Tabla de contenidos para Issue No. 1 2024 en KANSAS!

Imagine strolling down candlelit paths through tranquil, snow-covered woods as the stresses of the holiday season melt away. Every November, the Overland Park Arboretum and Botanical Gardens offers this opportunity with its Luminary Walk, a series of festively decorated trails leading to areas such as a colorful children’s garden, magical gnome and fairy villages, and gardens aglow with more than 365,000 colorful holiday lights. The Luminary Walk began as a fundraiser 22 years ago. The first events featured simple candlelit paths through the gardens, according to Irene Parsons, the event’s chairperson. Her favorite section of the modern trail continues that simple approach. “One loop is called the Quiet Woods Walk because it just is so serene,” she says of the tour’s candlelit portion. “We have a music tent in there…

Lana Grove is a classically trained fine artist, designer, and illustrator. Born in Las Vegas and raised in Central Valley, California, Grove found her way to Kansas after her husband was offered a job in the area. Though hesitant to leave the Bay Area, Grove quickly fell in love with Lawrence. There, they raised both of their children and made Kansas their permanent home. “Did I know that chiggers existed and had I experienced humidity? No. Discovering these things was truly unpleasant… But, there is beauty, amazing humans, and so much more than I thought I would find in a hometown, and I have come to love it here,” she notes. What was the moment you wanted to become an illustrator? Illustration has brought opportunities to me for political, cultural,…

“Poetry brings me to community, keeps me connected,” says Manhattan poet and Kansas State University professor Traci Brimhall. “Poetry opens the door to new experiences.” Those words took on an even broader meaning for Brimhall when she became Kansas’ poet laureate in 2023. Her new position, sponsored by the Kansas Creative Art Industries Commission and the Kansas Department of Commerce, is charged with promoting the arts as a public resource for all Kansans. Job duties include public readings, workshops, lectures and poetry presentations in communities across the state. Brimhall, whose tenure runs from 2023 to 2026, has had at least 30 public appearances as poet laureate over the past year. “I go where the poetry wind blows,” Brimhall jokes. When she appears for groups, Brimhall often brings poems and discussions…

Make 2024 a year of Kansas discovery! There are amazing attractions, festivals, restaurants and events throughout the state, and here are 20 recommendations, plus 4 highlights for places to see in 2024. Icon Key All-Year Culture Family-Friendly Outdoors Free Food History Northeast Southeast North-Central  South-Central Northwest Southwest Castle Rock Collyer Some 85 million years ago, this region of Kansas was covered by an inland sea populated by fierce aquatic reptiles. Limestone formations in this area of the Kansas badlands, including the stunning spires of Castle Rock, are the chalky deposits left behind by the beds of these seas. Located on private land, but open to the public, the formations are accessed via dirt roads that are not always navigable after rains. Collyer-Quinter region | TravelKS.com Cars on the Route Galena…

Looking at my “things to get done in 2023” list, I’ve not checked many items off. I didn’t repaint my house like I had planned. My neighbors are still seeing the three sage green swatches I painted on the side last year. I’m blaming the many lost weekends researching Kansas’ obscure history and people. Like Eugene Dennis. Billed as the “Wonder Girl,” Dennis was an internationally known psychic from Atchison. One of her most famous readings was for Albert Einstein. When I wasn’t falling down a virtual rabbit hole, I was on the road. Visits to the new Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum and the recently renovated Boot Hill Museum (both of which you’ll find in our 24 things to do in 2024) were top stops. Feeding a rhino, giraffe and…

Opening weekend of pheasant season bursts across the Kansas countryside like a holiday celebration. That second weekend of November, jubilant hunters from numerous states gather in prairie towns of all sizes to pack pre-dawn cafes and stay in motel rooms they’ve reserved a year in advance. In large groups, they will spread across fields, enjoying the fall weather and the return of the hunt. Many will have opened new seasons together for decades and for some, the season begins and ends with the festive opening weekend. Hunting after opening weekend is more difficult. With each day into the season, birds become more attuned to the dangers of dogs, hunters and shotguns. Post-opener hunts can be exhausting, sometimes lonely, and may include brutal winter weather. But there are plenty of rewards…

“I routinely collect scenes from this rural estate for an annual calendar for the owners. The tile silo has been meticulously renovated and preserved and has often been the subject of photographs. The stone wall was constructed by hand by the property owner. The textures and tones of the scene, along with the receding lines drawing the eye toward the silo, are what I found most interesting.”— JEFFREY MCPHEETERS, PHOTOGRAPHER Location: Douglas County Social Media: @jeffmcpheeters McPheeters captured this series of images using an Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III with a 12-100mm lens at 20mm. As a freelance photographer based in Lawrence, McPheeters has rarely found himself without a camera since his teenage years.…

Historic hotels offer more than a good night’s sleep. Constructed more than a century ago, grand old lodgings in Kansas have storied pasts that include movie appearances, private poker games, nearby bank robberies, and underground tunnels. If only the three-story limestone walls of the Midland Railroad Hotel could talk. They would reveal how the fire started that gutted the hotel just three years after it opened, who had the idea of raising chickens on the third floor, and what led to the hotel’s role in the 1973 film Paper Moon. Like many other historic lodgings, the Courtland Hotel in Fort Scott and the Midland Railroad Hotel in Wilson embrace their heritage, offering guests a peek into times past while catering to the needs of today’s travelers. And like all buildings…

WHERE IN KANSAS ? In 1922, Stafford County native Leila English Reid moved to West Virginia where she was so unsatisfied with the flour she found on the store shelves that she convinced her local grocer to accept one train-car shipment of Hudson Cream Flour produced by the Stafford County Flour Mills Company in Hudson, Kansas. Today a majority of the company’s flour still is sold in West Virginia, along with Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio. Established in 1909 and one of the last major independent flour mills in the country, Stafford County Flour Mills has endured a fire, a tornado, and decades of changes while staying true to its purpose of producing the best quality flour at a fair price. What makes it a popular staple in kitchens is a…

Spark your holiday spirit with an evening at Holton’s Small Town Christmas. On December 9, visitors can expect to find the historic downtown decorated with an array of lights, a parade, Santa’s arrival and shops open late to ignite the community’s holiday season. The hub of the town, the historic 1921 courthouse, is the three-story centerpiece of the annual celebration. Lights on the trees, the hum of local shoppers and the memorable architecture add to the glow surrounding the square. “The ambiance of the lights on the courthouse and around the square give a cozy, warm feeling to the evening,” says Ashlee York, Holton’s chamber director. “It’s an easygoing, unhurried way to kick off Christmas.” A performance outside the courthouse by a local dance studio leads up to the main…

FIELD STATION DINOSAURS Derby Take a dinosaur-themed family field trip on December 31 as staff at Field Station Dinosaurs introduce you to dinosaurs around the world. The daylong adventure begins at 2 p.m. with a presentation about the diplodocus. A new dinosaur is presented each hour, ending with a celebration honoring the geographic location currently marking the midnight New Year’s celebration. “We celebrate New Year’s every hour,” says park manager Garion Masterson. “We start a new activity, like the featured craft, in that hour block, and then once we get close to the time, we get everybody around the middle of the field station, and then drop the ball in the middle of the field station with a countdown from 10.” Games, hands-on activities, and music all relate to the…

Step back in time as you enter Crispin’s Drug Store Museum in Lincoln, Kansas—a re-creation of an 1880–1920 drugstore full of apothecary bottles, patent medicines, and a vast collection of druggist tools. It’s a museum that depicts a period when druggists were transitioning from medications made from seeds, barks, and roots to buying prepared ingredients and products, many of which were largely adulterated with alcohol and narcotics. It was a time in history, says owner and historian Jack Crispin, when medicine was greatly unregulated and people bought hope as much as a cure. Crispin, a retired pharmacist and graduate of the University of Kansas, founded and runs the museum free of charge to visitors. A fount of pharmaceutical knowledge, he shares anecdotes and explains historical perspectives as he divides medicinal…

THE ELDRIDGE HOTEL Lawrence In 1932, Bonnie and Clyde gang members stayed at the Eldridge Hotel in Lawrence to observe activity at the bank across the street in preparation for a heist. The building was the fourth and final hotel constructed on the site in what is now downtown Lawrence. In 1856, settlers sent by the New England Emigrant Aid Society to ensure Kansas enter the Union as a free state quickly built the Free State Hotel in this location to use as temporary housing while they built their permanent homes. That same year, the hotel was burned by proslavery forces; although quickly rebuilt, it then was destroyed in Quantrill’s Raid on Lawrence in 1863. Again, it was rebuilt in 1866 as one of the finest hotels west of the…