis is a people business. To get the good deals, you have to be there bumpin' shoulders.@
I'll bet Max Mize's father would be proud to see Max and his company today.
Some people have connections. Max Mize does. His company catalog even says AYour Connection Source@ on the front. They have sold millions of those electrical connectors.
But Max Mize also has connections in a different sense. I appreciate his connections to the people of his company, to his customers world-wide, and to his rural heritage. We commend Max Mize and the people of his company for making a difference in the economy of Kansas.

Geoprobe - Mel Kejr & Tom Christy
Today, we're going to ask some probing questions. No, I don't mean questions that are particularly insightful, I mean questions literally about probing....specifically, probing into soil below the surface of the earth.
Today, we'll meet a remarkable company in rural Kansas which produces a machine to do sub-surface, soil probes C and is marketing them around the world. It's today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Mel Kejr and Tom Christy. Mel and Tom are President and Vice-President and co-founders of a company called Geoprobe Systems in Salina, Kansas. The company makes a hydraulically powered, percussion / probing machine called a Geoprobe. That's a unit which is typically mounted on the back of a truck or van and which drives a probe into the ground so a person can take soil samples.
But this isn't designed for your backyard garden. This machine usually takes samples at a depth of 30 to 60 feet C it has even been used beyond 100 feet deep.
So it's time for our first probing question: What does a person do with a Geoprobe? The answer is that is has many uses for people such as engineers or environmental consultants. The Geoprobe pushes tools or sensors into the ground to obtain continuous soil cores or individual soil samples. It can push in samplers to get groundwater or vapor samples, or permanent sampling implants. It can even be used to install small diameter monitoring wells. And it does all this quickly, without having to drill.
That means it enables a person to do detection and monitoring of sub-surface soils. Such detection is especially vital in this time of environmental sensitivity. Geoprobe equipment is used for property audits, Superfund sites, remediation projects, and research.
Here's another probing question: How did this equipment come to be? The answer goes back to Mel Kejr and Tom Christy, who are both engineers.
Mel Kejr grew up on a farm near Brookville, Kansas, population 229 people. Now, that's rural. On the farm, he had lots of experience repairing and modifying equipment. He studied at Dallas Bible College and graduated from K-State-Salina with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He was involved with a company called Kejr Engineering.
Tom has a Civil Engineering degree from the University of Missouri-Rolla. He came to Salina in 1987, where the two engineers got together to design a soil-probing machine.Mel Kejr says, AWe began working on a machine that could extract soil gas, soil cores, and groundwater samples at various depths from underground.@ The first Geoprobe soil probing machine was sold in 1988.
Mel and Tom are men of deep faith. They would meet every Monday morning to thank God for his provisions and for the week to come. The tradition continues on a voluntary basis for all employees today. Mel and Tom feel this provides a solid foundation for the company's success.
Here's another probing question: Why would someone want these machines? The answer is that they have several advantages. They can get samples quickly: typical soil penetration rates are from 5 to 25 feet per minute. And they are mobile: they basically fold compactly into the back of a truck. That means they can cover a lot of ground, perhaps 20 to 40 locations in a single day, and then the machines can be locked and secured.
Geoprobe machines are said to be simple to operate and more economical than rotary drilling machines. They create a small diameter hole which minimizes the disturbance of the surface.
Yet another probing question: Given all these advantages, does anybody buy these machines? Well, listen to this: In barely 10 years of business, Geoprobe machines have found their way into nearly every state and into such places as Canada, Australia, England, Israel, Japan, Italy, and Belgium.
The company has grown from being just Tom and Mel to a well rounded team of over 70 people. Geoprobe's engineers and skilled technicians are recognized internationally for being at the forefront of innovative sampling equipment design.
Just think: Here is an international, environmentally-friendly business that is operating successfully in the middle of Kansas C where, as Tom Christy says, Athe earth is flat, the sky is large, and the people are helpful.@
We're come to the end of our probing questions C and what we have are some probing answers. We've found an innovative company which has found a way to engineer a soil-probing product which is in use around the world. We salute Mel Kejr and Tom Christy for entrepreneurship, engineering, and values which make a difference.

Roto-Mix - Ben Neier
Warning: Today's program may cause mixed feelings. No, I don't mean that it will cause conflicting emotions. I hope this program will generate a feeling of pride about feed mixers. This program is about mixing machines C specifically, feed mixers for livestock C and by the time we're done, I hope you'll have a positive feeling about these mixers and the people who make them.
Today we'll meet a company which produces these mixers and sells them around the world, from its base in rural Kansas. It's today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Ben Neier. Ben is President and Founder of Roto-Mix in Dodge City, Kansas. His is the company which produces these innovative feed mixing machines which have become internationally successful. Mark Cooksey is his Sales Manager, who told me about this remarkable company.
This all started in 1961, when Ben Neier was farming and feeding cattle in southwest Kansas near the Kiowa County town of Mullinville. He was looking for a better way to mix feed for his cattle, so he designed a three auger feed mixer on which he filed for a patent. Mark Cooksey says, AThe feed mixer industry was born right here in this little town of Mullinville, Kansas.@ Mullinville is a town of 283 people. Now, that's rural.
Yet in this rural setting, a new industry was born. Ben Neier set up a company, which he later sold, to produce these feed mixers.
In 1984, Ben Neier started a new company in Dodge City. This company pioneered a new concept of mixing feed. The company was named Roto-Mix.
The name Roto-Mix came from the fact that this new machine used a rotary concept in blending feed. Instead of the old augers, which move grain by turning a spiral-shaped metal screw, this new type of mixer blended feed with a pipe & paddle type rotor.
There were several advantages to this new concept. It blends feed without breaking up the finer ingredients. It's faster and creates less pressure and wear and tear on the equipment. It's typically used by beef and dairy cattle producers to mix a scientifically mixed total feed ration, or TMR.
Ben started this company with his wife Jan and two employees. And listen to this: Today Roto-Mix is a multi-million dollar company employing more than a hundred people. Roto-Mix recently built a new plant in Hoisington.
These mixers are high in quality and are in demand world-wide. They are sold into such places as Canada, Mexico, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Chile, and Australia. In fact, the largest single retail order the company ever received was from South Africa.
Of course, they are major sellers in the U.S. also, from California to New York. Mark Cooksey says, AWe have a mixer in nearly every state. I'm not sure about Alaska, but I know we've got 'em in Hawaii because the Dole people use 'em to blend pineapple waste into livestock feed.@
Dodge City is quite an international place. There has been a large in-migration of workers from Mexico and southeast Asia, many of them to work in the beef packing plants. Such ethnic diversity creates some challenges, for such institutions as the schools. But think about the opportunity this creates in terms of the global marketplace.
For example, when a delegation of Koreans came to visit Roto-Mix, the company used a waitress and another lady who owned a Korean restaurant there in Dodge City to serve as an interpreter. What a great idea. Maybe our young people in Dodge City schools could be especially well prepared to participate in international commerce if we take advantage of the international diversity which is found right there in the school system.
Anyway, Mark Cooksey says, AWe learn a lot and it broadens our base to have this international business.@ Today, Roto-Mix builds the most complete line of feed mixers in the industry.
Warning: This program can cause mixed feelings. No, not concerns about this company C just the reverse, and not just because they make mixers. I have feelings of admiration for an innovator like Ben Neier, mixed with feelings of pride about the international business which this has become in our state. How exciting to see such a global business operating successfully from Dodge City, Kansas. We commend Ben Neier and the people of Roto-Mix for making a difference by bringing together entrepreneurship, hard work, and international vision.
That is a really good mix.

Diana Friend - The Friendly Company
Let's get into some hot stuff...red-hot. I'm talking about salsa: that spicy, saucy, chunky stuff that puts zip on your chips and tang in your tongue. Today we'll meet a Kansas company which not only produces award-winning salsa, it is marketing gift baskets and college-oriented gift packages. And they're doing it in rural Kansas.
Meet Diana Friendly. Diana is owner of the Friendly Company C a nice sounding name C which produces this award-winning salsa and related products.
Diana is from Wichita originally. Her husband works for Boeing. At one point, they decided they wanted to live in the country, so they bought land and built a home near Mount Hope in western Sedgwick County. She says, AWe love the country.@
Diana explains that she was working at her former job when someone asked if she could bring chips and dip to an office party. She agreed, but suddenly it was the night before the party. All the nearby stores were closed, so she decided to mix up some salsa from scratch.
The next day, her co-workers really liked the salsa. In fact, people started asking for it.
Several people suggested that she should enter her salsa in the annual Wichita Chili and Salsa cookoff, which is held each fall. So Diana entered one sample of her medium-hot salsa. There were 48 entries that fall, and four trophies were presented. Out of that entire group, two of the four trophies were won by Diana's single sample. It won for best chip-dipping and best overall.
That means this is good salsa.
In 1994, Diana set up her own company to produce and sell the salsa. The next year she entered some of her medium product in the Wichita cookoff again, and it got first place. The third year she entered a sample of her extra hot salsa, and guess what C it got first place too.
Diana doesn't just sell salsa. She adds value by packaging it with chips and a salsa bowl. And she has branched out to produce gift baskets of various kinds, including her salsa and various Kansas products.
Some of her hot sellers - no pun intended - are her collegiate chip and salsa packages. For example, you could get chips and salsa in a package with labels sporting the Jayhawk or Wildcat logos. That would be perfect for showing your colors while on a summer cookout, tailgating, or maybe paying off a bet to the other team...
I asked Diana how she got started in the collegiate gift packages. She said with a laugh, AI raised two boys. When they're home, we watch lots of sports and they develop loyalties. I thought to myself, I should get in on this.@
And so she did. Now one of her sons graduated from K-State, and the other is headed to K-State next fall.
But there's much more. Diana designs her gift baskets in the round, so that whichever angle you look from, you see something fun. She makes gift baskets that range in cost from $5 to $215. That one includes a silverplated tea set. She's now making a basket for Father's Day with outdoor themes, such as fishing or bowhunting.
In the spring of 1998, Diana entered a Jayhawk theme gift basket in a national competition put on by Gift Basket Review magazine. This was no ordinary gift basket, it was 3 2 feet tall. It included everything for the stadium, from a cooler and stadium seat to a stuffed Jayhawk, plus her chips and salsa.
Against a bunch of competitors from all around the country, Diana's entry took second place in the nation. That's right, second place in the entire nation went to the entry from little Mount Hope, Kansas C population 1,092 people. Now, that's rural.
These products are popular. One order has been sent as far away as Germany.
Diana sells her products through direct mail and through specialty shops. If you would like to get information or place an order, you can reach her at 316-667-2229. That number again is 316-667-2229.
Yes, this is hot stuff. Oh, the salsa is hot alright, but I mean something more than that. I'm talking about the spirit of entrepreneurship and creative talent we find in Diane Friend and the Friendly Company, which is making a difference in the rural economy.

Lori Robbins - Home on the Range
Today let's talk about Home on the Range. Yeah, I know, it's the Kansas state song. But today, I mean it literally. We are going to visit a home which really is out on the range. In fact, we're going to visit a rural, home-based business which takes its name from the Kansas song.
Stay tuned, this is today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Lori Robbins. Lori is owner of this business called Home on the Range & Co., located near Scott City in western Kansas. Lori's company produces beef and buffalo jerky and related products. This is her story.
Lori is a native of western Kansas. She lives on her husband's family farm, which is near the family farms of Lori's mother and father too.
Lori and her husband farm and have two children. Lori was a full-time farmer and mom while the kids were young, but as they got older, Lori wanted to contribute even more to the family budget. Still, she wanted the flexibility to participate in her children's activities, and she didn't want to have to drive into town. So what to do?
Lori and her husband are beef producers, and one of the projects she had done in the past was make home-made beef jerky for her family. Lori says, AI remembered the kids saying, 'Mom, you could sell this stuff.'@ So she did some research and some test-marketing, and decided to give it a try.
In June 1993, Lori set up her own farm-based, state-inspected processing facility to produce and sell beef jerky. She also produces a jerky made from buffalo meat.
But what should this company be named? Lori decided to call it Home on the Range & Co. She says with a smile, AI wanted to give people a flavor of Kansas. But this is also a play on words. I am at home, out here on the range.@
That is literally true. Lori's business is located in the on the farmstead surrounded by pastureland outside of Scott City, population 3,731 people. Now, that's rural.
But from this location Lori is operating a national business. She now sells beef and buffalo jerky in both original flavor and spicy fiesta, a jerky seasoning mix, and steak marinade. Yumm, sounds tasty.
Lori also sells a number of products under the Home on the Range private label. Many of these are produced for corporate clients, who use them as customer appreciation gifts. For example, as a unique product with a rustic Kansas feel, Lori offers some of her products in a cloth tote bag with a red bandanna wrapped around the top.
For the beef jerky itself, Lori buys inside round steak from a vendor in Dodge City. She trims all fat and marinates, dries, and packages the meat. She uses no sugar, MSG, or preservatives in processing. The meat is vacuum packed which gives it about a nine-month shelf life.
Lori says, AI'm so grateful for the help we received from Dr. Liz Boyle and Dr. Fadi Aramouni, the K-State Extension food science people. We couldn't have made it without them.@
Lori markets her products both wholesale and retail. It's packaged in smaller quantities for sale in gourmet food shops and resorts, and larger packages for places like local feed stores. Some school groups, such as FFA chapters, will sell the product as a fund-raiser.
Meanwhile, Lori's products have sold as far away as Vermont, Florida, and Hawaii. Last week a call came from a San Francisco woman who wants to take some of Lori's products with her to Japan as a gift. Wow, it's a long way from Japan to out here where the buffalo roam.
To order Lori's products, you can call her company at 1-800-798-7805. That number again is 1-800-798-7805.
We've been talking about Home on the Range. Yes, it's the Kansas state song, but it's also the name of a home-grown, entrepreneurial business in western Kansas. Lori Robbin's Kansas products are selling coast to coast from a rural setting. We commend Lori for her entrepreneurship and hard work which are making a difference in rural Kansas.
Now, let's go watch the deer and the antelope play.

Valley Vet Supply
Imagine you're at a Horsetrack in Houston or a Ranch near Rapid City. Maybe you're at a Dairy farm near Duluth, or a Pet store in Pittsburg. Maybe you're a Dog lover in Detroit, or a Cat fancier in California. What do all these have in common?
The main thing is, they involve animals. And if you listened closely, you may also notice that each phrase used alliteration. In other words, they start with the same letter, such as Pet store in Pittsburg.
There's another thing they have in common. Any of these might be calling a particular company for their pet and animal-related supplies. It's a company which also happens to use alliteration in its name: Valley Vet Supply of Marysville, Kansas.
We'll learn the story of this remarkable company on today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Dr. Arnold Nagely and Dr. Ray Shultz. Doctors Nagely and Shultz are the veterinarians who co-own this remarkable business. Both of them came from rural Kansas.
Dr. Nagely grew up on a farm in Dickinson County, went to K-State for his DVM degree, and came to practice in Marysville in 1973. Dr. Shultz grew up in south central Kansas near the town of Pretty Prairie, population 658 people. Now, that's rural. He also got his veterinary degree from K-State. He joined Dr. Nagely's practice in 1976.
In 1985, the two veterinarians had an idea to expand their markets. They sent out a small flyer about some animal health products which they could sell through the mail. They bought some extra inventory of such products and assigned one person to work on that part of the business. From that humble beginning, the business grew.
In fact, listen to this. That small flyer has grown into 14 full-color catalogs advertising a host of pet and animal-related products which the company sends out each year. The number of employees handling the mail order business has gone from one in 1985 to 100 today.
It's remarkable growth, in only 13 years. In 1997, Doctors Nagely and Shultz sold their veterinary practice to the younger associate vets who had joined them. That way Doctors Nagely and Shultz can concentrate on the mail order business C and what an incredible business it has become.
For example, they now produce three different sets of catalogs: one for pets, one for equine, and one for general farm and ranch products. It looks like everything for the animal is included in these things, from fencing to medicines to livestock show equipment. In fact, the fall 1997 catalog which I looked at had a special, pre-Christmas section with everything in it from work clothes and boots to games, gifts, and chocolates. I especially liked some of the novelty items, such as the horseshoe door knocker and the big red stop sign that says AWhoa@ on it. Frankly, I don't think my horse is smart enough to read that...
These attractive catalogs have become the basis for a national mail order business. Valley Vet Supply sends catalogs to all 50 states and has equine business in Canada. When people call from coast-to-coast, those calls all go to Marysville, Kansas.
In fact, the business now has 20 incoming telephone lines for toll-free 1-800 calls. And in 1997, the company started its own website at valleyvet.com. They are now receiving orders through the Internet. You can even post photos of your favorite pet on their website.
Of course, growth like this doesn't just happen. Dr. Nagely says, AOur goal is to ship the product on the same day you call, if we get the order by 3 p.m.@ It's convenient because the products are delivered right to your doorstep. Most products reach the customer in 1-4 days, depending on the shipping, and vaccines go overnight packed in ice in insulated packages.
Dr. Nagely says, AWe want to offer quality, convenience, and value. Our employees have a good work ethic and this is a nice community to live in.@
If you would like a free catalog, you can contact Valley Vet Supply at 1-800-360-4838. That number again is 1-800-360-4838.
So whether you're a Pet lover in Paducah or a Rancher in Ruidoso C or anywhere else, for that matter C you can order supplies for the animals you care for. Doctors Nagely and Shultz are making a difference with a national business operating from small-town Kansas. And in the spirit of alliteration, I'm Proud of these People for their Excellent Entrepreneurship, Dynamic Development, and Rural Revitalization.

Jim Donahue - Donahue Manufacturing
Today let's talk about carriers. No, I'm not talking about aircraft carriers, and I'm not talking about that little boy who went to school unwittingly carrying chicken pox germs to all his friends. I'm talking about equipment carriers. Specifically, I'm talking about a business in rural Kansas that builds equipment carriers, along with other types of ag-related equipment.
Today, those products are being sold from coast to coast. It's today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Jim Donahue. Jim is owner and founder of the Donahue Corporation in Durham, Kansas. Durham is located in central Kansas, along Highway 15 in Marion County. Durham is a town of 109 people. Now, that's rural.
Yet Durham is host to a company which is selling its equipment carriers from the Carolinas to California. Here is the remarkable story.
Jim Donahue is a native of Wyoming. As a kid, he came to the Durham area to live with his grandparents. Today, he lives on a ranch east of Durham, over by the Chase / Marion county line. He and his sons are active in the farming and ranching business too.
For a while, Jim worked as an aircraft welder at Boeing while farming on the side. Then he started doing some custom building for farmers in the area. The business grew, and in 1962 he formed his own company called the Donahue Corporation. Among other things, the company builds carriers.
For example, the Donahue Corporation makes several types of farm implement carriers. You know those huge combines that you see harvesting wheat in the summertime? Have you ever wondered how they get from field to field? One way is on a combine carrier built by the Donahue Corporation.
There are ten models of carriers designed to fit various sizes of equipment and various needs of the user. The Donahue Corporation holds a patent on an exclusive loading method which I found really interesting. We all know that trailers come on wheels, right? But it can be a problem getting a big piece of equipment up onto that trailer.
The Donahues came up with a solution. They designed a trailer in which the bed can be unlocked and rolled forward off the wheelbase, until the trailer bed itself is flat on the ground. Once it's on ground level, then it's easy to drive or tow an implement onto the bed. Once loaded, the bed is simply backed-up over the wheels. Then you clamp it on, release the wheel locks, and you're ready to roll.
That's one of those ideas that makes you want to say, AThat's so simple yet so ingenious. Why didn't I think of that?@ Fortunately, the Donahues did.
The Donahue Corporation also makes stock trailers, grain trailers, flatbed trailers, and other farm-related equipment. Jim Donahue says, AWe farm and ranch. Everything we build we use in our own farming operation. That's how we know how we can make improvements.@ Wow, using it yourself may be the ultimate quality control.
And apparently it pays off. Today, the company is selling coast to coast. Donahue delivers its own equipment in such places as California, Idaho, and Nevada. On the day I visited, a unit was getting ready to go to North Carolina. In fact, the company may have more name recognition nationally than it does in Kansas.
Today this company which began in Jim Donahue's own shop employs 35 people. Jim Donahue says, AWe've got to build it good, because I can't send somebody to California to rework it.@ That emphasis on quality has been rewarded, as Jim was recognized as a National SBA Small Business Person of the Year.
It's exciting to see such a national company operating from a rural setting like Durham, Kansas. Jim says, AWe might be in the country, but we get all over.@
We've been talking about carriers. No, not aircraft carriers or chicken pox, but equipment carriers built by a company in rural Kansas. We salute Jim Donahue and the people of Donahue Corporation for making a difference in the rural economy. They've carried this rural business to new heights.
But there's more to this story. I told you that Jim lived on a ranch in the Flint Hills. This is a very special ranch C and we'll hear about that on our next program.

The Donahues - Clover Cliff Ranch B&B
Imagine playing tennis while surrounded by the sea. Sounds like some island paradise, doesn't it? Probably in some ocean that I'll never get to.
But the tennis court that I'm talking about was found right here in Kansas. It was a tennis court surrounded by a sea of Flint Hills grassland. It's part of the history of Clover Cliff Ranch Bed 'N Breakfast, owned by Jim and Joan Donahue.
This is the second and final program in our two-part series on the Donahue family. On our last program, we heard about the Donahue Corporation which makes ag-related equipment. I told you that Jim tests that equipment by using it on his own ranch, and what a ranch it is.
Clover Cliff Ranch is a working cattle ranch with more than 4,000 acres nestled in the scenic Flint Hills. Jim's two sons do the ranching. The Clover Cliff Ranch is truly a historic spread in a rural setting.
In 1860, Jacob Blackshere came to Kansas from what was then Virginia. He staked his claim to 960 acres of verdant Kansas grassland in the Flint Hills and built a one-room cabin. This homestead was the beginning of Clover Cliff Ranch.
Blackshere was an innovator, and he built the operation to more than 4,000 acres. He was the first man in Chase County to raise Black Galloway cattle, Kafir corn, sorghum and alfalfa.
Over the years, Blackshere expanded and added on to the cabin several times. He added space and built the upper stories.
In 1912, the ranch was bought by Mr. and Mrs. Homer Prather. They also expanded the ranch, added a large veranda porch to the house and built three more houses around it.
In 1987, the Prather family sold the ranch. The new owners were Jim and Joan Donahue. That means this ranch has been owned by only three owners in nearly 140 years. Wow, that's continuity.
Jim and Joan Donahue bought the ranch to add to their existing ranching operations in the region. They have also done an extensive renovation of the house and grounds. In 1993, they opened the houses as guest houses for a bed and breakfast.
Joan Donahue says, AWe get a lot of business retreats here. People love to come here where nobody bothers them.@
Today the houses have modern conveniences but retain their historic flavor. That original cabin is a back room of the house. It has a large open fireplace, built of native stone from the ranch and lime mortar from Elk, Kansas. The exterior of the houses and interior fireplace are built of native stone from the ranch also.
The house features a copper, lead, and tin alloy roof which was added by the Prathers in 1917, and the roof railing dates back to Jacob Blackshere. Inside, there is a serpentine stairway made of walnut with railing support posts made of maple. The front door has beveled, leaded glass insets which date back to the Prathers also. In fact, in 1977 Clover Cliff was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The houses look out over a scenic vista. One of the previous owners actually built a tennis court on a nearby hillside, but it is no longer in use. But there is excellent hiking and fishing, both in the ranch lakes and the nearby Cottonwood River.
Clover Cliff Ranch is described as a bed n' breakfast in the country. It is surrounded by thousands of acres of quiet prairie. Its mailing address is for the nearest town, which is the community of Elmdale, population 91 people. Now, that's rural.
This historic rural setting has been a drawing card for many visitors. Guests have been registered from 34 states and 18 foreign countries. The crown prince of Dubai stayed at Clover Cliff when he was here for the World Championship Equine Endurance race.
If you would like information about Clover Cliff Ranch Bed N' Breakfast, you can call toll-free at 1-800-457-7406. That number again is 1-800-457-7406.
Imagine playing tennis while being surrounded by the sea. Years ago, someone did that here C not surrounded by the ocean, but by an inland sea of prairie grass. This isn't an island paradise -- it's an in-land paradise. We commend the Donahues for their entrepreneurship in business, their hard work in ranching, and their commitment to Kansas history and hospitality which is making a difference in the Kansas economy.

Pauline Stauffer - Stauffer Quilts
Today let's go halfway around the globe to the nation of Iran. Here in an Iranian home we find a beautiful American-made quilt, a multi-colored log cabin pattern made of 2 inch strips. Would you believe that this quilt was purchased in New Jersey, from a woman whose quilt business is based in rural Kansas? It's true, and it's today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Pauline Stauffer. Pauline is the remarkable woman who sold this quilt and sent it on its journey halfway around the world. This is her story.
Pauline is from Ohio. She and her husband Milton were farmers in Ohio, but Milton wanted to come west. They went out to visit Colorado, but they didn't find just what they were looking for. On the way back to Ohio, they visited a ranch in Wabaunsee County, Kansas. Pauline Stauffer says, AWe loved the Flint Hills!@
So they bought the ranch, and are operating it today. Pauline and Milton have four children: Bev, who among her other degrees has a masters in counseling from K-State and is director of the health department in Pottawatomie County; son Tom; daughter Kay, who lives in Hays; and Paula, who is in Africa. Tom backgrounds cattle in Virginia for his father's ranch in Kansas.
When they moved to Kansas, Pauline became head librarian at the local library. One day, she dropped off her daughter at school and stopped in to visit an older lady who lived next door. The lady was quilting, and it took Pauline back to her past.
Pauline says, AI come from a long line of quilters.@ Pauline grew up in a Mennonite family, where quilting was a social and practical activity of the women. Pauline had grown up around quilts and received several from her mother, but had not learned to quilt herself. So when she saw the lady quilting in Kansas, it piqued Pauline's interest. The older lady taught her to quilt, and Pauline loved it.
Soon after that, Pauline started to collect quilt tops and quilts using her library salary.
One day while helping daughter Bev with a garage sale that included a few very worn quilts in Lawrence, Pauline met a quilt collector. The woman bought the quilts and said, AYou could be selling lots of these here.@ Now that's real encouragement to start a business.
So Pauline began a business in buying and selling quilts, including antique quilts and wall-hangings. She also designs quilts. Some of her quilt tops come from the Amish. Today, Stauffer Quilts is quite a remarkable enterprise.
In a typical year, Pauline will leave her home on the ranch in Wabaunsee County and do her own quilt show and sales in Lawrence, Kansas City, Vail, Colorado, and Tucson, Arizona. She has had quilt shows on the east and west coast, in New Jersey and San Jose, California. These quilts have gone as far away as Iran, London, Singapore, and Germany.
Yet the business remains based in Pauline's home on the ranch south of Alma, Kansas, population 872 people. Now, that's rural.
It's great to find an unusual business like this which utilizes the timeless talents and handcraft of these quilters. Pauline says, AI'm afraid it's becoming a lost art. There just aren't that many younger women who are quilting.@
Another thing I appreciate about Pauline is her sensitivity to family. She says, AI have a rule that I won't buy antique quilts from a family unless they ask their children first whether or not they want them. If the kids aren't interested, then I'll buy. But I remember how much my mother's quilts meant to me, and I don't want to deprive anyone of that.@
And how does this transplanted Ohioan view her adopted state today? She says, AI'm sold on Kansas.@
We've been on a journey halfway around the world, and even in Iran, we found an American quilt which came from a woman in rural Kansas. More importantly, we've found a market for quilts among families in this country. We commend Pauline Stauffer for making a difference by honoring the heritage and talents of these quilters in a modern business today.

Ron Scripsick - Poli-Tron Inc.
Two summers ago, we were visiting my in-laws in Illinois for my wife's birthday. As a gift, she wanted a picnic table for the back patio. So we went down to the store and selected a high quality picnic table. It was unassembled, so we brought it back to Kansas and put it together.
Imagine my surprise when I found that this product, which we had purchased out of state, was made right here in Kansas. Now I've learned that this company is selling its products from coast to coast. It's a remarkable story, and it's today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Ron Scripsick. Ron is President of Poli-Tron Inc. The company is based in the town of Pittsburg in southeast Kansas.
Ron explains that the company began in 1974. It produced a product which incorporated plastic and steel into livestock feeding equipment. Prior to that time, cattle feeding equipment had a metal lining which would corrode from the feed ingredients. Poli-Tron pioneered the use of a plastic lining inside a steel framework in producing the cattle-feeding equipment. This improved the endurance of the product.
But as you know, the 1980s were a difficult time economically -- especially in agriculture. By 1989, the company was in difficult financial straits. Ron had been living in Pittsburg since 1974, and Ron, Tom Correll, and Eldon and Ed Meister sought to buy the company. They went to 14 different lending institutions to seek financing for such a purchase, with no luck. Finally one community banker in a small bank was willing to make the loan and create the opportunity, and Ron and the others purchased the company.
One of their strategies was to diversify, due to the seasonal nature of demand for the livestock feeding equipment. Since they already had the plastic forming and metal working capability, they decided to make picnic tables with plastic tops and steel frames. Later on, the company started producing backyard water garden products. These are those small plastic decorative fountains that you see in people's yards.
And how have these strategies worked? Extremely well. By 1998, annual sales are up to 7 million dollars. In fact, Poli-Tron just purchased a 4 million dollar company in Arkansas. The company employs 65 people. The picnic tables are sold from Los Angeles to New York, and the water gardens sell from Seattle, Washington to Hagerstown, Maryland.
How exciting to see these multi-million dollar, national sales come to a company in Kansas. As I usually do with companies, I asked Ron Scripsick what were the pros and cons of doing business in a smaller Kansas town. Ron said, AI can't think of any cons. Our work ethic is good, and we feel like we have a personal touch with our employees.@
Ron likes small towns. He grew up in Barber County in south central Kansas, in the town of Sharon, population 229 people. Now, that's rural.
Ron says with a smile, AWhen I came to Pittsburg, Kansas, I thought I'd come to the big city.@ And Pittsburg does have a lot to offer. Ron says he has used the Engineering Department at Pittsburg State University numerous times for assistance with products.
Another big step was the purchase of the company in Arkansas, as I mentioned a moment ago. That company produces the wood products which go with plastic slides and swings into kits for backyard playgrounds. As that company's abilities are linked with Poli-Tron's existing expertise, it means that they will have metal-forming, plastic-forming, and wood processing capabilities all under the same company umbrella. That's a combination which is said to be rare in the industry.
So, it's an exciting time for the people of Poli-Tron.
Two summers ago, we were visiting my in-laws in Illinois. We brought back a high quality picnic table, only to learn that it was produced in Kansas. Sometimes we have to go away to appreciate the good things we already have close to home. We salute Ron Scripsick and the people of Poli-Tron for making a difference with hard work and entrepreneurship in the rural economy.

Don McNeal - Council Grove Republican
Recently I had one of those ABack to the Future@ experiences. I was visiting a newspaper office in a town south of Manhattan. I looked up and suddenly realized that from where I was sitting, I could see a hand printing press of a design that dated back to the early 1900s C sitting next to a Macintosh computer box.
It was like ABack to the Future.@ I was seeing the printing technology of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Perhaps that's a good description of the rural newspaper we'll learn about today, on this edition of Kansas Profile.
Meet Don McNeal. Don is the long-time editor and publisher of the Council Grove Republican in the historic community of Council Grove, Kansas. Council Grove is the county seat of Morris County, nestled in the Flint Hills due south of Manhattan.
Council Grove is a town of 2,278 people. Now, that's rural. And because of its size, it has a little known distinction: Council Grove is believed to be the smallest community in Kansas to have a daily newspaper. That's right, not a weekly C a daily.
In my view, the thanks for maintaining a daily newspaper in the community go to one man: Don McNeal.
Don grew up in Jefferson County, Kansas and graduated from K-State in journalism in 1936. While Don was a senior at K-State, the publisher at Council Grove needed someone to come in and put out the paper for two weeks while he was gone. Don came in to help.
When Don graduated, the publisher hired him into the newspaper for 15 dollars a week. Don says, AI came here and fell in love with the community and the people.@
After Don got married, he got a raise to 18 dollars a week. Yeah, there goes that runaway inflation again... And in June 1997, Don and his wife celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.
In 1940, Don took a news position with a company in Oklahoma and then was in the service during World War II. But after the war, he had the opportunity to come back to Council Grove. In 1947, he became a partner of the newspaper.
Don's son Craig would go to K-State also. After graduate work in journalism, Craig returned to the business and bought his father's interest in 1985.
Don says with a smile, ANow I'm working for him.@ The two make a good team as they produce the daily newspaper.
It's kind of amazing that a town this size can maintain a daily newspaper. Don talks about the old days when they printed the paper with hot type. Now they produce camera-ready copy with the computers and take it out for printing. The deadline is 12 noon and the papers are usually out by 3:30 that day.
What does it mean to a community to have its own newspaper? On the day I visited, the headlines included news about a state tax cut and tornadoes in Alabama. But we also learned that the Menninger Bible Class deadline was coming, that Charlie Judd had knee surgery, that Wilma Lee Snider Fuss passed away on Wednesday, and that the girl's team won its softball game. That's a feel of the community that you just won't get from CNN or the New York Times. It is basic to the fabric of community.
Recently a University of Missouri student wrote an article about the McNeals, and she got glowing comments from the mayor, school principal, and the business community about Don and Craig and the importance of a community newspaper. The owner of the Cottage House said, AIt's a gift that the McNeals have given to the community because without the family's dedication to the paper, the community wouldn't be what it is today.@
Don McNeal has seen a lot of changes. He says, AWe can turn out with one computer what took three 7-foot-tall linotypes before.@ He says, AWe believe in our communities, and we have a lot of good, loyal people.@
It was a ABack to the Future@ experience C not just seeing the new technology with the old, but being reminded of the timeless values of a community journalist. We salute Don and Craig McNeal and their families for making a difference with a commitment to community journalism.
Huck Boyd himself would be proud.

John and Susan Howell
Do you ever feel like a speed bump on the information superhighway? Many of us do, sometimes. Until a couple of years ago, I thought a homepage was the local section of our weekly paper, and a website was the place behind the couch that I couldn't reach with the broom.
But today those terms have new meaning, thanks to the incredible global computer-based communications system called the Internet. If you feel like a gravel road on the information superhighway, take heart: Help is on the way. We'll learn about it on today's Kansas Profile.
Meet John and Susan Howell. John and Susan have a heart for helping small towns have home pages on the Internet. This is their story.
Susan and John met at Mississippi State. Susan says with a smile, AI'm a Canadian and he's an Okie.@ Hmm, both from foreign countries....
Anyway, they met and married. They were mathematicians and teachers. John was teaching computer science at a college in Missouri when he found that corporate recruiters were offering his computer students 50 percent more than he was making. John went on to become a computer specialist at Boeing in Wichita and Susan became director of technology at the Wichita Eagle.
A lot of John's work involved the World Wide Web, which is a way of navigating the Internet on your computer. As John and Susan would make weekend trips to Kansas towns, they began to keep a travel diary. The next step was logical: They put information about those communities on the World Wide Web. These locations on the net, which are accessed electronically through your computer, are called websites or homepages.
About this time the Kansas Library Network Board of the State Library was seeking to expand its electronic service to communities. The State Library, in conjunction with the University of Kansas Medical Center, initiated a program called Blue Skyways which is a World Wide Web service to Kansas communities. Blue Skyways provides more than 5,000 pages of electronic information about Kansas towns, education, government, and libraries.
So the Library Network Board joined forces with John and Susan Howell. John's employer, the Boeing Company, agreed to let John serve as an executive on loan until September 1998 to develop websites for Kansas communities.
Susan says, AOften a community will call or e-mail us about this service. We go talk to a community group at a public meeting about how we develop these websites.@ The process begins with the people discussing their community goals and planning what they would like on the website. The town gathers the information and the Howells do the technical work of putting it into electronic form which can go on the web.
A community website will typically include information about history, places to eat and stay, things to see, organizations, special events, banking, health care, government, industry, utilities, and so on. The Howells say, ABe inclusive. Put in every cafe and every church.@
The Howells will build the site for free - that's right, at no cost to the community. The ultimate goal is for a responsible group in the community to take over ownership of the town's website, and to update and maintain it.
John Howell says, AWe're most proud of towns like Pretty Prairie and Phillipsburg, where the local librarians have taken over the websites and are updating and using them in innovative ways.@ Just think, thanks to this process, people from around the world can get on the Internet and learn about the rodeo in Pretty Prairie, Kansas C population 658 people. Now, that's rural.
How exciting that rural towns can now market themselves world-wide through this remarkable electronic medium. The Howells estimate that they have developed websites for nearly 200 Kansas communities. John Howell says, AI really like Kansas, and Kansas small towns in particular.@
If you would like to contact the Howells, their e-mail address is howell@feist.com. You might also visit the Blue Skyways website at http://skyways.lib.ks.us/kansas/index.html. That website address again is http://skyways.lib.ks.us/kansas/index.html.
Do you ever feel like a speed bump on the information superhighway? Take heart. John and Susan Howell can help you promote your community through the Internet and World Wide Web. We salute the Kansas State Library and the Boeing Company for making a difference by enabling this service. And we salute John and Susan Howell for bringing this technology to rural Kansas. They're providing the small towns of Kansas with an on-ramp to the information superhighway.

Tom and Jeri Knobloch - Kansas Maid
Remember the smell of homemade bread baking in your grandmother's kitchen? Mmm, it smells delicious....warm and homey. I can't wait to eat some.
That's a great memory. Maybe that's what those people mean by aroma therapy...
But who has time for that sort of thing these days? Who has the time to make dough from scratch?
Well, listen to this. Today we'll meet a company which produces a frozen bread dough which is ready to go for you to thaw and bake at your convenience. Sounds good, doesn't it? Stay tuned for today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Tom and Jeri Knobloch. Tom and Jeri are the owners of Kansas Maid, Inc. C the company which produces this frozen bread dough.
Tom grew up in Iowa, where he was in the construction business. A friend of his was a bricklayer who happened to be in Lebo, Kansas. Tom came for a visit one weekend, and liked it so much he came back to stay. He was a mason and he formed his own construction company. He met Jeri C spelled J-e-r-iC and they were married.
Then one day Tom hurt his back, and it appeared he shouldn't be doing construction work. Meanwhile, some friends in Iowa had a farmer's market. They started producing a frozen pastry dough to sell at the farmer's market with their own produce. The frozen dough proved so popular that they formed a company to produce it. They called the product Butter Braid.
Tom and Jeri tried Butter Braid, and it was delicious. So in the winter of 1992, Tom and Jeri bought a Butter Braid franchise. They formed their own business called Kansas Maid. Tom remodeled his construction shop, and they went into business. Now Tom does marketing and delivery, and Jeri manages the production.
Tom and Jeri buy ingredients from local vendors and get flour from a mill at McPherson. The dough is made from scratch and hand-braided in the traditional design. Then it is frozen as dough and packaged.
Today there are seven flavors: original, cherry, apple, peach, strawberry, blueberry, and cream cheese. Boy, that sounds good. Send me to the oven right now.
The marketing of these products is interesting. Typically, they are sold as a fundraiser by school or other groups. Tom says the products have been sold by such groups as school bands, cheerleaders, sports clubs, 4-H clubs, and church youth. Women's sororities sell them as fundraisers also.
Tom says this is an attractive fundraiser for such groups because the groups can earn 50 percent profit with no minimum requirements and no delivery charges. In other words, they might make $4 for every unit sold.
Tom has taken products to groups as far away as Ardmore, Oklahoma and Jefferson City, Missouri. You can see why the bread would be popular. You simply take it out of the package and put it in a pan. As it thaws, it raises on its own, 6-12 hours. Then it's ready to bake for approximately 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Today, Butter Braid is distributed in 15 states across the country. If you would like to get information about the product or about fund-raising, you can call Tom and Jeri toll-free at 1-800-437-2958. That number again is 1-800-437-2958. Or you can visit the Butter Braid website at www.butterbraid.com.
Meanwhile, Tom and Jeri continue to operate their business near their home in Madison, Kansas. Madison is in Greenwood County due south of Emporia. Madison is a town of 876 people. Now, that's rural.
Why do Tom and Jeri stay in Madison? Tom says, AWe have five children, ages 15 to three. I don't worry about our children on the street. Jeri's active with 4-H and we like the small school setting. People here are very much family oriented.@
I like that family orientation too. It makes me think of big family dinners, and coming into Grandma's house with bread baking in the oven. Remember the smell of bread baking in her kitchen? Mmm, warm and homey. Here I go again...
Today, that product is available in a modern, convenient form. We commend Tom and Jeri Knobloch and the people of Kansas Maid, Inc. for their hard work, entrepreneurship, and family orientation which is making a difference in rural Kansas.
I think Grandma would be proud of them.

Census update
In the spring of 1998, the U.S. Bureau of the Census published its most recent population estimates. These reports provide insights into population trends in rural Kansas. We'll take a close look at that report on today's Kansas Profile.
Population trends, as they relate to rural Kansas, are one of the things we try to monitor at the Huck Boyd Institute for Rural Development. We watch for these Census estimates in order to get the most recent data.
Now I realize that, for most people, waiting for the latest Census Bureau report isn't exactly as exciting as a football game or the Miss America pageant, for example. But some people watch the Census information closely. We watch it for what it tells us about Kansas population.
Two recent headlines put this information into perspective. One headline said: >Kansas gains 117,000 residents.' And that is true. But such aggregate totals don't tell the whole story. That same newspaper later ran another story, with the headline >Census: Rural counties struggle in the '90s.' That is also true.
In other words, while the total population of the state gained by more than a hundred thousand people, a majority of the counties in the state actually lost population.
There are marked differences within the state. Two metropolitan counties, Johnson and Sedgwick, accounted for 82 percent of the growth in the state's population.
In fact, during the past seven years, Johnson County by itself has gained more population than the total population of the 22 smallest counties combined. I don't mean the gain in Johnson County is more than the gain in the 22 counties, I mean the gain in Johnson County is more than the total population of those 22 rural counties.
There are 60 counties that lost population during the 1990s, and most of those are west of Highway 81. Decatur County had the greatest loss, with a decline of more than 12 percent during this decade.
Wallace County, on the western edge of the state, is now down to a total population of 1,800 people. Now, that's rural.
What causes rural population loss? Most of it is simply the natural factors of changes in the economy and an increasingly aging rural population. But there are also many young families who are attracted to the high quality, safety, cleanliness, and community spirit of smaller communities and schools.
For example, the city of Kansas City, Kansas lost population. The strongest growth appeared in the rural and suburban areas within reasonable commuting distance of a large city or a job center.
That tells me that people are seeking the high quality of life in rural Kansas, but they need and want access to the jobs and amenities of the city.
For example, the fastest growing county in the state was not Johnson or Sedgwick, but Butler County east of Wichita. There are some very rural parts of Butler County, but it has grown by more than 19 percent during the 1990s. Wabaunsee County west of Topeka is another very rural county which experienced growth.
Also, parts of southwest Kansas continue to experience growth, particularly around Garden City, Dodge City, and Liberal. In fact, that is one area of the state which has experienced a significant natural increase, meaning that the last few years have seen a higher number of babies born in that region. This whole topic needs more research.
In the spring of 1998, the U.S. Bureau of the Census released its most recent estimates of population. I appreciate the excellent data which they provide. To me, the numbers indicate that rural areas without access to jobs are losing population, while many small towns are providing an attractive alternative to big city life. We salute the many leaders of these communities who are making a difference by managing population change and working to make their communities better.
And there's more to this story. It's the true story of how my wife and I expanded the rural population in our neighborhood in one fell swoop. We'll hear about that on our next program.

Community support for triplets
Remember the baby boom? That's what they called the sudden growth in population after World War II. Eventually, those babies of the baby boom grew up and had babies of their own. Of course, some families move from place to place, depending on jobs and careers. The result is changes in population which can have a significant impact on the economy. Such changes in population are one of the things we monitor at the Huck Boyd Institute for Rural Development.
On our last program, we reviewed the most recent Census Bureau population estimates. The Census Bureau collects the official data on such things as baby booms and rural outmigration.
So according to the latest numbers, what is the state of the baby boom in rural Kansas? In some areas, it has gone bust.
As we said on our last program, during the 1990s, there were 60 Kansas counties that lost population while the metro counties gained. Johnson County, around Kansas City, grew by more than 60,000 people since 1990. If the population of the 22 smallest Kansas counties was combined, it would still be less than the growth in Johnson County alone during the past seven years.
Economic, technological, and demographic factors have driven this shift. In many of our counties, births are simply not keeping up with deaths. The exception to that rule is found in three general regions: one is in eastern Kansas along I-70 from Kansas City to Manhattan, the second is around Wichita, and the third is in southwest Kansas. These are rural areas that have seen population growth.
When it comes to adding to the rural population, my wife deserves a lot of credit. We added to the rural population more than we ever intended. Bear with me and let me tell you the true story of the baby boom that happened at our house.
On May 5, 1998, at Stormont-Vail Regional Health Center in Topeka, my wife gave birth to triplets. That's right, I said triplets...as in three, as in two plus one, as in lots of diapers.
There were some complications -- as if having three wasn't complicated enough! My wife was in critical care at the hospital for three days. But mother and babies are all home now and doing extremely well.
The babies are beautiful: two boys and a girl to go with our six year old daughter. So we are very, very happy.....Tired, but happy.
Now what does this have to do with rural Kansas? Maybe not a lot, other than an excuse to tell my story. But what I want to focus on is the type of community to which we came home.
We live in the country, in a neighborhood outside of Wamego in Pottawatomie County. By my count, there are 34 people who live along our gravel road. Now, that's rural.
When we came home. the outpouring of support from friends and family, church and community was wonderful. We had lots of food, lots of calls, and volunteers helping at all hours of the night.
In the hospital, between the babies and all the fluid in her system, my wife lost 50 pounds in four days. Gee, a new miracle diet. I wonder if I could sell that on late night television.... The thing is, it seemed like I gained back all the weight she lost because of all the delicious food that the Methodist women brought to our home.
In a city, we might have been just faces in a crowd. But this is a community small enough where you can know and care for your neighbors. Now, that's rural.
Remember the baby boom? We continue to follow those demographic trends. But at our house, we had a baby boom of our own, and it turned out to be a triple blessing.
I'd like to express some thank yous: First, to the doctors and staff of Stormont Vail Regional Health Center, for the very high quality of care which they provided. To Stormont-Vail Chaplain Eva Brown, who was literally a Godsend to us. And to our friends, family, neighbors, and fellow church members in Wamego who are making a difference with all their help and support.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go change a diaper.

Keith Yearout - Kansas Buffalo
AOh give me a home where the buffalo roam....@
Our state song refers to a time when the wild buffalo roamed these prairies more than a century ago, right? Sure it does. But did you know that a group of entrepreneurs is helping make buffalo a factor in our modern economy today?
Stay tuned. Don't be buffaloed. This is today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Keith Yearout. Keith is a leading producer of buffalo in the state of Kansas today. He's also President of the Kansas Buffalo Association.
Keith farms and raises buffalo in Sumner County on the south side of the state. In 1983, a friend of Keith's family had a single buffalo cow that they didn't want to keep any more. Keith had room in his pasture, so he and his wife Eva bought the buffalo cow. They later added a heifer and bull.
That was the beginning. Today, Keith and his father have 180 head of buffalo between them. They run about 17 buffalo cows to one buffalo bull.
Keith's buffalo are raised on their ranch, the Rock Hill Ranch, outside of South Haven, Kansas. South Haven is a town of 394 people. Now, that's rural.
Beef cattle have been the cornerstone of the economy in rural counties like these. Keith Yearout says, AI've had cattle before, and I like buffalo a lot better. They make money.@
Keith is selling breeding stock, as well as meat. A 350 pound buffalo heifer can sell for 2200 to 2500 dollars. At the National Western Stock Show in Denver, Keith helped put together a sale where a two year old bull sold for more than a hundred thousand dollars.
As mentioned, Keith also butchers and sells his own meat from home. Ground meat sells for $3.75 per pound, roasts are 5.25 a pound, and filets can be $14 a pound. Keith has shipped meat to customers in such places as New Mexico and Utah.
Why do customers want this meat? Keith Yearout says, AWhen it's fed and raised right, buffalo meat is lower fat, higher protein, and lower cholesterol than beef. We don't use any growth hormones.@ Who needs growth hormones? An average cow will naturally grow to 1100 pounds, and bulls will average a ton. That's a lot of meat.
Keith says, AWe do put ours in the feedlot for 90 to 120 days to help make the meat more moist. It tastes as good or better than beef.@
But what about raising these critters? Do you need a huge fence, for example?
Keith says, AWe raise >em in a five strand barb wire fence like cattle, with an electric fence inside. If they're raised in the area, they stay put. When there've been times I forgot and left a gate open, I found I can lead 'em right back in with range cake.@
He says, AThey're easier to take care of than cattle. They're hardier, you don't have to feed them alfalfa, and they're not hard to keep in. They can winter on pasture. Heat or cold doesn't faze 'em.@
After all, I guess their species has had a few centuries to adjust to the weather out here.
Keith says that interest is steadily growing in raising buffalo. The Kansas Buffalo Association is up to nearly 80 members around the state. The association sponsors an annual production sale each November at the sale barn in Salina. That sale sells one of the largest numbers of buffalo of any such sale in the nation.
Interest is growing nationally and internationally too. The last load of heifers which Keith sold went to Canada.
Recently the Kansas Buffalo Association sent information packets to all K-State Research & Extension offices. If you would like more information directly, you can call the Kansas Buffalo Association toll-free at 1-888-28BISON. That number again is 1-888-28BISON, or 1-888-282-4766. Or you can call the National Bison Association at 303-292-BUFF. That's 303-292-2833.
AOh give me a home where the buffalo roam.@ Perhaps that song could refer to our modern economy today, where buffalo are making a comeback. We salute Keith Yearout and the leaders of the Kansas Buffalo Association, who are making a difference with their innovation and entrepreneurship. Perhaps their work will help get us to an economy where Aseldom is heard a discouraging word,@ and the people are happy all day.

C.O.W.B.O.Y. Society
AMy heroes have always been cowboys,@ says a country song. Yes, these are heroes. In fact, some of us grew up wanting to be cowboys.
Guess what. Today, you can not only become a cowboy, you can become a card-carrying, dues-paying cowboy. You see, the term Acowboy@ describes the heroic figure of the American West, but it also an acronym for a recently formed organization which strives to preserve cowboy history in Kansas.
Saddle up, this is today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Jim Gray. Jim and his partner Linda Kohls are co-owners of the Drovers Mercantile store in Ellsworth, Kansas. The Drovers Mercantile specializes in the sale of authentic 1870s cowboy clothing and related artifacts.
Of course, this type of store attracts a clientele with an interest in the Old West. Jim and Linda found that a number of customers would come into their store and tell about the ranches or pioneer families from which they had come. Jim says, AWe felt this history should not be lost.@
They also found that there was growing interest in cowboy re-enactments and related activities. Jim and Linda started keeping a calendar of cowboy-oriented events around the state. Finally, it was clear that what was needed was an organization of people with an interest in preserving and promoting genuine cowboy history and cowboy life.
In October 1997, a Cowboy Camp was held near Ellsworth. Men and women came in authentic cowboy outfits and held a number of events, and the new organization was launched.
Like everything else in this day and age, the organization had to have an acronym. But unlike all the federal agencies that take themselves too seriously, this acronym is more interesting than most.
The name of the organization is the C.O.W.B.O.Y. Society. That's all caps, c-o-w-b-o-y. It stands for Cock-eyed Old West Band Of Yahoos. Now, there's a clue that this isn't just another boring organization.
Jim Gray says, AA lot of organizations get bogged down in rules and regulations. Cowboys were a fun-loving, light-hearted bunch, and we want to keep this the same way.@
So the new organization took in members and planned events. And what a lot of fun they have.
For example, each year the organization has a Spring Gather and a Fall Roundup near Ellsworth. These are gatherings of people in their authentic 1870s western clothing. They have a chuckwagon camp with authentic food and then roll out their bedrolls under the stars. There are fast-draw competitions and gunfight re-enactments. And on Saturday night is the cowboy ball. Imagine cowboys in chaps and spurs with saloon girls and ladies in ball gowns, dancing the Virginia Reel, Jenny Lind polka, and the grand march. It's all a part of the Kansas Cowboy events.
These fun activities have already attracted 287 members. They come from all over, including Kansas City, Wichita, and even Boston as well as the Kansas towns of McCracken, population 207, and Raymond, population 117. Now, that's rural.
But the cowboy lifestyle transcends rural and urban today. It is an enduring symbol of the American west and the spirit of freedom, and it is a central part of Kansas history.
Members of the C.O.W.B.O.Y. Society receive a bi-monthly newsletter, a numbered membership card, discounts on purchases of certain western gear, and the opportunity to participate for free in the spring gather and fall roundup.
Membership dues are $18.67. That's 18 dollars and 67 cents, chosen because 1867 marked the beginning of the primary cowboy era in Kansas. 1867 is the year that Joseph McCoy opened up Abilene as cattle town, the town of Ellsworth was founded, and the Chisholm Trial was opened up to Abilene.
Jim Gray says, AWe're bringin' people together who want to preserve cowboy history.@ For more information, call Jim toll-free at 1-877-DROVERS. That's 1-877-376-8377. Or you can e-mail him at thcowboy@ellsworth.net. Hmm, I'll bet Roy Rogers never had an e-mail address...
My heroes have always been cowboys, says the song. And now I have some more heroes. They are not only cowboys, they are card-carrying C.O.W.B.O.Y.S. And they're also my heroes because they are preserving and promoting this valuable part of our history. We salute Jim Gray and Linda Kohls and the other founders of this organization, which is making a difference by helping support our western heritage.
And, happy trails to you.

Kansas Rural Water Association
Imagine you're crossing a desert in the searing heat. You haven't had water for days. The sun is burning, your throat is parched, your lips are cracked, and your tongue feels like burlap. Your entire being is focused on needing just one thing: Water.
If you're like me, when you hear those words, you want to get up and go get a drink of water right now. It just triggers something in our heads. I guess we are made that way naturally, because water is simply essential to life.
Today we're going to meet a group which helps bring that life-giving water conveniently into homes all across Kansas. The group is called the Kansas Rural Water Association, and it's today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Elmer Ronnebaum. Elmer is the General Manager of the Kansas Rural Water Association, or KRWA. KRWA is a non-profit association dedicated to providing training and technical assistance to cities and rural water districts across the state. There are about 900 municipal water systems in Kansas.
Rural water districts are those business organizations which formed over the years in areas where rural residents have gotten together to organize and fund a joint water system. These systems make it possible for residents to have clean, convenient drinking water where there had only been well water, or no water, before. The creation of these water districts has been a big boost to rural development, and certainly residential development, in rural areas across the state.
Nearly 30 years ago, these rural water districts came together to form a state association. Today, KRWA has more than 650 municipal and rural water district members and provides service to all systems. The association offers education and training, technical assistance, legislative action and information, insurance and financing. In other words, KRWA helps cities and rural water districts solve problems and do a better job of providing water to the public. In 1993, KRWA began helping wastewater utilities as well.
Since 1976, KRWA has provided more than 750 training sessions to more than 51 thousand water system operators, managers, board members, and agency representatives. KRWA helped form the non-profit Kansas Rural Water Finance Authority in 1988. That authority has provided more than 47 million dollars in financing to rural water districts and small cities in Kansas.
Since 1989, KRWA has reviewed electrical controls in 376 water systems, saving 6.3 million kilowatt hours annually and reducing costs by more than 760 thousand dollars. KRWA completed 463 water loss surveys, reducing annual water losses by more than 2 billion gallons at an annual cost savings of more than 3.1 million dollars. Wow.
As I said earlier, Elmer Ronnebaum is General Manager. He and the staff of eight full-time employees are based at the organization's headquarters. That headquarters isn't in Wichita or Kansas City, by the way. True to the principle of rural development, the organization's home office is in Seneca, Kansas, population 1991 people.
The organization is governed by the members of the Board of Directors, who are elected by the membership. They represent rural areas all over the state, from places such as Independence, population 9,679; Kiowa, population 1129; Benton, population 724; and Hanover, population 654.
The elected president of that group for the past three years has done an outstanding job. He is David Mueller, a farmer and rural water board member from Tampa, Kansas; population 95 people. Now, that's rural.
Dennis Schwartz of Tecumseh is the current KRWA President. He is also Executive Vice-President of the National Rural Water Association.
Today, you and I take for granted that we can have cool, clear, safe water at our fingertips. Our ancestors were not so lucky. The cities and much of rural Kansas got running water. But it is not a simple or cheap task to provide and maintain water systems to serve people out in the country.
The Kansas Rural Water Association is helping water systems and their rural residents have access to this vital resource.
Imagine you're crossing a desert in the searing heat. Your throat is parched, your lips are cracked...you get the idea. What a relief that you and I can get up and go get a cold drink of water.
We're thankful for the contributions of the Kansas Rural Water Association. We salute David Mueller, Dennis Schwartz, Elmer Ronnebaum, and the other leaders of the KRWA for making a difference in helping rural citizens have access to this life-giving water.
Now excuse me. I've gotta find the nearest water fountain.

Paul Martin - Neodesha school
Imagine a conversation like the following: ASon, would you take out the trash for me?@ ANot now, Mom, I've got to finish my book report for school.@ ABook report! All you're doing is sitting at the computer, surfing the net and watching video clips.@ AWell, of course I am, Mom -- I'm doing a video book report to turn in to my teacher.@
What was that? First, we heard a teenager dodging chores, and that hasn't changed for centuries. But he said he was working on a video book report. That's not a report about a video. It's a report - on video - about a book. Imagine a video prepared by a student which includes a presentation, video footage, and music describing a book which the student has read.
Does that sound like some far-out, high-tech school of the future? It did to me. But guess what, it is happening today in a forward thinking school system in rural Kansas. Stay tuned for an outstanding example of self-help, technology and partnerships between school and community. It's today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Paul Martin. Paul is Technology Facilitator for the school district in Neodesha, Kansas. He is a native of Tecumseh who attended Washburn, K-State, and Ohio State. He got his master's from Pittsburg State and is finishing a doctorate at KSU. He has been at Neodesha for 13 years.
Neodesha is in Wilson County in southeast Kansas. It's a town of 2,817 people. Now, that's rural.
Paul Martin says, AWe are two hours from Wichita, two hours from Joplin, two hours from Tulsa, two hours from Topeka, and three hours from Kansas City. We're centrally located, but we're kind of in the middle of nowhere.@
That means, for example, that their students have to go a long ways to access a college or metropolitan library. Paul Martin says, AWe want our students to have the same opportunities as students in the city.@
So in 1995 the school took the lead in bringing Internet access into Neodesha. Now, the students can surf the net for information world-wide. When Neodesha students were going to the exhibit on Treasures of the Czars, for example, they prepared by accessing background information through the Internet.
Today all the school buildings and the city library have wireless connections between their computer networks.
And what about that video book report? Paul says, AOur kids are really into video. A few years ago, we purchased digital, computerized video editing equipment and it has enhanced the learning environment.@
For example, in social studies the students are to learn and report on the amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Does the word Aboring@ come to mind? But with the new equipment, the social studies teacher assigned students to teams to develop videos depicting each of those amendments. That meant the students had to read and research the amendments, and then think about their meaning in order to produce a film showing what Afreedom of the press@ is, for example. It also means that students can do book reports on video, complete with music and relevant film footage.
Students love the futuristic, high-tech equipment, and it stimulates them to learn.
Not all the learning is high-tech. Neodesha had been without a theater for 35 years, so the entrepreneurship class started a theater in the school. When the project cost money, it was discontinued. So the next year's entrepreneurship class did market research and concluded that the theater should be located downtown. The building trades class then remodeled a building to house the theater on Main Street.
And speaking of community partnerships. The mass media class made a partnership with the local cable company to sell and produce commercials for local businesses which could go on cable television. The advanced computer class is doing a similar thing by selling and creating Internet web pages for local businesses.
That means students are integrating their English, business, and work skills in a real-world setting. The students are getting highly valuable experience and the school and private sector partner are sharing the benefits. It is the community and the students who ultimately win. Paul Martin says he has seen these experiences help turn around at-risk students who might otherwise be lost.
Imagine a time when students will be able to do a high- tech, video book report for school. That time is already here. We salute the school and community of Neodesha for making a difference through their innovation and leadership.
Now I wonder if there's a way to take out the trash with a computer...

Boots Seed Service
Edwin Boots - Part 1
Have you ever heard the term, Athe seed of an idea@? It means the beginning of a thought or concept that surfaces in someone's mind -- the seed of an idea. Today, we'll talk about the seed of an idea that grew into a successful enterprise in rural Kansas. And when I refer to the seed of an idea, I mean it literally. We're talking about a business dealing with seed.
Stay tuned, it's today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Edwin Boots. Ed is owner of Boots Seed Service in Garden City, Kansas.
Ed Boots was raised in rural Kansas, in the Barber County / Pratt area. He grew up at the little town of Isabel, population 99 people. Now, that's rural.
Ed went to college at K-State. Then came the seed of an idea. His grandfather farmed in the Garden City area, and was something of an innovator. So Ed got the seed of an idea that he might be able to farm his grandfather's place. After two years in the military, he worked for an implement dealership and then farmed full-time.
In 1959, Ed was farming his grandfather's five quarters of ground. The farm business grew. By 1992, Ed was farming more than 5,000 acres.
In the late 1960s, Ed was selling wheat seed from his annual crop. In 1997 he was approached by a man named Otis Griggs, the Extension agent in the county.
Ed says, AOtis was Mr. Wheat in this part of the country. He got me interested in growing certified and registered seed wheat.@
It was the seed of another idea. The idea was that there was greater value in raising and selling wheat seed that was registered and certified to certain standards, rather than standard field wheat.
This idea succeeded also, and for years Ed sold certified seed under the name Boots Quality Seed.
By the late '80s, Ed Boots was hauling his seed across the state to get the seed cleaned before it was sold. Ed says, AThe logistics were terrible, and the seed still wasn't cleaned to the standard.@
Guess what .... it was the seed of another idea. Ed had the idea to build a seed-cleaning plant on his own place. In 1990, he took bids from several contractors to build such a plant, and ultimately decided to build it himself.
Ed says, AThe first year I cleaned my own wheat and through word of mouth, cleaned 20,000 bushels of wheat.@ Now, he might clean as much as 60 to 80,000 bushels of wheat in a year. He has turned the farming over to a young neighbor and has changed the name of his business to Boots Seed Service.
He has sold wheat to farmers as far away as Texas, Oklahoma, and Colorado, and farmers come from other counties to have wheat cleaned. Why such success? Ed Boots says, AMy main objective is to get whole, viable seed for my customers. I try to clean it the way I would like my own done.@
He says, AMy system is big enough that I can do two semi loads at a time. Unlike a lot of companies, we will clean wheat anytime of year, not just in season. I clean my equipment between every load, so other varieties don't get mixed in, and strive for minimum loss.@
His equipment does an excellent job. The state standard is that wheat should be cleaned so that there is no more than 1.5 percent inert matter in a wheat sample. On one of Ed's recent loads, the test came back with only .01 percent inert matter B much cleaner than the state requires.
This is a successful business operating in a rural setting, on the farm east of Garden City. Ed Boots says with a smile, AWe call it God's country. Only God and the creditors know where it is, and sometimes I wonder about God.@
Ed and his wife raised three children there, and he likes the quality of life. He says, AIt's a good place to live. There's lots of community feeling here.@
So now you've heard that term: the seed of an idea. In fact, maybe you're sick of hearing it by now. We salute Ed Boots and Boots Seed Service for making a difference with ideas and entrepreneurship.
And there's more to this story. Ed Boots' operation includes an area with unique history: the county seat of Kansas' missing 106th county. Let the seed of that idea germinate B we'll hear about it on our next program.

KansasKansas' Missing County
Edwin Boots - Part 2
Missing County
Edwin Boots - Part 2
Missing County
Edwin Boots - Part 2
Excuse me, something's missing. That's a common saying around our house, because I seem to be a little absent minded. There are various things I seem to be unable to find.
Today, we'll talk about something that's missing, but it's bigger than anything in my house. I'm talking about Kansas' missing county.
That's right, I said a missing county. Stay tuned, it's today's Kansas Profile.
On our last program, we heard about Ed Boots of Boots Seed Service. His seed cleaning business is built on land which his grandfather purchased generations ago. That land includes a historic site of Kansas' missing county.
Let's go back to the late 1800s when counties were being established in Kansas. In southwest Kansas, a group of citizens got together to form a new county called Garfield County. There were two towns vying to become the county seat of the new county: Ravanna and Eminence. The towns were bitter rivals. Ravanna and Eminence both wanted to be the county seat.
The time came for an election to decide which town would be the county seat. Those were the days of the wild west, of course, and there was a concern that gunfights could break out. So law officers were brought in from Dodge City to preserve the peace on election day, including none other than Bat Masterson.
The election was held peacefully. Ravanna got 467 votes and Eminence got 432 votes. So Ravanna had apparently won. But the citizens of Eminence did some checking, and found out that some illegal votes had been cast for their opponent. One man was quoted as saying that he got paid for every one of the nine times he voted that day. I guess that's one way to get voter participation up...
The Attorney General investigated, and invalidated 60 fraudulent votes. That meant Eminence won after all. His decision was upheld by state court.
But the citizens of Ravanna didn't give up. They hired a surveyor and found that the county was a few acres shy of the amount required by law for legal organization. So Eminence was denied being the county seat after all.
The controversy continued When the whole issue was taken to the Kansas Legislature in 1893, the legislators annexed all of what had been Garfield County into Finney County, where it is today.
If you look at a map of Kansas counties, you will see that all of the counties in southwest Kansas are square except for Finney County, which looks like a square with a panhandle built onto it. That panhandle is the missing county of Garfield. It's now called Garfield Township.
Today, Garfield Township covers 432 square miles. It's total population is 355 people. Now, that's rural.
The rivalry between the two towns of Eminence and Ravanna would prove very costly to them. Since neither was a county seat, the towns began to wither away. Today, there is literally almost nothing left of these two ghost towns. In Ravanna, a couple of crumbling rock foundations in a pasture are all that remains.
Eminence was headed for the same fate when in the 1920's Ed Boots' grandfather bought land in Garfield Township, including the townsite of Eminence. An old stone building which was being used as a school was almost all that was left.
Ed Boots says, ATo my grandfather's credit, he spent the summer of 1947 with a trowel and cement rebuilding that building.@ When Ed took over, he worked on the building some more and still uses it today for his business.
Ed Boots is a community-minded person. When Garfield Township needed a township clerk, the man elected was Ed Boots. When a fire district administrator was needed, the man for the job was -- who else? -- Ed Boots.
And Ed is glad to tell this fascinating story of the rivalry between towns which cost themselves a county.
Excuse me, something's missing. Yes, there is an entire county missing compared to an 1890 map of Kansas, because of the rivalry between two towns. Maybe what's missing was a spirit of cooperation and a shared vision. Today, I'm thankful for people like Ed Boots who are making a difference with their willingness to volunteer and to serve.
I'm glad I found him.

David Parker - M-E-C
Is there a dryer in your house? Sure there is. There's probably a clothesdryer next to the washing machine, and maybe a hair dryer in the bathroom.
Today, I want to talk about dryers, but not the garden variety. We're talking about sophisticated, industrial drying systems which are sold worldwide.
Imagine you are in Indonesia. A company there is receiving a large, automated industrial drying system which they purchased halfway around the globe in the United States. And where do you suppose this system came from? Remarkably enough, it came from a company in rural Kansas.
Stay tuned, this is today's Kansas Profile.
Meet David Parker. Dave is President of the M-E-C Company, which produces these high quality, internationally known dryer systems.
M-E-C is located in Neodesha, Kansas, population 2,817 people. Now, that's rural.
Here again we've found a rural company located as far as possible from either coast, yet it is doing business around the world. Let's learn more about this remarkable company.
M-E-C makes large, sophisticated, automated drying systems for a wide range of wet materials, such as forest products, food and feed products, biomass energy, and waste residuals. Their principal business is the custom design, manufacture, installation and service of these industrial dryer systems.
What does this really mean in practice? Some examples could include a company in China wanting to dry products for animal feed, a business in the southeast needing to dry forest products for a composite board, or an enterprise in California wanting to convert wet waste materials into dry fuel. Each one might go to M-E-C.
Dave Parker says, AYears ago a wood processor might have used 20 percent of a tree. Today, we use 80 percent. Our drying systems can use waste wood as fuel and help plants meet all the environmental standards.@
The company takes a total systems approach to designing, building, installing and servicing these dryers for customers.
Now listen to these incredible results. M-E-C customers include such major names as Louisiana-Pacific, Weyerhauser, Shell Canada, Nestle, ADM, Merck, Georgia-Pacific, and Clorox. M-E-C has the world's largest data base of dryer performance technology. The company now employs 200 people and has provided over 480 dryer systems worldwide. About 60 percent of their business is in the U.S., but M-E-C also has customers in such places as China, Canada, Mexico, Ireland, England, Finland, Korea, Taiwan, the Phillipines, and Malaysia.
So why in the world is such an international company sitting in the middle of Kansas? The basic answer is, it grew there. Back in the 1930s, a man named W.J. Small started a company in Neodesha to produce and sell dehydrated alfalfa. In 1951, ADM purchased the company to sell dehydration and feed milling equipment and do complete installations.
From that base, the M-E-C Company was formed in 1961. The letters M-E-C stand for Manufacturing, Engineering, and Construction.
The company has grown to include the plant and headquarters in Neodesha plus a plant in Coffeyville, in addition to subsidiaries in Wichita and Columbia, Missouri that do construction, electrical, and concrete work for new food industry plants.
What is the downside of being in a small town? Dave Parker says, AOur biggest challenge is recruiting the highly skilled personnel. But some of our best employees are people who came from small towns, got highly educated, went away to the city and are ready to come back to a smaller community.@
And what are the secrets of company success? Dave says, AWe have an excellent labor force. They come from 10 communities and their environs. Many of them grew up on farms, and they know how to work.@
He adds, AWe've been fortunate to position ourselves in good markets, and we've tried to do a super job for our customers.@
Do you have a dryer in your house? Me too, but not like this one. But I do have a feeling of pride, knowing that a Kansas company is having such success worldwide. We salute the Dave Parker and the people of M-E-C for making a difference through hard work and international entrepreneurship.

Tom Feist - Feist Publications
In the corner of our office, there's a shelf I go to often. No, I'm not talking about the one where my secretary puts goodies in the break room. I'm talking about a shelf of telephone books which include area-wide directories. Those are so handy. It's great to have an area-wide directory which covers all the communities of a region in one place. There's a whole set of these directories. They're published under the name Feist Publications.
You might assume that Feist Publications is some big publishing house in Kansas City or Chicago, but take a close look at the directory. The company address that's listed is in Spearville, Kansas, population 754 people. Now, that's rural.
On today's Kansas Profile, we'll learn about this remarkable rural company.
Meet Tom Feist. Tom is president of Feist Publications of Spearville. Tom and his wife Roberta, who hails from Ness City, are co-founders of Feist Publications.
Spearville, by the way, is in southwest Kansas, just 10 miles out of Dodge City.
When this company began, Tom was farming and teaching at Spearville, and Roberta, a registered nurse, was home with their six children.
In 1977, when the kids were all in school, Roberta answered a classified ad in the local newspaper for a yellow page salesperson. She got the job. Her new employer intended to publish an area-wide phone directory around Dodge City. The Feists really liked this idea. They negotiated and bought the company, and called it Feist Publications.
But where would the money come to get started? The Feists took out an SBA loan with their farm machinery as collateral.
Tom Feist says, AThe whole company consisted of the two of us sitting at our kitchen table.@ From that beginning, Roberta hired salesmen and kept the books. Tom managed the directory production, marketing, and delivery.
Tom says, AIt really made sense to combine these directories for all these small towns. One town's telephone book, by itself, had only four yellow pages.@ Western Kansas folk are accustomed to driving anyway, so it made sense to have a phone book for the whole region.
The first directory was published in March 1978. Tom Feist says, AIt caught on like wildfire.@ Later that year the company produced two more directories, Mid-Kansas and Northwest Kansas.
The company has continued to grow. The Feists got an idea for a rebate plan. They told companies which advertised in their yellow pages that if they would mention Feist in their radio or TV ads, then Feist would rebate up to 30 percent of the cost of airing the ad. This was a win-win solution. The companies got a price break, and Feist got publicity. In 1997, more than 239,000 tag lines were aired by yellow pages advertisers. That amounts to more than a million seconds of airtime for Feist Publications.
In 1988, the Feists contracted with Paul Harvey to do commercials for them. So as Paul Harvey would say, here's the rest of the story: Feist Publications expanded into 17 areas in three states, including the metropolitan areas of Wichita, Oklahoma City, and Lubbock. Today the circulation of all these books is more than three million covering more than a thousand towns in the midwest.
Feist Publications has won ten gold book awards in the past 14 years for publishing the best area-wide phone directories in the nation. In 1992, Feist was named publisher of the year by the Association of Directory Publishers.
So what do we learn from all this? Well, we learn the value of a good idea and hard work. But we also learn that you don't have to be located in the big city to operate a successful, multimillion dollar big business.
In the corner of our office, there's a shelf I go to often. Okay, I'll admit, it's the shelf where my secretary puts goodies in the break room. But you see, I can get those goodies on my way to the larger shelf, which is the place where we have a set of Feist area-wide telephone directories covering most of Kansas. Such directories are invaluable for finding people and businesses throughout a region.
We salute Tom and Roberta Feist and the people of Feist Publications, who are making a difference with their enterpreneurship and service to rural Kansas.

Suzan Barnes - Grand Central Hotel
What is this, Grand Central Station? That was a saying at our house, when things got hectic with lots of people coming and going. It refers to Grand Central Station in New York City, which really is covered with people coming and going.
Today, we're going to the Grand Central, but not to the station in New York. We're going to a special place called the Grand Central Hotel. It's a place where people come and go, but it's definitely not New York City. In fact, it's gaining international attention, and it's located in rural Kansas.
Stay tuned, this is today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Suzan Barnes. Suzan is general manager of the Grand Central Hotel in downtown Cottonwood Falls, Kansas. She told us the remarkable story.
Let's start with a little history. More than a century ago, President Abraham Lincoln assigned land in east central Kansas to brave settlers. In 1881, M.M. Young purchased a site and opened the Grand Central Hotel there in 1884. It changed names and owners over the years but was always a hotel.
The hotel is located in downtown Cottonwood Falls in the central flint hills of eastern Kansas. Cottonwood Falls is the county seat of Chase County, a very rural county. Chase County has seen long-term population decline. There were more than 8,000 people in the county at the turn of the century, but there are less than 3,000 people in the county today. Cottonwood Falls itself is a town of 798 people. Now, that's rural.
Population loss, coupled with tough times in the economy, place a big challenge on rural businesses. By the mid-1980s, the old hotel had fallen on hard times and was closed. It sat empty for 10 years and then sold on the courthouse steps for the sum of the back taxes, which amounted to 41 dollars.
But the new owner saw a spark of something in the old hotel. She wanted to restore it into a corporate retreat. The person who was hired to oversee the renovation was Suzan Barnes.
Suzan had grown up in Council Grove, but then left for New York and a 25 career in convention planning and the corporate travel industry. The last 12 years, she spent in Wichita.
One day on the radio, she heard an interview with a woman who was wanting to restore the Grand Central Hotel in Cottonwood Falls. Suzan says, AFrom my years of experience in the travel industry, I knew this was going to work.@
So Suzan met with the woman, and they clicked immediately. In January 1995, Suzan became general manager. She oversaw the renovation, and on November 17, 1995, the Grand Central Hotel and Grill opened for business.
The restaurant offers great steaks, as you might expect in the middle of the beef belt, as well as a variety of other fine dining alternatives. The hotel itself is described as Aa small elegant hotel with a western flair.@ There are ten oversized suites, two with king beds and eight double queens. They have the appearance of European elegance, mixed with such touches as the cattle brands of local ranches emblazoned on the rooms. I particularly like the doorknockers, which are actually spurs mounted on the door.
It is high quality blended with a western feel. The Grand Central even made the July 26, 1998 edition of the New York Times. The hotel has received AAA's Four Diamond Award, which goes to only five percent of the nearly 24,000 properties rated by the organization.
Wait a minute, you might say, let's have a reality check here. How can a fancy hotel survive in such a rural town?
I believe the rural nature of the community, along with the high quality amenities, is drawing people to the hotel. The Z Bar Ranch Prairie National Preserve is nearby, and people from around the world are seeking to get off the beaten path to find serenity in communities like these.
The hotel has had customers from around the U.S., Africa, and Europe. Suzan says, ASome of our best customers are from San Francisco.@ Recent guests included a group of Senators from Haiti.
What is this, Grand Central Station? No, I'm not talking about Grand Central Station in New York, I'm talking about the Grand Central Hotel of Cottonwood Falls, Kansas. We salute Suzan Barnes and the people of Cottonwood Falls for making a difference by providing a high quality hospitality experience in the historic setting of rural Kansas.

FincherFincher's Findings
s Findings
Today let's talk about findings. No, I'm not referring to research results or lawyer talk for a legal finding in a court case -- or the leftover change you found in the vending machine either. I'm talking about a company whose business is finding and selling promotional items, such as hats and shirts, to people that want them. This remarkable company is finding such products for customers across the nation, yet it is based in rural Kansas.
Stay tuned, it's today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Brett Fincher. Brett is vice president of this remarkable company. The name is appropriate: Fincher's Findings.
Brett explains that his father Ron Fincher began the company back in 1976 in Medicine Lodge. Medicine Lodge is the county seat of Barber County, which adjoins Oklahoma in south central Kansas.
Ron set up a company called Fincher's Glassware, which sold certain glass and novelty items. He rented a former barber shop, removed the seats, and set up shop. To supplement the business, Ron started screen printing and selling hats and shirts.
The business grew. In fact, the market in hats and shirts grew so fast that the company changed into an advertising specialty business. The company built a factory in Medicine Lodge in 1983. Son Brett came into the business after college.
So why was the company renamed Fincher's Findings? Ron Fincher says, AIf we can't find it, then you don't need it.@ In other words, Fincher's Findings could find or make whatever type of promotional item a company might be looking for.
As Brett Fincher says, AAnything with an imprint on it, we can do it.@ Today the company sells thousands of items, such as hats, shirts, pens, pencils, keychains, sporting goods, or you name it.
For example, when Nashville recording artist Martina McBride was looking for promotional hats, her manager might have gotten them from some ad agency in Nashville or Hollywood or Atlanta or Chicago. Instead, he got them from Fincher's Findings in Medicine Lodge, Kansas, population 2,305 people. Now, that's rural.
Today, Brett Fincher figures the company has sold products into virtually every state from coast to coast. Clients include National Carriers, Best lock, Cargill Industries, and Texaco.
Why such growth? Brett Fincher says, AWe want to buy the best products for the best price so that the customer gets a good deal. Our screen printing is done right here in Medicine Lodge, so we can be so quick on service. And our prices are unbeatable.@
That service applies to customers large and small. Brett says, ALast week I bought 60,000 hats. Buying in that volume helps us get a good price for our customers. But we take care of the little guys too. Recently a guy came in and bought 24 hats.@
Isn't it amazing to find a company selling these promotional items nationwide from a small town in Kansas? Brett Fincher wants the business to expand. He is working on plans for a customer service center to assist customers and generate more orders.
He says, AThis is a place where your advertising dollars really work. People will wear your caps. And if you give something to someone, even if it's a little thing, they will remember it and deal with you in the future.@
As to small town life, Brett Fincher says, AThere's a friendliness and closeness that you find in smaller towns.@
Let's talk about findings. No, not legal findings or leftover change. I'm talking about a company named Fincher's Findings, which helps companies all over the country find promotional items from its location in rural Kansas. Perhaps this is also a finding in another sense: a finding of entrepreneurship and hard work, of quality service and Kansas values. We salute Ron and Brett Fincher and the people of their company for making a difference with a national company in a small-town setting.
I'm glad I found them.

Jerry Boettcher - Boettcher Enterprises
From Beloit to Broadway. That could be the theme of our story today. Or how about this theme: From Manhattan, Kansas to Manhattan, New York B and back.
What I'm trying to describe is someone who has been a success in the big city as well as in rural Kansas. Stay tuned, this is today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Jerry Boettcher. Jerry is President of Boettcher Enterprises in Beloit, Kansas. Here is the story of this remarkable company.
In 1937, Jerry Boettcher's father started a small automotive and farm repair business in Beloit in north central Kansas. Jerry says, AMy father was a fixer. He was a self-taught mechanic, who could make a replacement part if he had to.@ After World War II, the business got into providing electrical supplies for wiring the farms.
Mr. Boettcher became an innovator in the farm technology of the time. Jerry says, AIn 1953, my father correctly foresaw that fertilizer would become a big factor in the farm economy.@ So he made a pioneering decision to market this technology B his company had what was only the second ammonia tank in the entire state of Kansas.
In the 1960s, the Boettchers split their business into two companies: Boettcher Supply, which does electrical and small engine work, and Boettcher Enterprises, which is in commercial fertilizer and farm supply.
Jerry Boettcher grew up in Beloit. He graduated from K-State in Nuclear Engineering and then from the Sloan School of Management at MIT in Boston. Wow, pretty impressive credentials.
Jerry took a position with a New York investment firm on lower Manhattan Island. He had made the move: From Beloit to Broadway, and from Manhattan, Kansas to Manhattan, New York.
In time, Jerry and his wife B who he had met on a blind date at K-State B migrated back to the midwest, where he managed several investment portfolios for Waddell & Reed in Kansas City. Then in 1979 they moved on to Beloit to join the family business. Jerry became general manager in 1979 and President of the companies in 1989.
The businesses have done well. The electrical supply business serves much of Kansas, and the fertilizer business has grown significantly also. Jerry says, AIn the late '50s, we had six retail fertilizer outlets. Today, there are 35 outlets in Kansas and two in Nebraska.@
Since Jerry became president in 1989, sales volume has more than doubled. Custom application acres are up 150 percent.
Why such success? Jerry says, AWe're a service business. We have an excellent set of employees, we do the extra thing for our customers without being asked, and we've added services.@
Jerry says, AWe feel a real sense of responsibility to our community as well.@ Those are words which Jerry lives by. He has served as President of most every civic and charitable organization in Beloit. He is a past chair of the KSU Foundation, past president of the Kansas Fertilizer and Chemical Association, and even served as a trustee with KPERS.
Now remember, this is a guy who spent much of a career on Wall Street. Why come back to Kansas? After all, Beloit is a town of 4,052 people. Now, that's rural.
Comparing city life with rural life, Jerry says, AWe like both and we chose this.@
Jerry says, AThe good things you hear about small town life are true: smaller schools and tight-knit people.@ He and his wife raised four children in Beloit.
Jerry says, AI was at a meeting in Chicago recently where they were complaining about their 90 minute commute. I told them my door to door commute was 90 seconds.@
Jerry and his wife have found they can go to New York and enjoy big city amenities, and then come home to the good living of rural Kansas.
Jerry says, AWe have friends still living right there in New York, and we've been to more Broadway shows than they have.@
From Beloit to Broadway. From Manhattan, Kansas to Manhattan, New York B and back. We're proud of the progression made by Jerry Boettcher and his family. We salute the people of Boettcher Enterprises who are making a difference through service in agribusiness, and to Jerry for his commitment to service in the community.

Rolling Hills Refuge
When was the last time you were driving down a Kansas country road, looked off to the side, and saw an African lion, a camel with two humps, and then a buffalo and some ostrich? Not lately? Well, it happened to me just a few weeks ago.
I was driving along in the middle of the Kansas countryside and suddenly I came upon this collection of exotic animals. What gives? Did I drive through a time warp into the African jungle?
No, it wasn't that. I found I was driving by a private sector wildlife refuge located in rural Kansas. Stay tuned for this fascinating story on today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Bob Brown. Bob is director of the Rolling Hills Refuge Wildlife Conservation Center near Salina, Kansas. His organization is building an impressive, 95 acre zoological park at the location where I happened to be passing by.
The history of this place begins in the early 1980s, when a Salina businessman named Charlie Walker was raising Belgian Horses on his 500 acre ranch B Rolling Hills Ranch B west of Salina. He opened his barn to provide tours for local schoolchildren, and it became a big draw. By the mid-1980s, eight thousand children per year were visiting the place.
So Mr. Walker decided to add an attraction. He purchased a lion, two llamas, and a pair of black bears. These additions were an instant success.
From that beginning developed a vision of a wildlife conservation refuge, which would not only provide an educational opportunity for young and old, but also help preserve and support rare and endangered species.
Eventually, the Rolling Hills Refuge Wildlife Conservation Center was incorporated as an educational, non-profit foundation. Charlie Walker donated part of his ranchland for it.
An impressive plan was developed for a facility that would provide space for these animals that need it, as well as an opportunity for people to view them. The new park is under development. Several unusual species are already in place, and the new refuge is scheduled to open in the fall of 1999.
Now, this ain't your local city zoo. It is being built with private sector funding. And it has more space to work with than many city zoos, which have become land-locked. It is also close to Interstate 70, so there is excellent access for those who will want to visit.
As park director, Bob Brown is overseeing the construction of the new facility as well as managing the current animal population and the school tours which have continued. When Bob came on board, there were 16 exotic species on the place. Today, there are 70, of which one-third are highly endangered and another third are threatened.
More than 12,000 students a year have been touring the place, but now tours are on hold until the construction of the new facility can be completed. And what a wonderful facility it will be.
There will be habitat for lions, tigers, and bears B oh my B plus chimpanzees, giraffes, kangaroos, camels, monkeys, gazelles, reptiles, birds, rhinos, and more B including some other critters whose names I can't pronounce. There will be a tram to take you through the park, plus a restaurant and a petting zoo for the kids.
And where exactly is this place? It is six miles west of Salina and just south of Interstate 70. From I-70, you would take the Hedville Road exit, which takes you through the little town of Hedville with an estimated population of 50 people. Now, that's rural.
Bob Brown says, AOur rural setting allows us to provide more space for endangered animals that need it. For example, the Hartmann mountain zebra doesn't do well in a small space, so this refuge is a good alternative for them.@
And listen to this: there are 34 transcaspian urials B whatever that is B in captivity in the entire world. Five of them are here. Only 44 Indian Rhinos are in captivity in North America, and one male is here.
We salute Bob Brown, Charlie Walker, and the people of Rolling Hills Refuge for making a difference with their efforts to preserve and protect these animals, while providing a fabulous educational opportunity for people in our state. After the park opens in 1999, I encourage you to go to Salina and take a drive in the country to visit this refuge.
You never know what amazing animals you might see along the road.

Pack St. Clair - Cobalt Boats
Today let's go to a boat show in Miami, Florida. Sounds attractive, doesn't it? We're admiring the latest features of the finest boats from around the country. And here is the CEO of one line of boats which has been called the Mercedes of the boat industry. His company is very impressive, selling boats around the world.
And where do you suppose this international boat company is based? Would you believe, right here in rural Kansas? Stay tuned, this is today's Kansas Profile.
Let's meet the CEO of this impressive boat company, called Cobalt Boats. The CEO's name is Pack St. Clair.
Pack grew up at Independence, Kansas. He went to KU and then into his father's lumber business. But Pack wanted to do something on his own, so he went into business for himself in 1968.
Pack says, AI had gone boating with my family most of my life.@ So he and his partner decided to try a boat-building business. They started a line of various kinds of boats B as Pack says, AA smattering of everything.@
In 1969, Pack went to his first trade show for the boating industry. It happened to be in Chicago, and the trade show was a success B but not in the way you might expect.
Pack St. Clair says, AWe didn't sign one dealer or sell one boat.@ Doesn't sound like much of a success, does it? But he came home from the trade show with something more important: an idea.
Pack says, AThere were lots of big companies building all kinds of boats. They were building Chevrolets. But no one was addressing the high end of the market. We thought there might be an opportunity to fill that niche.@
So in 1969, Pack says, AWe started over. We scrapped our old line of boats and concentrated on building just two boat designs of very high quality.@
In 1970, the company moved to the town of Neodesha, where a closed oil refinery had been made into an industrial park. At that point, the company had six employees.
Now listen to this. Today, the Cobalt Boat company is a multimillion dollar business employing 440 people in the town of Neodesha, population 2,817 people. Now, that's rural.
But listen to the remarkable accomplishments of this rural company. Cobalt Boats now has sales of 65 million dollars. They have a dealer organization of 100 dealers around the U.S. from coast to coast. They have made sales in virtually every state. Pack says, AOur biggest dealer is in San Francisco.@ And global sales have been made in Europe, Canada, South America, and Japan.
Why are these boats so popular? Pack says, AOur claim to fame is high quality and nice styling. We target the Mercedes type buyer.@ Their average boat cost is 30 to 40 thousand dollars. The lowest would cost in the high 20 thousand dollars, and a top of the line with all the nicest features would cost $120,000.
These are fabulous boats, and a great rural community success story. As I usually do, I asked Pack what are the pros and cons of being in small town Kansas. Pack says the biggest challenge is recruiting people from places like Florida or Michigan. But their central location has proven to be an advantage in terms of delivery to either coast.
Pack St. Clair recently served as Chairman of the National Marine Manufacturing Association. That work has taken him to most of the boat manufacturing plants all around the country. He says, AIf I were to do it all over again, considering the work ethic, the caliber of our work force, and the character of our people, I would locate right here again.@
It's time to say goodbye to our boat show in Miami, and come home to Kansas. But we can come home with a little more pride. Who would have guessed that this leading, international boat manufacturer is found right here in our own state? We salute Pack St. Clair and the people of Cobalt Boats for their entrepreneurship and commitment to quality, which is making a difference in rural Kansas.
They are proud of their people and their product, and that puts me in the same boat.

Russ Fallis - Midwest Iron & Metal
Today let's meet the largest ferrous dealer in the state of Kansas. I said, the largest ferrous dealer. No, that doesn't mean someone who buys and sells ferris wheels for carnivals, and it doesn't mean those guys who deal cards at the casinos either.
I'm talking about the state's largest business dealer in ferrous products B that's f-e-r-r-o-u-s, as in the chemical name for iron. In other words, we're talking about the state's largest dealer in iron products; particularly, scrap iron. Today, it's become a leader in recycling in the state of Kansas.
We'll learn the remarkable story of this company on today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Russ Fallis. Russ is acting manager of Midwest Iron & Metal Company in Hutchinson, Kansas. He provided us with the story of the company.
Midwest Iron and Metal has been operating in Hutchinson since the 1950s. In 1952, a man named Ron Galler and some partners in Kansas City bought the company. In 1970, Mr. Galler bought out his partners and took over the entire operation. Russ Fallis is a long-time employee of the company.
The original business of the company was handling scrap iron and metals. In 1983, Midwest merged with Hutchinson Iron and Metal. Then Midwest Recycling was established in South Hutchinson for nonmetal recyclable materials. So today the company does recycling as well as scrap iron.
The company has grown over the years. Today, there are approximately 90 fulltime employees with Midwest Iron and Metal, and the payroll is estimated to be around 2.5 million dollars.
The company has also reached out to smaller communities to assist them with their recycling programs. Midwest Recycling has helped Marion and Hays with their blue-bag program for collecting non-metal recyclables. Now, the company is assisting with recycling programs in such communities as Kinsley, population 1,785; Ness City, population 1,638; Bazine, population 373, and Utica, population 195 people. Now, that's rural.
It would be very difficult for towns that size to operate a recycling program on their own, but with others and Midwest Iron working together, they can make it work.
Now here's the sad part of our story. Ron Galler, the owner and president of the company for many years, died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage in the summer of 1998. Ron Galler was remembered not only as a successful businessman, but as one who gave of himself to the community. He was a loyal supporter of various charities in Hutchinson, including his church, the Cosmosphere, and Hutchinson Community College. He even had a soft spot in his heart for stray dogs, in particular, scottish terrier puppies. The local Boy and Girl Scouts could count on Ron Galler's company for tens of thousands of dollars raised from aluminum can drives.
Ron Galler and his wife of 45 years had a son, two daughters, and five grandchildren. We salute his memory, not just as a business leader but as a philanthropist.
For Ron's wife Charlotte and acting manager Russ Fallis, the task is to go on. Midwest Iron and Metal continues to be a major dealer in scrap iron as well as assisting with recycling. Russ Fallis, in fact, is an officer of the Gulf Coast chapter of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries. The members of the chapters of this group represent nearly 3,000 recycling facilities nationwide.
It's time to say goodbye to the largest ferrous dealer in the state of Kansas. No, not ferris wheels or card games, this is the company which is the largest dealer in scrap iron in the state. It is also a company which has moved into the recycling industry and is assisting a number of rural communities with this type of environmentally friendly initiative.
We salute the memory of Ron Galler for his leadership in business and his contributions to his community. And we salute Russ Fallis and the people of Midwest Iron and Metal for making a difference by recycling metal and non-metal products for our future.

Butch Myers
It's never too late.
That could be the motto of someone like John Glenn, who goes into space at age 77. That is a wonderful achievement. It reminds us of the remarkable contributions which older citizens can make. Certainly there are thousands of older citizens who are playing key roles in rural Kansas.
Today, just for fun, we'll meet a man with rural Kansas roots who has been nationally successful. He's not really that old, except by the standards of his chosen profession: Steer wrestling. That's right, I said steer wrestling. We are talking about a rodeo cowboy who is having remarkable success B yet he is twice the age of the young cowboys he is competing against. It gives hope to us old-timers. Stay tuned B it's today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Butch Myers. Butch is this nationally successful rodeo cowboy. Butch was born in Denver and went to school at Colorado State and then at Kansas State. When I knew Butch Myers, he was teaching agriculture in southeast Kansas during the school year and competing in rodeos during the summertime.
Rodeo was his first love. In fact, when his children were born, he named them Rope, Cash, and Tygh B I am not making this up.
Butch built a small arena near his home in southeast Kansas where he could practice his rodeo skills. He taught ag at the school at Colony, Kansas, population 387 people. Now, that's rural.
Butch loved rodeo, and he was good at it. In 1969, he joined the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Steer roping and steer wrestling were his specialties. He finally went into rodeo full time and moved to Texas.
I lost touch with Butch. Then in 1980 I spotted a news item: the World Champion Steer Wrestler that year was none other than Butch Myers. It did me good to see that. And in 1986, he set a National Finals Rodeo record for the best average time in steer wrestling.
Now in case you're not familiar with the rodeo event called steer wrestling, I'll try to describe it. In a nutshell, what happens is that a cowboy on horseback chases down a 400 pound steer, jumps off the horse, wrestles the calf to the ground and ties its feet together. The event is timed and the faster you can do it, the better. There are rules and judges to assure that it is done just right.
As you might guess, this requires a lot of athleticism, strength, and agility. First, you have to practically jump off a moving horse. Next, you have to time your jump just right and muscle the calf down to the ground. I can vouch for the fact that young steers are strong and in no mood to be cooperative.
Butch Myers is a great steer wrestler. He became the world champion in 1980.
But that's not where the story ends. This is where the John Glenn factor comes in.
Even though rodeo is a young man's sport, Butch Myers just kept competing. He qualified for the National Finals Rodeo twelve times. Most cowboys in this sport are in their early twenties or up to their mid-thirties. But like the Energizer bunny, Butch Myers just keeps going and going.
Steer wrestling is an event where cowboys can break their bones B but Butch Myers is breaking records.
The crowning touch came in the 1997 National Finals Rodeo. In the steer wrestling event, the favorite to win was a young cowboy named Rope Myers. That's right, it was Butch's son. But young Rope Myers had some tough luck. He did well, but didn't win it all.
Meanwhile, his daddy Butch Myers was competing also. Butch was now 52 years old B thirteen years older than the next oldest competitor. But he did well in round one, and better in round two. Eventually it came to the final round. When the dust had cleared, Butch Myers had not only won the title, he had set a new NFR record B breaking the record that he himself had set eleven years before.
And all this at age 52. Relatively speaking, it was a victory for the geriatric set.
John Glenn goes into space at age 77, and that's a remarkable achievement. I think it's also a remarkable achievement for Butch Myers to be winning national rodeo competitions at his age. We salute Butch Myers and his family for making a difference by being national winners, and for reminding us that it's never too late.

Rural Telephone
High tech. High plains.
Those terms sound similar, but they're very different, aren't they? High tech refers to fancy computers and other cutting edge stuff they do out in California somewhere, while high plains refers to the quiet farmland of western Kansas.
Guess again. Today, we'll learn of a company which is bringing high tech to the high plains, and doing it from a truly rural location. Stay tuned B this remarkable story is today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Larry Sevier. Larry is CEO and General Manager of Rural Telephone Service Company in Lenora, Kansas. The company is usually called Rural Telephone for short.
Rural Telephone is one of several independent phone companies that was set up around Kansas in the 1950s. Rod Wallgren, Rural Telephone's director of community relations, says the company was formed in 1951 by a small group of farmers and businessmen in northwest Kansas.
Rod says, AThey wanted better telephone service so they formed a co-op to provide phone service in the area. They went to REA and got a loan to help do it.@
The original business office was in Norton. In 1955, the company bought telephone exchanges in Lenora and Morland. As part of the deal, the company agreed to move the office to the town of Lenora in southern Norton County.
Business grew over the years. In 1986, it was time for the Board to pick a new general manager. The person they chose was Larry Sevier.
Larry is a native of south central Kansas. He graduated from Emporia State and was a field rep and branch chief for REA when Rural Telephone hired him away. Rod Wallgren says, AHe brought to the company background information on financing and lots of ideas about the future.@
Those ideas have taken off. Today, this company is one of the top 50 telephone companies in America.
You may ask, what does a telephone company do? Here's a wild guess: it provides telephone service, right? Sure enough, Rural Telephone provides local service to 29 exchanges in northwest Kansas. But that hardly begins to describe the contributions of this remarkable company. Rural Telephone has taken a visionary approach to making northwest Kansas better, and that means they have diversified into other areas of technology to serve the region.
For example, Rural Telephone now offers sophisticated telecommunications service through a state-of-the-art 100 percent digital network transported over 700 miles of fiber optic cable. Six Lakes Directory is the official phone book of Rural Telephone. More than 50,000 copies of the directory are distributed annually to homes and businesses in northwest Kansas.
In 1990, Rural Telephone and seven school districts formed one of the first full motion, two way interactive video networks in the state. It is called ICAN, which stands for Interactive Consortium Academic Network. ICAN now has 20 interactive studios, enables 360 faculty members to interact, and allows more than 3,000 students to take enhanced educational courses B including college credits.
Rural Telephone offers the latest in cellular technology through the largest network in the state. It also offers RuralNet, which makes it possible for rural subscribers to access the world through the Internet. RuralNet is the largest single Internet service provider in northwest Kansas. The company's high speed data circuits allow videoconferencing and telemedicine.
The diversification doesn't stop there. Rural Telephone owns Vision Plus, a cable television company; System Solutions, a statewide computer company; Six Lakes Long Distance, which provides long distance phone service; and RTSC Productions, which is a video production company. Rural Telephone has been a leader in supporting economic development in the region.
With all this activity, it's no surprise that the company has grown to 150 employees. Yet it remains headquartered in the Norton County town of Lenora, population 335 people. Now, that's rural.
High tech. High plains. Maybe there's more of a connection between these terms than we first thought, thanks to Rural Telephone. It is so exciting to see such technological advancements brought to our state by a rural-based cooperative. We commend Larry Sevier and the Board and staff of Rural Telephone for making a difference by bringing high technology to the high plains of rural Kansas.

Bill Snyder
Today let's talk about findings. No, I'm not referring to research results or lawyer talk for a legal finding in a court case -- or the leftover change you found in the vending machine either. I'm talking about a company whose business is finding and selling promotional items, such as hats and shirts, to people that want them. This remarkable company is finding such products for customers across the nation, yet it is based in rural Kansas.
Stay tuned, it's today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Brett Fincher. Brett is vice president of this remarkable company. The name is appropriate: Fincher's Findings.
Brett explains that his father Ron Fincher began the company back in 1976 in Medicine Lodge. Medicine Lodge is the county seat of Barber County, which adjoins Oklahoma in south central Kansas.
Ron set up a company called Fincher's Glassware, which sold certain glass and novelty items. He rented a former barber shop, removed the seats, and set up shop. To supplement the business, Ron started screen printing and selling hats and shirts.
The business grew. In fact, the market in hats and shirts grew so fast that the company changed into an advertising specialty business. The company built a factory in Medicine Lodge in 1983. Son Brett came into the business after college.
So why was the company renamed Fincher's Findings? Ron Fincher says, AIf we can't find it, then you don't need it.@ In other words, Fincher's Findings could find or make whatever type of promotional item a company might be looking for.
As Brett Fincher says, AAnything with an imprint on it, we can do it.@ Today the company sells thousands of items, such as hats, shirts, pens, pencils, keychains, sporting goods, or you name it.
For example, when Nashville recording artist Martina McBride was looking for promotional hats, her manager might have gotten them from some ad agency in Nashville or Hollywood or Atlanta or Chicago. Instead, he got them from Fincher's Findings in Medicine Lodge, Kansas, population 2,305 people. Now, that's rural.
Today, Brett Fincher figures the company has sold products into virtually every state from coast to coast. Clients include National Carriers, Best lock, Cargill Industries, and Texaco.
Why such growth? Brett Fincher says, AWe want to buy the best products for the best price so that the customer gets a good deal. Our screen printing is done right here in Medicine Lodge, so we can be so quick on service. And our prices are unbeatable.@
That service applies to customers large and small. Brett says, ALast week I bought 60,000 hats. Buying in that volume helps us get a good price for our customers. But we take care of the little guys too. Recently a guy came in and bought 24 hats.@
Isn't it amazing to find a company selling these promotional items nationwide from a small town in Kansas? Brett Fincher wants the business to expand. He is working on plans for a customer service center to assist customers and generate more orders.
He says, AThis is a place where your advertising dollars really work. People will wear your caps. And if you give something to someone, even if it's a little thing, they will remember it and deal with you in the future.@
As to small town life, Brett Fincher says, AThere's a friendliness and closeness that you find in smaller towns.@
Let's talk about findings. No, not legal findings or leftover change. I'm talking about a company named Fincher's Findings, which helps companies all over the country find promotional items from its location in rural Kansas. Perhaps this is also a finding in another sense: a finding of entrepreneurship and hard work, of quality service and Kansas values. We salute Ron and Brett Fincher and the people of their company for making a difference with a national company in a small-town setting.
I'm glad I found them.

Jerry Boettcher - Boettcher Enterprises
From Beloit to Broadway. That could be the theme of our story today. Or how about this theme: From Manhattan, Kansas to Manhattan, New York B and back.
What I'm trying to describe is someone who has been a success in the big city as well as in rural Kansas. Stay tuned, this is today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Jerry Boettcher. Jerry is President of Boettcher Enterprises in Beloit, Kansas. Here is the story of this remarkable company.
In 1937, Jerry Boettcher's father started a small automotive and farm repair business in Beloit in north central Kansas. Jerry says, AMy father was a fixer. He was a self-taught mechanic, who could make a replacement part if he had to.@ After World War II, the business got into providing electrical supplies for wiring the farms.
Mr. Boettcher became an innovator in the farm technology of the time. Jerry says, AIn 1953, my father correctly foresaw that fertilizer would become a big factor in the farm economy.@ So he made a pioneering decision to market this technology B his company had what was only the second ammonia tank in the entire state of Kansas.
In the 1960s, the Boettchers split their business into two companies: Boettcher Supply, which does electrical and small engine work, and Boettcher Enterprises, which is in commercial fertilizer and farm supply.
Jerry Boettcher grew up in Beloit. He graduated from K-State in Nuclear Engineering and then from the Sloan School of Management at MIT in Boston. Wow, pretty impressive credentials.
Jerry took a position with a New York investment firm on lower Manhattan Island. He had made the move: From Beloit to Broadway, and from Manhattan, Kansas to Manhattan, New York.
In time, Jerry and his wife B who he had met on a blind date at K-State B migrated back to the midwest, where he managed several investment portfolios for Waddell & Reed in Kansas City. Then in 1979 they moved on to Beloit to join the family business. Jerry became general manager in 1979 and President of the companies in 1989.
The businesses have done well. The electrical supply business serves much of Kansas, and the fertilizer business has grown significantly also. Jerry says, AIn the late '50s, we had six retail fertilizer outlets. Today, there are 35 outlets in Kansas and two in Nebraska.@
Since Jerry became president in 1989, sales volume has more than doubled. Custom application acres are up 150 percent.
Why such success? Jerry says, AWe're a service business. We have an excellent set of employees, we do the extra thing for our customers without being asked, and we've added services.@
Jerry says, AWe feel a real sense of responsibility to our community as well.@ Those are words which Jerry lives by. He has served as President of most every civic and charitable organization in Beloit. He is a past chair of the KSU Foundation, past president of the Kansas Fertilizer and Chemical Association, and even served as a trustee with KPERS.
Now remember, this is a guy who spent much of a career on Wall Street. Why come back to Kansas? After all, Beloit is a town of 4,052 people. Now, that's rural.
Comparing city life with rural life, Jerry says, AWe like both and we chose this.@
Jerry says, AThe good things you hear about small town life are true: smaller schools and tight-knit people.@ He and his wife raised four children in Beloit.
Jerry says, AI was at a meeting in Chicago recently where they were complaining about their 90 minute commute. I told them my door to door commute was 90 seconds.@
Jerry and his wife have found they can go to New York and enjoy big city amenities, and then come home to the good living of rural Kansas.
Jerry says, AWe have friends still living right there in New York, and we've been to more Broadway shows than they have.@
From Beloit to Broadway. From Manhattan, Kansas to Manhattan, New York B and back. We're proud of the progression made by Jerry Boettcher and his family. We salute the people of Boettcher Enterprises who are making a difference through service in agribusiness, and to Jerry for his commitment to service in the community.

Rolling Hills Refuge
When was the last time you were driving down a Kansas country road, looked off to the side, and saw an African lion, a camel with two humps, and then a buffalo and some ostrich? Not lately? Well, it happened to me just a few weeks ago.
I was driving along in the middle of the Kansas countryside and suddenly I came upon this collection of exotic animals. What gives? Did I drive through a time warp into the African jungle?
No, it wasn't that. I found I was driving by a private sector wildlife refuge located in rural Kansas. Stay tuned for this fascinating story on today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Bob Brown. Bob is director of the Rolling Hills Refuge Wildlife Conservation Center near Salina, Kansas. His organization is building an impressive, 95 acre zoological park at the location where I happened to be passing by.
The history of this place begins in the early 1980s, when a Salina businessman named Charlie Walker was raising Belgian Horses on his 500 acre ranch B Rolling Hills Ranch B west of Salina. He opened his barn to provide tours for local schoolchildren, and it became a big draw. By the mid-1980s, eight thousand children per year were visiting the place.
So Mr. Walker decided to add an attraction. He purchased a lion, two llamas, and a pair of black bears. These additions were an instant success.
From that beginning developed a vision of a wildlife conservation refuge, which would not only provide an educational opportunity for young and old, but also help preserve and support rare and endangered species.
Eventually, the Rolling Hills Refuge Wildlife Conservation Center was incorporated as an educational, non-profit foundation. Charlie Walker donated part of his ranchland for it.
An impressive plan was developed for a facility that would provide space for these animals that need it, as well as an opportunity for people to view them. The new park is under development. Several unusual species are already in place, and the new refuge is scheduled to open in the fall of 1999.
Now, this ain't your local city zoo. It is being built with private sector funding. And it has more space to work with than many city zoos, which have become land-locked. It is also close to Interstate 70, so there is excellent access for those who will want to visit.
As park director, Bob Brown is overseeing the construction of the new facility as well as managing the current animal population and the school tours which have continued. When Bob came on board, there were 16 exotic species on the place. Today, there are 70, of which one-third are highly endangered and another third are threatened.
More than 12,000 students a year have been touring the place, but now tours are on hold until the construction of the new facility can be completed. And what a wonderful facility it will be.
There will be habitat for lions, tigers, and bears B oh my B plus chimpanzees, giraffes, kangaroos, camels, monkeys, gazelles, reptiles, birds, rhinos, and more B including some other critters whose names I can't pronounce. There will be a tram to take you through the park, plus a restaurant and a petting zoo for the kids.
And where exactly is this place? It is six miles west of Salina and just south of Interstate 70. From I-70, you would take the Hedville Road exit, which takes you through the little town of Hedville with an estimated population of 50 people. Now, that's rural.
Bob Brown says, AOur rural setting allows us to provide more space for endangered animals that need it. For example, the Hartmann mountain zebra doesn't do well in a small space, so this refuge is a good alternative for them.@
And listen to this: there are 34 transcaspian urials B whatever that is B in captivity in the entire world. Five of them are here. Only 44 Indian Rhinos are in captivity in North America, and one male is here.
We salute Bob Brown, Charlie Walker, and the people of Rolling Hills Refuge for making a difference with their efforts to preserve and protect these animals, while providing a fabulous educational opportunity for people in our state. After the park opens in 1999, I encourage you to go to Salina and take a drive in the country to visit this refuge.
You never know what amazing animals you might see along the road.

Pack St. Clair - Cobalt Boats
Today let's go to a boat show in Miami, Florida. Sounds attractive, doesn't it? We're admiring the latest features of the finest boats from around the country. And here is the CEO of one line of boats which has been called the Mercedes of the boat industry. His company is very impressive, selling boats around the world.
And where do you suppose this international boat company is based? Would you believe, right here in rural Kansas? Stay tuned, this is today's Kansas Profile.
Let's meet the CEO of this impressive boat company, called Cobalt Boats. The CEO's name is Pack St. Clair.
Pack grew up at Independence, Kansas. He went to KU and then into his father's lumber business. But Pack wanted to do something on his own, so he went into business for himself in 1968.
Pack says, AI had gone boating with my family most of my life.@ So he and his partner decided to try a boat-building business. They started a line of various kinds of boats B as Pack says, AA smattering of everything.@
In 1969, Pack went to his first trade show for the boating industry. It happened to be in Chicago, and the trade show was a success B but not in the way you might expect.
Pack St. Clair says, AWe didn't sign one dealer or sell one boat.@ Doesn't sound like much of a success, does it? But he came home from the trade show with something more important: an idea.
Pack says, AThere were lots of big companies building all kinds of boats. They were building Chevrolets. But no one was addressing the high end of the market. We thought there might be an opportunity to fill that niche.@
So in 1969, Pack says, AWe started over. We scrapped our old line of boats and concentrated on building just two boat designs of very high quality.@
In 1970, the company moved to the town of Neodesha, where a closed oil refinery had been made into an industrial park. At that point, the company had six employees.
Now listen to this. Today, the Cobalt Boat company is a multimillion dollar business employing 440 people in the town of Neodesha, population 2,817 people. Now, that's rural.
But listen to the remarkable accomplishments of this rural company. Cobalt Boats now has sales of 65 million dollars. They have a dealer organization of 100 dealers around the U.S. from coast to coast. They have made sales in virtually every state. Pack says, AOur biggest dealer is in San Francisco.@ And global sales have been made in Europe, Canada, South America, and Japan.
Why are these boats so popular? Pack says, AOur claim to fame is high quality and nice styling. We target the Mercedes type buyer.@ Their average boat cost is 30 to 40 thousand dollars. The lowest would cost in the high 20 thousand dollars, and a top of the line with all the nicest features would cost $120,000.
These are fabulous boats, and a great rural community success story. As I usually do, I asked Pack what are the pros and cons of being in small town Kansas. Pack says the biggest challenge is recruiting people from places like Florida or Michigan. But their central location has proven to be an advantage in terms of delivery to either coast.
Pack St. Clair recently served as Chairman of the National Marine Manufacturing Association. That work has taken him to most of the boat manufacturing plants all around the country. He says, AIf I were to do it all over again, considering the work ethic, the caliber of our work force, and the character of our people, I would locate right here again.@
It's time to say goodbye to our boat show in Miami, and come home to Kansas. But we can come home with a little more pride. Who would have guessed that this leading, international boat manufacturer is found right here in our own state? We salute Pack St. Clair and the people of Cobalt Boats for their entrepreneurship and commitment to quality, which is making a difference in rural Kansas.
They are proud of their people and their product, and that puts me in the same boat.

Russ Fallis - Midwest Iron & Metal
Today let's meet the largest ferrous dealer in the state of Kansas. I said, the largest ferrous dealer. No, that doesn't mean someone who buys and sells ferris wheels for carnivals, and it doesn't mean those guys who deal cards at the casinos either.
I'm talking about the state's largest business dealer in ferrous products B that's f-e-r-r-o-u-s, as in the chemical name for iron. In other words, we're talking about the state's largest dealer in iron products; particularly, scrap iron. Today, it's become a leader in recycling in the state of Kansas.
We'll learn the remarkable story of this company on today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Russ Fallis. Russ is acting manager of Midwest Iron & Metal Company in Hutchinson, Kansas. He provided us with the story of the company.
Midwest Iron and Metal has been operating in Hutchinson since the 1950s. In 1952, a man named Ron Galler and some partners in Kansas City bought the company. In 1970, Mr. Galler bought out his partners and took over the entire operation. Russ Fallis is a long-time employee of the company.
The original business of the company was handling scrap iron and metals. In 1983, Midwest merged with Hutchinson Iron and Metal. Then Midwest Recycling was established in South Hutchinson for nonmetal recyclable materials. So today the company does recycling as well as scrap iron.
The company has grown over the years. Today, there are approximately 90 fulltime employees with Midwest Iron and Metal, and the payroll is estimated to be around 2.5 million dollars.
The company has also reached out to smaller communities to assist them with their recycling programs. Midwest Recycling has helped Marion and Hays with their blue-bag program for collecting non-metal recyclables. Now, the company is assisting with recycling programs in such communities as Kinsley, population 1,785; Ness City, population 1,638; Bazine, population 373, and Utica, population 195 people. Now, that's rural.
It would be very difficult for towns that size to operate a recycling program on their own, but with others and Midwest Iron working together, they can make it work.
Now here's the sad part of our story. Ron Galler, the owner and president of the company for many years, died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage in the summer of 1998. Ron Galler was remembered not only as a successful businessman, but as one who gave of himself to the community. He was a loyal supporter of various charities in Hutchinson, including his church, the Cosmosphere, and Hutchinson Community College. He even had a soft spot in his heart for stray dogs, in particular, scottish terrier puppies. The local Boy and Girl Scouts could count on Ron Galler's company for tens of thousands of dollars raised from aluminum can drives.
Ron Galler and his wife of 45 years had a son, two daughters, and five grandchildren. We salute his memory, not just as a business leader but as a philanthropist.
For Ron's wife Charlotte and acting manager Russ Fallis, the task is to go on. Midwest Iron and Metal continues to be a major dealer in scrap iron as well as assisting with recycling. Russ Fallis, in fact, is an officer of the Gulf Coast chapter of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries. The members of the chapters of this group represent nearly 3,000 recycling facilities nationwide.
It's time to say goodbye to the largest ferrous dealer in the state of Kansas. No, not ferris wheels or card games, this is the company which is the largest dealer in scrap iron in the state. It is also a company which has moved into the recycling industry and is assisting a number of rural communities with this type of environmentally friendly initiative.
We salute the memory of Ron Galler for his leadership in business and his contributions to his community. And we salute Russ Fallis and the people of Midwest Iron and Metal for making a difference by recycling metal and non-metal products for our future.

Butch Myers
It's never too late.
That could be the motto of someone like John Glenn, who goes into space at age 77. That is a wonderful achievement. It reminds us of the remarkable contributions which older citizens can make. Certainly there are thousands of older citizens who are playing key roles in rural Kansas.
Today, just for fun, we'll meet a man with rural Kansas roots who has been nationally successful. He's not really that old, except by the standards of his chosen profession: Steer wrestling. That's right, I said steer wrestling. We are talking about a rodeo cowboy who is having remarkable success B yet he is twice the age of the young cowboys he is competing against. It gives hope to us old-timers. Stay tuned B it's today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Butch Myers. Butch is this nationally successful rodeo cowboy. Butch was born in Denver and went to school at Colorado State and then at Kansas State. When I knew Butch Myers, he was teaching agriculture in southeast Kansas during the school year and competing in rodeos during the summertime.
Rodeo was his first love. In fact, when his children were born, he named them Rope, Cash, and Tygh B I am not making this up.
Butch built a small arena near his home in southeast Kansas where he could practice his rodeo skills. He taught ag at the school at Colony, Kansas, population 387 people. Now, that's rural.
Butch loved rodeo, and he was good at it. In 1969, he joined the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Steer roping and steer wrestling were his specialties. He finally went into rodeo full time and moved to Texas.
I lost touch with Butch. Then in 1980 I spotted a news item: the World Champion Steer Wrestler that year was none other than Butch Myers. It did me good to see that. And in 1986, he set a National Finals Rodeo record for the best average time in steer wrestling.
Now in case you're not familiar with the rodeo event called steer wrestling, I'll try to describe it. In a nutshell, what happens is that a cowboy on horseback chases down a 400 pound steer, jumps off the horse, wrestles the calf to the ground and ties its feet together. The event is timed and the faster you can do it, the better. There are rules and judges to assure that it is done just right.
As you might guess, this requires a lot of athleticism, strength, and agility. First, you have to practically jump off a moving horse. Next, you have to time your jump just right and muscle the calf down to the ground. I can vouch for the fact that young steers are strong and in no mood to be cooperative.
Butch Myers is a great steer wrestler. He became the world champion in 1980.
But that's not where the story ends. This is where the John Glenn factor comes in.
Even though rodeo is a young man's sport, Butch Myers just kept competing. He qualified for the National Finals Rodeo twelve times. Most cowboys in this sport are in their early twenties or up to their mid-thirties. But like the Energizer bunny, Butch Myers just keeps going and going.
Steer wrestling is an event where cowboys can break their bones B but Butch Myers is breaking records.
The crowning touch came in the 1997 National Finals Rodeo. In the steer wrestling event, the favorite to win was a young cowboy named Rope Myers. That's right, it was Butch's son. But young Rope Myers had some tough luck. He did well, but didn't win it all.
Meanwhile, his daddy Butch Myers was competing also. Butch was now 52 years old B thirteen years older than the next oldest competitor. But he did well in round one, and better in round two. Eventually it came to the final round. When the dust had cleared, Butch Myers had not only won the title, he had set a new NFR record B breaking the record that he himself had set eleven years before.
And all this at age 52. Relatively speaking, it was a victory for the geriatric set.
John Glenn goes into space at age 77, and that's a remarkable achievement. I think it's also a remarkable achievement for Butch Myers to be winning national rodeo competitions at his age. We salute Butch Myers and his family for making a difference by being national winners, and for reminding us that it's never too late.

Rural Telephone
High tech. High plains.
Those terms sound similar, but they're very different, aren't they? High tech refers to fancy computers and other cutting edge stuff they do out in California somewhere, while high plains refers to the quiet farmland of western Kansas.
Guess again. Today, we'll learn of a company which is bringing high tech to the high plains, and doing it from a truly rural location. Stay tuned B this remarkable story is today's Kansas Profile.
Meet Larry Sevier. Larry is CEO and General Manager of Rural Telephone Service Company in Lenora, Kansas. The company is usually called Rural Telephone for short.
Rural Telephone is one of several independent phone companies that was set up around Kansas in the 1950s. Rod Wallgren, Rural Telephone's director of community relations, says the company was formed in 1951 by a small group of farmers and businessmen in northwest Kansas.
Rod says, AThey wanted better telephone service so they formed a co-op to provide phone service in the area. They went to REA and got a loan to help do it.@
The original business office was in Norton. In 1955, the company bought telephone exchanges in Lenora and Morland. As part of the deal, the company agreed to move the office to the town of Lenora in southern Norton County.
Business grew over the years. In 1986, it was time for the Board to pick a new general manager. The person they chose was Larry Sevier.
Larry is a native of south central Kansas. He graduated from Emporia State and was a field rep and branch chief for REA when Rural Telephone hired him away. Rod Wallgren says, AHe brought to the company background information on financing and lots of ideas about the future.@
Those ideas have taken off. Today, this company is one of the top 50 telephone companies in America.
You may ask, what does a telephone company do? Here's a wild guess: it provides telephone service, right? Sure enough, Rural Telephone provides local service to 29 exchanges in northwest Kansas. But that hardly begins to describe the contributions of this remarkable company. Rural Telephone has taken a visionary approach to making northwest Kansas better, and that means they have diversified into other areas of technology to serve the region.
For example, Rural Telephone now offers sophisticated telecommunications service through a state-of-the-art 100 percent digital network transported over 700 miles of fiber optic cable. Six Lakes Directory is the official phone book of Rural Telephone. More than 50,000 copies of the directory are distributed annually to homes and businesses in northwest Kansas.
In 1990, Rural Telephone and seven school districts formed one of the first full motion, two way interactive video networks in the state. It is called ICAN, which stands for Interactive Consortium Academic Network. ICAN now has 20 interactive studios, enables 360 faculty members to interact, and allows more than 3,000 students to take enhanced educational courses B including college credits.
Rural Telephone offers the latest in cellular technology through the largest network in the state. It also offers RuralNet, which makes it possible for rural subscribers to access the world through the Internet. RuralNet is the largest single Internet service provider in northwest Kansas. The company's high speed data circuits allow videoconferencing and telemedicine.
The diversification doesn't stop there. Rural Telephone owns Vision Plus, a cable television company; System Solutions, a statewide computer company; Six Lakes Long Distance, which provides long distance phone service; and RTSC Productions, which is a video production company. Rural Telephone has been a leader in supporting economic development in the region.
With all this activity, it's no surprise that the company has grown to 150 employees. Yet it remains headquartered in the Norton County town of Lenora, population 335 people. Now, that's rural.
High tech. High plains. Maybe there's more of a connection between these terms than we first thought, thanks to Rural Telephone. It is so exciting to see such technological advancements brought to our state by a rural-based cooperative. We commend Larry Sevier and the Board and staff of Rural Telephone for making a difference by bringing high technology to the high plains of rural Kansas.

Bill SnyderBill Snyder's Leadership Lessons
s Leadership Lessons
Today let's talk about the Miracle in Manhattan. Sounds like a Christmas movie, doesn't it? But I'm not talking about Christmas, I'm talking about K-State football: the greatest turnaround in college football history.
This incredible turnaround has been led by K-State football coach Bill Snyder, with key support from K-State President Jon Wefald and others. Coach Snyder has received national recognition for the amazing turnaround in K-State's football fortunes, which have gone, quite literally, from worst to first.
Have you ever heard Coach Snyder give a speech to a youth group? I have, and I have some advice for you. If you go to hear him speak, don't be expecting to hear about X's and O's or how much our offensive linemen can bench press. Instead of football, Coach Snyder is likely to talk about having good values and making good choices. What Coach Snyder is really talking about is leadership.
Leadership is vital to the success of a football team, a business, or a community. Now Coach Snyder's lessons of effective leadership have been synthesized in a new book. The book is written by two K-State faculty members, Susan Scott and Bob Shoop. Dr. Shoop is a professor of educational administration and leadership. Dr. Scott is associate dean of student life and director of leadership studies.
In February 1998, Drs. Shoop and Scott heard Coach Snyder speak to a high school leadership conference and realized that he had a tremendous message about leadership. They proposed to the coach that these principles of leadership be set out in a book, which has now become a reality.
The book is titled Leadership Lessons from Bill Snyder. There are twenty specific leadership lessons included in the book.
For example, lesson number one is: AGoal attainment is a three-step process: a) significant goals are set based on priorities/values; b) a well-constructed plan is put into place; and c) a 'just do it' attitude is adopted.@ Lesson number twenty is: AManaging time, stress, and emotions are learnable leadership skills.@ In between are key statements on the importance of vision, continuous improvement, decision making, fairness, respect for diversity, ethics, communication, family, caring, integrity, credibility, excellence, and attention to detail.
These twenty lessons are explained in a six chapter format. Coach Snyder's actual words are shown in italics, interspersed with many interesting quotes from former players or business leaders who are familiar with the coach and his work.
This emphasis on leadership is crucial, because leadership is so important to the future of our state. Drs. Shoop and Scott recognized this need even before writing the book. They developed an interdisciplinary program of study, approved by the Board of Regents in March 1997, which would offer a minor in Leadership Studies through K-State. The Leadership Studies students prepared several questions for Coach Snyder, and their questions with his answers are interspersed through the book.
I was interested to read the hometowns of these students, as printed in the book. There are students from Kansas City, Prairie Village, and Manhattan. But there are also students in the class from such towns as Garden City, population 24,902; Larned, population 4,474; Marysville, population 3,276, Burlington, population 2,904; Solomon, population 1,035; Sharon Springs, population 871; and Nortonville, population 670 people. Now, that's rural.
I am so pleased that students statewide are having this vital opportunity to develop their leadership. This new book from Coach Snyder will help benefit the leadership studies program. Proceeds from the book will be shared by the KSU Library, the Student-Athlete Leadership Program, and the KSU Leadership Studies program.
The book is available in many Kansas bookstores, or it may be purchased by contacting the publisher at Ag Press, P.O. Box 1009, Manhattan, KS 66502; phone 785-539-7558; fax 785-539-2679.
We've been talking about the Miracle in Manhattan: No, not a Christmas movie, the miraculous turnaround in K-State's football fortunes from worst to first. Yet while the results may appear miraculous, the process is not. There was no magic wand. Instead, these great results are the product of a well-thought out and well-executed plan, followed by a daily commitment to continuous improvement. That's a leadership lesson for all of us.
We salute Coach Snyder, Drs. Shoop and Scott, and the students of the Leadership Studies program for making a difference through a commitment to leadership.

Vinland Living Nativity
Christmas is a time for miracles. Children, in particular, experience the joy and excitement of the season. Yet it can also be a time of challenges, for overstressed families and busy communities.
Today we'll learn the story of a grass-roots community effort to celebrate the Christmas season, which has been led by a rural church. Stay tuned, this is a special holiday edition of Kansas Profile.
Meet the people of Vinland United Methodist Church. The church is located in Douglas County in eastern Kansas. Vinland is a small unincorporated town in the southeast part of Douglas County near Baldwin. It's in a rapidly growing area not far from Lawrence, but Vinland itself has a population which has been estimated at less than 50 people. Now, that's rural.
This rural setting is the home of a very special event that has been held just before Christmas for more than two decades. Here is the story.
Wayne and Janel Coffman are natives of the Baldwin / Overbrook area. Wayne was working for the FAA in Oklahoma when, in 1973, the FAA transferred him to Olathe, Kansas. Wayne and Janel settled near the town of Vinland.
While they had been in Oklahoma, they noticed a Lutheran church there which had a living nativity. What exactly is a living nativity? Well, it's a depiction of a Christmas nativity scene, but instead of some cardboard cutout, it includes real people and animals. That makes it especially interesting and meaningful.
Janel Coffman says, AWayne really liked that living nativity, and he thought we ought to be able to do something like that in a rural setting here. So he announced one Sunday in church that we were going to try it.@ The goal was to invite the community to come and visit this living nativity scene.
That afternoon one of the church members volunteered his barn to host the event. Janel made costumes and worked on publicity. The men stacked bales of straw to make the background. Local farmers loaned their sheep. A high school shop class made signs.
But there was still something missing: you can't very well have a nativity scene without a baby Jesus. So Janel asked for mothers with new babies to come pose as Mary and child, and volunteers came forward.
In December 1976, the first living nativity scene at Vinland was presented by the members of Vinland United Methodist Church. The reaction was so positive that they agreed to do it again the next year.
Now listen to this. During the past 22 years, it is estimated that more than 30,000 visitors from all over the world have come to this living nativity scene. People have signed the guest book from as far away as Russia.
The nativity scene is offered each year from 6 to 9 p.m. on the nights of December 21, 22, and 23. It is held in the barn of Howard and Elizabeth Hemphill three miles north of Baldwin. Admission is free. Donations given by visitors are donated to Youthville, the organization which helps troubled youth around the state.
Janel Coffman says, AThe barn is located on top of a hill, and it is a beautiful sight at night.@ Visitors to the nativity are led through the heated barn where they can gaze at the scene, with Christmas music and scripture readings playing in the background. Local residents portray Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds.
I asked, AWhere are the wise men?@ Janel says, AThe wise men are the people in the audience who have come to see the baby.@
But our story takes a special turn in 1998. For 22 years, Wayne and Janel Coffman have served as heads of the committee which operated the nativity scene. But as with so many volunteers, they were to the point that they were burned out, and they announced they could no longer head up the effort. When I spoke to Janel a few weeks ago, she thought the annual event might be discontinued. A lot of tradition would be lost.
But Christmas is a time for miracles. Pat Flowers, the church pastor, says, AI am really proud of our church. A lot of people have stepped forward to help.@ The living nativity is going to continue. We salute Wayne and Janel Coffman and the people of Vinland United Methodist Church for making a difference with their volunteerism and commitment to sharing their faith with their community in this special way.
Wishing you the happiest of holiday seasons.