Kansas' 150 Birthday

the state of kansas marks its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary this month i'm kate mcintyre and today i'm katie are present we commemorate the kansas asquith centennial kansas won fifty how will you celebrate one hundred fifty years of statehood with everything from music to museums postage stamps to poetry will get plenty of ideas from people who are working to make this a special year for the sunflower state and every camper school kid knows kansas date is january twenty nine but one of the biggest events to mark the zest with centennial will come a day early at ten o'clock friday january twenty eight all eyes will be on the state capitol in topeka mary madden is the steak word nadir for kansas won fifty we now will have even on the south steps of the capitol and nine forty five the thirty fifth end country division band will be playing at ten o'clock we will have to fly over by case he won thirty five so

that will get people's attention and then we will have an honor guard present the colors of the governor and legislative leaders speak on the topic appropriate to the commemoration and the poet laureate carried miriam colbert will really special foam for that day and we have four can and hopefully and in the programme we won by the public to sing home and arranged which get hit again just a proper without singing state song so the whole event should last about thirty minutes and for those who aren't able to make it to topeka it will be broadcast live on our pbs affiliates in the state so watch your local station and you can participate they can to state department of education has also created the curriculum so we're hoping that teachers will take the time out of their very busy day to watch the program and then have a discussion about it history's civics government but

kansas means to them past and present and i can take care of a number of avenues to take the time to celebrate commemorate the anniversary of statehood so the events at the capitol are taking place at ten o'clock friday morning january twenty eight but that's just the beginning mary can you give us an idea of some other ways they can fans are commemorating the sets with centennial the town kansas went to the advisory committee which is made up of different state agencies week we've been working on ways to raise awareness of the one fiftieth now for a while and to some people may have already cemented their lottery tickets there's new state highway signs agency state agencies even in these kind of austere times we're using our core functions in our resources to make people aware that it is a time to be proud i love our our anniversary the oud and the best thing we did

is we created a website k s one fifty dot org that is a real grassroots website anyone can enter their calendar event anyone who is interested in sharing their resources whether they are at singer or a real actor and they want people to know about their talents they can listen online so that people putting on programs are looking for a speaker can contact them through that website so in that way i'm the last i looked at the calendar had about eighty events listed so far their coming into this imperious know the events don't have to be tied to the twenty nine and actually we're encouraging people to spread them out throughout the year looking back at the centennial in nineteen sixty one their big parade was in the summer so they didn't restrict it now we aren't having a big parade as exquisite and it's a little bit

different than a hundred year anniversary also the financial situation in kansas is in right now and the nation it's a time to reflect on our history and our people places and events but how we need to do it within moderation are resources out when he debuts on our best way we are there a couple of events that you'd like to highlight well selfishly i like how it an event here at the historical society on january twenty seven the stamp that was created by the us postal service for the anniversary was unveiled in september at the state fair and january twenty seven which is a thursday at ten am will be the first big issues ceremony the public is invited on governor brownback well be part of the program of representatives from the us postal service will be here it'll be assured ceremony and then afterwards ostensibly for sale and they're also

the first day the issue on the lobes it can be canceled for the stamp collectors and i gotta buy a book right away please very pretty what other but the very events or celebrations would like to highlight another program are doing which we hope to get out a lot of people involved in is bake a cake for kansas day and it can be any take any design or hoping to get a hundred and fifty takes made and photographed and put upon or flicker page we think it's a great way for anyone to be involved whether it's people at home in the families wanted to take advantage of the schools clubs and businesses that they couldn't bake a cake and down but picked up on the website on the foot ok and we're very fortunate that we live in this age of technology is the fact that this civic is a very special anniversary tour hundred and fifty eighth year it's

nice that we have the technology that the entire stay can be involved in these types of projects and to tell you mary i am hoping that i can convince my colleagues that kansas public radio to help decorating kagan wonderful wonderful look at that on our website perhaps yes well i think you know every buddy blah blah these cakes and i don't think we'll have any trouble people who made them even after attending especially the best now start ed burke expect we're hoping to have at least a hundred fifty point when integrative medicine more than that sounds like the talents of kbr listeners get baking so mary we can bake a cake we can go to the state capital we can buy a can to stamp are there any other special events they you'd like to mention on january twenty eight it is a friday and january twenty ninth a saturday were having a two day consisted celebration of the friday event is geared ct schoolchildren and governor brownback

has shown interest in coming out for that event as well will be a very busy man and kansas day and it will have to be cake and lots of activities or in his store go green actors that crack demonstrators programs performers and then that evening at six thirty were showing the wizard of oz oh it'll be free in our museum classroom and then on saturday will have a family day basically a lot of dick rapson performances are real actors i will be here on saturday a supplicant to injure themselves on friday and bring their families back to partake of more programming we're finding more celebration on campus that you know some of the bigger picture question as someone who's involved in that educational outreach know what does an event like this as the centennial

provide for you in terms of being able to to the horn of kansas and then asked a lot about why we do a commemoration and it seriously one forty nine one fifty there's not a whole lot of difference in those years but in our culture we recognize significant anniversaries twenty first birthdays fiftieth wedding anniversaries and so it's it's part of our culture to look at these milestones and and have a sense of wanting to i reflect to do something special and i think the best thing they can come out of this anniversary is that people will take some time in whatever their aunt or whatever venue or whatever blog are whenever cake dude just to reflect and be looking at that and what that means to them up without a discussion about how wonderful would be for young people to talk to

people in their community or their families even it's one item at the dinner table about what it was like to live in kansas years ago and to think about what the future kansas's so we're hoping that by raising awareness that there will be more interested in being against it and there's an awful lot to be proud of mary thank you so much thank you january twenty eight also marks the opening a special exhibit at the kansas museum of history one hundred fifty things i love about kansas i'm joined by bob kept highs and he's museum director for the kansas state historical society welcome bob thank you so tell me about this exhibit we are featuring a number of items from our collection not just a hundred and fifty there will be many more are facts in the exhibit but these are the hundred and fifty things that we think really aren't speak to us about how people not only perceive the state of kansas but also what kansas means to its inhabitants two

visitors are really to the world at large and that we have are facts not only a special exhibit gallery but our main exhibit gallery which chronicles kansas history from pre history up through about a mid nineteen eighties contains many artifacts of tremendous significance to kansas history and we don't want leave those out but there wasn't much going picking up part of the main gallery and go moving at over fifty yards and the special exhibit gallery so when visitors come to see a hundred and fifty things i love about kansas we will encourage them not only to explore the special exhibit gallery but also go into the main gallery and find those items we've identified as well part of the hundred and fifty things that we love so how did you select what a hundred fifty things you love about kansas it was tough to be a lot easier when we first came up with this it was like oh sure we'll pick other things but it really does get to be tough to to figure out what are those things and again we're wearer looking at the hundreds at things as highlights in our

museum these are not the one hundred and thirty most important things in kansas history because we dont think actually all of kansas history right you're using have obviously very good representation of kansas history but you know there are certain events and people are not representative our collection so we thought ok you're if you're looking at the museum collection and you really want to give people an overview of what kansas is ma di natale what it is what it means to be a kansan what things we pointed out so we went through the main gallery and look at those things that we have and we thought last spoke to that and then pick the items out of the collection that haven't been on exhibit well for some time and those will pretty much art form the basis of the special exhibit that will allow opened in late january and it will run through all of two thousand eleven so people will have an opportunity to see the exhibit ostrow two thousand eleven yeah so it was tough so we we tried

to get our minds around it we ended up forming it into eight sections and if you got another group of people together name it was completely differently it's it's kind of a wide open pallet you can do it almost anywhere you wanted so we came up with each i am defining themes that we wanted to look at and so we have the landscape we will we'll look at you different depictions of kansas will look at people as were sections the wizard of oz because that's how are known to buy so many people around the world are the wild west we're also going to have a section and dealing with kansas whether any we also have a section on some flowers is it is it was our first official state symbol and we are known as some clever statements on everything and our one on wheat as well but we stayed breadbasket world so with that sort of were reduced the big sections that we selected things to go

in to those sections and some of those that are around that represent those sections are in the main gallery's well it'll be an interesting way to talk about not only how kansas is seen by outsiders are how we see ourselves and we're asking people to comment on that there will be a video story booth in the exhibit were people have up to two minutes to come in and tell us what they love about kansas so we don't see this as we're telling you you know what's important at kansas we are telling hundred and fifty things that we love about kansas but that we want hear from our visitors we want to hear from the public know what you love about kansas know what you think makes a special what makes you uniquely a cancer or if you're visiting from out of state what your perception cancer so people will be able to go into this video story booth and just do a little two minute up to two minute clip tell us what they think or they can interview one another's were work we're sort of seeing it a little bit like npr story corps booth so we're hoping that we will get some intergenerational stories people can sit down and interview one another and i think we're very excited about the exhibit we're trying to build

a lot of interactivity and exhibit one that we're very excited about and it puts us we think pretty much cutting edge with a lot of museums were working with a company in wichita and we're developing a virtual storyteller station when people approach this kiosk they'll be of a glass panel that they will walk up to and there's an image projected on it is not a full hologram but it's got you know you'll see an image of a person on it from the waist up and we have a young woman who's our reader who will tell people will the kansas history and introduce three characters and that our visitors will be able to select from one of three characters to listen to his story from kansas history are one will be a woman who settled here during a kansas territory and she will tell a short story about what it was like to be in kansas are in territory on another will be hispanic immigrant who's come to kansas to work on the railroads in the late nineteenth early twentieth century shalit his story

in our third story is a young soldier stationed at fort riley in nineteen eighteen at the outbreak of the influenza pandemic course he's there and it doesn't know what's the pandemic it just knows they're dealing with this this disease outbreak so you will be able to walk up to this kiosk and select one of those three stories that sort of monoculture story than it reverts back to the grier who will then give you other bits of kansas trivia so it's it's over twelve stories mr booth and were really excited about it is the skin have a completely different look to anything else we've ever done we're going to have a number of videos impedes it when you walk in to the exhibit there will be it will be a video reading our interest rain that will have on canvas images on it we will have some well known people telling what they love about kansas so we all were we're very excited about the different possibilities we have for people actually come in an interactive exhibit rather than just an old house as you're describing some of these exhibits it strikes me

that this isn't just about kansas a hundred and fifty years ago exactly yellen's we figured if we just did an exhibit on kansas hundred and fifty years ago we put ourselves at sixty one and ewan at sixty one it was mainly the eastern part of the state no central western part of the state really hadn't been settled yet and we also want to celebrate everything about kansas and kansas has been here for thousands of years before eating sixty one before eating fifty four became a territory so we really wanted to look at what what is kansas and what is a cancer and we'll have the answer to that we have some suggestions are we are we don't have a definitive answer that so that we're hoping people will come and look at some of the stereotypes maybe turn around a little bit give us their feedback we're really hoping critically with a video story booth that some of the stories that we get out that will give us our research resources for the future but in addition the spot with this one but do you have

one item in particular that you especially love about him just you have a favorite wow wow city is going to have a tough one but you know i guess i had to pick one and we have a christmas card from a millionaire heart that's our hand drawn from shia has been and it will be on exhibit a will be the people section and it was a christmas card that amelia earhart and george putnam set out to their friends we got a donated to a several years ago and so cool to have this new hampshire on christmas card from amelia earhart and that's on exhibit in one of the cases out there actors and i just get chills every time i look at that and i think i probably have to go back on what how that is called critical so now we're in the special exhibit hall of the kansas museum of history in topeka and we're standing in front of a stop

sign that is battered and beaten but it looks like someone took a hammer to it yeah and what actually someone took to it was a tornado and that's it has two thousand seven tornado in greensburg is also emergency snow removal sign came out we also have one of their temporary street signs that they put up in greensburg following the tornado i was out there in august which was about three three four months after the tornado and i was supposed to consult with people to be well about their collections a huge number of us one out from the kansas museums association to help with that and i said ok i'll just meet a big well preside in greensburg twenty times and we will is and i got in greensburg and literally could not find my way around because they were known landmarks so they put up these temporary streets signs so people to find a way around greensburg and again at one of those every size to sell the exhibits well we have the us some artistic depictions of kansas there's a great painting by brad snead

called the bravest of assault as people heading for the storm shelter director nader this is from an illustration from a children's book that we all have in our collection you know have photographs we will have a photograph the first photograph of a tornado ever taken which is kind of a wispy looking one i was taken in eating at for instance that's very first depiction our photographic depictions of tornadoes will people be able to see that and we will also be running video footage of tornado chasers are on a video screen here were some people who come in and see actual footage of tornadoes an interesting literary character of that effort something new love about him yet is it i think sort of what we loved is kansans will still humans in the face of all this extreme weather we face now snowden had here the last few days and we we we get extreme weather in kansas and it now it can be dry and dusty it can flood like the fifty one flood how we are known for tornados and so young say we love about it what we love is now

how kansas deal with whether it's a photograph right in front of me that's really striking is from the dust bowl days can you describe it to me about this photograph is from our and dad city and it's a it's a farm scene got in the mid nineteen thirties and you can barely see the farmhouse because of the dust that has mounted up it's over the base of the windmill it barely see this farm for the dusty bits in there and that's one thing that kansans had to deal with a lot in nineteen thirty she says those days were just became dark at noon because the dust in the air and this is the aftermath of that if you didn't know better you'd think that this was a snapshot of a blizzard yes a new census is derisive dust a few years he didn't have that one and you know whoever wrote that on the nineteen thirties i it would think that that's a that's a big snow drifts blocking his house but that is all dirt and dust so what else do we have here the people section of a hundred fifty things i love

about kansas i think will be one of the most interesting because it's it's got such a variety in it are we have the suitcase and stuffed goose that was used by wiz of the trial one of the first children's local children's tv hosts in the northeast kansas and kansas city and pete area and hanging right behind that is a story cloth from the hmong people and these are our southeast asian immigrants who came to kansas are relocated here i am during a following in the emmys war and the long people's told their stories by depicting him on clawson so this is a story cloth showing about their escape from laos now and you see people crossing the river and it's just a very vibrant these vibrant colors in this is a very colorful think so that's in the same case we also have in this case a sword saber that was used by an officer and an african american regiment during the spanish american war alongside them

there's some dried and pottery so that the people section deals with a lot of different contributions kansans have made both famous and everyday folks that are things i like about this section so eclectic has so many different things in that this is a sector also has the helm christmas card from amelia earhart is right above amelia earhart christmas card is at les gets of carrie nation was done by albert reid topeka brown orders to cartoonist and he drew this if you how to test to see the exhibit a see her you'll see her work it it is black and that is a black eye that she got from a saloon keeper when she a busted up the us alone and she can to topeka to plead her case to the governor and that's how she appearance or read sketched her with her black eye very dramatic

sitting right from them is a pizza hut pete bank i thought he was the wolf a zaire now folks my age maybe a little older will i remember when pizza hut was just a red rough they actually had a mascot was that was pizza pete and then next to that is a crockery a bean pot from harm connie's mexico cafe in wichita and her family donate isn't the items from want and it's a mexican restaurant founded in which taught by hispanic immigrants and tells the story of an immigrant family coming establishing the stares wildly successful now a restaurant in wichita us we're very very happy to be able and those things the collection here just the past year or so the audience that would not normally be on display in the museum yes we have about a hundred and twelve thousand items in our collection and really only about fifteen percent maybe twenty and you know what the special exhibit is

are exhibited any one time and so this exhibit also given us an opportunity to bring some things out that we really like in the collection that we either didn't have room for more than just didn't fit into the overall story that we're telling the main gallery our main gallery exhibit sparkle kansas history from pre history and throughout the nineteen eighties band there's just simply isn't the space to put everything out so the special exhibit gallery changes out once or twice a year to highlight your story in a kansas obviously this year it's the hundred and fiftieth anniversary so were able to bring out a lot of eclectic things it would do with kansas so we're quite excited about it and we hope to gather more stories from people when they get out that's bob peck eyes and museum director for the state historical society one hundred fifty things i love about kansas opens at the kansas museum of history in topeka on friday january twenty eight it will

continue through december thirty first two thousand eleven one of the first organizations to celebrate kansas won fifty was that to piano symphony orchestra they kicked off this escrow centennial with a special can just be and cancer on january fifteen john strickler is music director and conductor of the topeka symphony orchestra he joins me in the keep your studios along with composer kurt meacham welcome think you're so don tell me about your kansas won fifty cancer now i realize that this year would be assessed the centennial of statehood i started thinking in terms of a program that would feature kansas artists kansas composers basically all things kansas and so various pieces came to mind and i was looking for my head and historical spurs standpoint as too what was the music of the of the period when kansas became a state

and i started looking around at what composers we could use and kirk meacham immediately came to mind because we have in our library the j hawk magic bird overture which the topeka symphony commissioned back in the seventies i believe and i contacted kirchen toll on the tour we're going to be doing this and he sent me a score of one of his pieces of genius of the great it would be perfect for this and we'll talk about that a little bit later but that ends up that our performance of that was the world premiere so everything on the program has a kansas connection one of the special things on the program at our selections from the kansas song project by tally chrome an and diane gill and water the kansas on project there was as a group of original songs about kansas topics are subjects most of more are historical are

based on an historical fact and eight to seventy songs and an overture were orchestrated by michael paul we had their acoustic band of banjo violin guitar fiddle with backup by that because symphony so it's a very different sound that the audience got to hear we also featured a work by charlie hallway professor emeritus from k u his pieces called the flint hills contours and it was his impression of the flint hills after having driven through them for twenty five years is actually going on and he should write a piece about this so we have all of this together on that had made for a really great program of course from either the real high lead to us being able to do a world premiere of kirk's newest piece from the heartland wonderful war widow great way to start out the whole fiscal centennial celebration yes we are first

time ice diamonds you're welcome we're also joined by kirk meets and he's the composer from the heartland weight had its world premiere with the topeka symphony orchestra last three kirk welcome back to the keep your studio and cure much so what was the idea behind from the heartland john called me one day and said where are going to have a program celebrating hundred fiftieth anniversary of kansas statehood do you have anything or would you think of writing something and it counted a double take because i had just been working on a piece for baritone an orchestra on four poems of mike my father was a very well known poet in his day and these poems or of about kansas and i had decided to call them from the heartland so i told john there and he said my gosh that's perfect it's just what we want to talk to me about those poems that were written by your father the

first word starts off with a kind of a humorous pull my father wrote a satirical poem called dust and they're all read the little preamble that he wrote to the us the other day and night in tripoli and about nineteen forty a new england paper ran a story about the dust storm years in kansas and so that was doubtful at the time of the state would survive them the west coast editor asked if anybody had checked on that lately since then similar remarks have been bandied about the country well my father was a native kansan as i am and he took offense at this one i just read was the i called us they recitatives at our ear and that what you just heard was the recitatives the aria begins like this it's true that we've been dusted time france us yet never

entirely so far as we know dead you know and it's very doubtful of death does really ever taste of dust i mean pure prairie dust hardly anybody in fact would tell you a dead unless he hailed from somewhere around new england are down east someplace fog bound near the ocean so you see this as a chance to have some fun in music the air at the same time to do really be kind of get some kind of kansas rhythms and there are some who was born in wichita and raised in topeka what's it mean to you to be part of the kansas us with centennial and that's why all it meant a lot to me but i'm just delighted that the use of that this piece has its premiere here and we're delighted to have you back in kansas as we celebrate our stuff with centennial kirk thank you for coming in today thank you if your taste in music

runs more toward rock n roll you might want to head over to manhattan next week and the kansas state university orchestra is performing with the rock band kansas best known for their hit songs dust in the wind carry on my way words sun and point of no return that cancer will be held at seven thirty friday night january twenty eight in mccain auditorium to get information is available at daddy daddy daddy you back a dash state dot edu slash mccain that's daddy daddy daddy died k dash state dot edu slash mccain another organization taking part in the sense the centennial is the kansas humanities council i'm here would julie mall the hell she's the executive director of the council welcome julie thank you can so how is the kansas humanities council participating in kansas one fifty kansas made council has really been involved in and play a name

and implementing programs for use by all kansans after the last year or so so we created a special kansas won fifty speakers bureau which is filled with i believe seventy one presentations about kansas anything from our history at idea is famous kansans anything that might provide some insight into what it means to be a kansan overtime and across generations so these on the speakers' bureau is available for organizations to use so yes that many talented faculty members and researchers and others from key you from k state from washburn fort hays you name it and they are willing to travel around the state and give presentations about the topics so that's one thing that we're doing very popular and i can say i checked our calendar and already in these senseless and to a new year of twenty eleven we have a hundred and nine events

happening across kansas and i expect that to be many more sign of them are happening on kansas day itself so if you're in bird city or burlingame be sure and stop by and you can see one of the the i can't as many scouts a speakers bureau presentations happening on kansas day itself so one of the things that we're doing another item that we are doing in commemoration of says cousin to know is are traveling exhibit and it's called kansans tell their stories this is a project that we've been working on since two thousand and four believe it or not we've been awarding grants funds to different organizations around the state to do oral history projects research projects museum exhibition projects anything that gives pause for communities to go back and take a second look at some of those voices and stories from their past that maybe haven't been told just yet so we put together a traveling exhibit we feature at these cancers stories ii and it's traveling i believe to

eight communities in twenty eleven in commemoration of these oscar centennial year so it kicks off in winfield next week and then it moves on their persons and then on to peabody and lucas and so hot and so forth and we're really excited because not only will those aid projects that we worked on the featured but we've encouraged to host communities person's focus from those to then create their own companion exhibit that tells their story so for example i had a great opportunity this evil persons was planning to it's up the person's public library and they have been doing a lot of research on oral history work on farming practices in that county beginning in the nineteen thirties hand on up into the present tag and so they're creating a companion exhibit that will add onto this kansans tell their stories exhibit and it's just a great idea that's one that we also do look and film discussions care and so on before this escrow centennial year we have a couple loaves book series ever traveling around

the state to look at kansas we have a brand new one called kansans one fifty odd and it will all be used here at the public library this spring to have to check that out we also have some discussions and they're made up of short films about different kansas topics that communities can use to kind of again spark ideas and prompt conversation among friends and neighbors about where their community is going again what stories have they told us stories have they not told how does it help us define what it means to be a cancer and how is that changed and how was that stayed the same know when you see a film discussions these are movies that you or i would have seen in a movie theater now correct most of the short films that are part of our our film discussions have been found to do canvassing and his counsel turf or grants program they're anywhere from ten to fifteen minutes long and they've been produced by professional filmmakers in

collaboration with local community organizations so for example there is one on clyde cessna that was produced by the queuing county historical society looking at as aviation pioneer with roots in kansas and so that's one that you would be able to see a little closer to home baldwin city in collaboration with baker university did this amazing shirt found about professor bauer who brought electricity to the city of baldwin and so they're little stories that we help again will provide inspiration and conversation all came from a sturdiness ask us into new year how do you as an organization encourages local communities to i take up the banner of commemorating our says with antonio one i found is that it didn't really take much convincing to get kansans onboard with thinking about this escrow centennial what we have found is that chances are

consistent kansas communities really have an interest in recognizing this thing that a scam says what that means our spirit our values our characteristics our history and certainly our future what does it mean to be a cancer and so i think that that's a language that is very appealing to our communities of any population so when we put out these resources people look for them and eight they take on them and so finding organizations to welcome and host our speaker's their speaker's bureau no is not a difficult task because it's something that they hunger for kansans have a curiosity about their state and their curiosity about their history and they're all concerned in some ways about how the future is going to play out in their small towns and in larger towns as well and so what we hope to the communities that provide in some of these opportunities they beat gann to use the lens of history of

literature of ideas as a laser to make decisions in their present day and to think about the future and that's something that all cans and that we ran across a really really interested and when i drive past due date in kansas was founded in some ways you know with big ideas you know and so we do have this rich native american heritage that we're very proud of and then of course bleeding kansas and we launch into the circle war and so tv users speakers' bureau as an example you know all those topics are being covered by some extremely talented scholars across the state so if you're interested in strict you know this this the red of time and ideas that's a good place to start so you can get information about eisenhower who said important cans and obviously you can also take a look at examining the rise of the little blue books in southeast kansas and sort of you know the coal fields in the history of mining that happens in our state so i think kansans have this

sense of responsibility in some ways to live up to these ideas of the past but it's very difficult to carry them out and so by providing these resources we won again of kansans an opportunity to not just reflect on the past but to think about it one of our board members talks about commemorations been a lot like recollection that what you wanna do is re collect these pieces of our past the stories of our past and so to line them up and have a chance to look at them individually and more importantly to kind of think about them as a whole and as you recollect the past he began to think about what stories are we not telling what stories have we told beautifully and lies about or so why does that matter i mean mick it's two thousand eleven who cares and fifty years now and i'm saying that tonnage you're a brilliant

book why does that matter sure i think if you're looking at this ask listen to know as only a dinner find those things that happened a hundred and fifty years ago you really only telling half the story because i think commemorations give us a place to think ahead so we use the lands of the past these ideas some that work some that didn't sound kansans that were successful those that were communities aren't that were wildly successful and those that failed and you use that as a jumping off point to say ok we've reached this milestone it's a date in time what do we want to happen next and that's where it's really important to use the humanities the lens of humanity's history at is philosophy to kind of want to have her of you know ok now what we do where do we go from here what traditions heritage ideas values do we want to carry forward into the next hundred and fifty years and i would say if you're

only looking back you not seen the full picture you have to project that far apart juliet asked why it's one way of our youth memory every day recess cause they don't know than the opposite they can see many discounts i have to say it that we've been working on this for at least a year year and a half and so i'm constantly reminded an amazed by the depth love the knowledge that our scholars bring to the to the topic i don't want to underplay that in anyway we realize so much not only on arkansans be interested in learning and talking about our history and our ideas and our philosophies and all that stuff by we have this wealth of knowledge in our state that is incredible we could not do it without faculty members without researchers without authors who are so willing to share their knowledge with the rest of

us and so i just want to say that that collaboration between the scholarly community the scholarship that gives us the facts in the ideas and houses with interpretation is critical to understanding why this is important for listeners that want more information about activities that are going on the easiest place to go would be our website kansas humanities dot org julie thank you so much and happy says doesn't in your view to your listening to hey pee our prisons on kansas public radio i'm kate mcintyre if you've just joined us we're talking about kansas won fifty the state's asquith centennial and ways that you can mark this milestone if your reader commemorating the cessna centennial may be as easy as the visit your local library or a bookstore my next guest kieran miriam goldberg is poet laureate of kansas welcome karen thank you so much for having me today so carrie how are you marking are assessed with centennial

well several ways one is that i set up a web site called one hundred and fifty kansas palms and it's one hundred and fifty kansas palms that were pressed outcome which will feature over the course of the year about a hundred and fifty kansas thompson a surprise and i'm trying to put up their variety of poetry featuring people who either lived in the state or are expats in other words you're always welcome back so that way we have a lot of different voices how you selected as poems i've put out the word wide and farhad end and people some things and then basically my criteria is just for palms that feel very alive on these vivid fresh language help us to see where we live in a way that maybe is a little bit dear friend from the stereotypes are from the ordinary ways we've been trained to see i'm not seeking answers karen could you share a couple postpones that you've selected free website i would

love to and the website again is one hundred and fifty just the numbers one five though kansas palms that were pressed outcome this poem is by kevin raye does and i really like it because it just takes us into a community into a few people and how they respond to every day life as a great title too it's called we read at the old b chicken house behind glass there's a copy of you can almost new boat docks across the man an older woman and her husband clean their way to the counter pay with cash the bill's old and crumbled and greene and ask about the book the kid behind the counter who looks like the town quarterbacks as i don't write that annoyed heck i don't know and the old couple walks on go home along the way mentioning books they do you know

and love and read and then slumped in peace sleep on their lazy boy as the tv snow the book's held in their laps the reading lamps still on and kevin raye bess at co directs the creative writing program at emporia state university his latest book is lisa's final lecture piano and actually kevin was featured on keep your prisons just a month ago for having the pope chosen as one of the kansas notables i guess yes and it's just a wonderful little palmer puts us right in place our i love the ending image of the reading lamps still on kanis had up on that they wanted to recommend to you for the kansas one hundred fifty pounds how they go about doing that well they can certainly go to this web site it's one five though kansas bombs that were pressed dot com and click on guidelines and that will tell them

everything they need to know and i am also an email that they can send it to a compound and i'm basically looking at homes all year long and just saving certain things for certain seasons and trying to find ways to represent a wide view of kansas through poetry what do you think they're a poet can land or that poetry can lend to a commemoration like the first centennial i'm glad that you asked that i think most of our perspective in a way i am it's an interesting situation to celebrate the hundred and fifty or so you know but here we are state has a hundred and fifty years old while the land has been here for thousands and thousands and thousands of years and has been for all kinds of iterations and we've had an inland ocean we had glaciers and we've had people who have lived here long before the tribal people that

we even know about adam and we've had many species that have come and gone and poetry in general what i hope that it can do for people at the very least and that the most is to help us continually expand our horizons expand our perspective poetry is a way of seeing on with a wider view open enough peripheral vision so that you can notice what's at the corner of your edge of sight and that makes life much much much richer you start to see how much is happening how much is alive and in your own place in it all which gives you greater perspective on how to live i'm talking to karen miriam goldberg poet laureate of kansas about her one hundred fifty kansas poems project karan has written her own poem especially for this escrow centennial city reading at the state capitol on friday january twenty eight two thousand eleven but she's agreed to give us

can sneak peek this is called celebrate this kansas celebrate the sky this land beyond the measured time that tilts the seasonal i dreamed the return of the star as the searing rise of heat or fall of storm crossing and through the secret holding seekers and witness rocks for thousands of years the air we breathe belong to those he spoke languages forgotten as the glaciers caspian the riches the fields we walk once rushed in ocean long after long before what we know is matt time this rain was once a man's last breath this heat what warm to whether it's rock enough for a woman to rest on with her baby these fossils once love song it's a memory and longing after the beloved stuy everything we know of kansas comes from this river is aching east after

scouting out and blinding their mark through the horizons of grass sky's smearing orange to black men to sun hail to pale breeze ready to give us everything like any true heart always see the ghost an angel of the lambs slightest touch a trail through the prairie a hard rain in the words beyond may mean and yet named step into where you already are where once the grandmothers and grandfathers sang out their stories of weather and loss war and birds the bones of this land in the feathers of the sky composed this kansas that knows us better than we know ourselves that is always ready with wind sham or falling grasses and stone routes to show us what it means to live where the earth and starts converge that celebrate this kansas by curator marion

goldberg thanks so much for syrian cup oh my pleasure what sharon aaron goldberg is collecting one hundred and fifty kansas poems the state library of kansas is collecting one hundred fifty kansas books were a bird is director of the cantor center for the book at the state library of kansas high roi so the state library of kansas is about to release a list of one hundred fifty quote unquote best kansas books what kind of criteria do you use when you're trying to make such a list the criteria was very simple significant aspect of the book actually to kansas mike the fiction telling the story about characters or sending kids as it might be about its culture its heritage or my be historical that nature it could also be a book that was written by recognizable author could clearly be identified with kansas are called canceled purpose for

one hundred and fifty books list is to raise awareness of kansas books and authors also to highlight of authors write about our state and to encourage kansas residents to use their local academics cooler public libraries and the reason behind that was even if a book is no longer a library is a place where you could i get most public libraries and they have something like a kansas collection or a particular section of the library which contained campus books and if they don't have the book you can also requested a vibrant world and ask for them to check because it probably somewhere there's a reason i think that is because we open this to the public and we we asked for folks to use that criteria that i mentioned earlier

and send him suggestions are we get then to be honest it i was concerned that we have my body would give as a trait that we gotta watch more than that and that we have to look at wal mart those submissions and their criteria to make the final selection so i will have one hundred and fifty books that oh very very we have at their children's books there are young adult books there are vocal books there were scholarly books there are fiction works they're you know anything imaginable and that's true of characters if you look here you'll see that kansans have been involved in almost every as both of you wouldn't ever and that's true for the riders as well what i'm looking forward to

that list and i'm having a lot of good reading in the year ahead right let's talk about another project that the state library has been involved with i have really enjoyed reading the blog that you guys had put out set kansas won fifty blog was the brainchild of one of our staff people here will sour senate bill is that in our reference division he's in a library catalog or charge of state documents and a couple years ago two years ago is rare that bill and a couple other reference staff started putting out what we call the katy i brought here us government information law and look at our book it's been extremely popular and their every two weeks lists sites that have something to do with kansas governor something that the camps government does for individuals around the state that we know very well we sleep and when we first began

talking about what we could do for kansas won fifty four the specificity deal phil said well i'm doing the katy of book every two weeks what about an alternate weeks i do a kansas won fifty pop and he's done a remarkable job with that they cover history takeover culture use the geology literature and and during the first year some of the more popular ones the wizard of laws that was extremely popular one that caught a lot of attention so was the one that khost province was awarded the irrigation lot of georgia know about carrier prohibition perspective these quilts and quilters was a very popular one and remarkably musically speaking when it generated a lot of interest was a lot about cancers but they are so those are some of the ones that have been popular so for now we're expecting a lot more than

me and many of the abused for for not only for entertainment but for research purposes meet for those listeners that haven't yet come across the canvas one to the blog where would they find out what that website kansas won fifty f l k dot blogspot dot called dances what fifty fifty ok for state library of kansas dot blogspot dot com right thank you carrie so you can read a canvas but reid i canvassed poem that a historical lecture baker birthday cake visit a museum go to the state capital by a postage stamp however you choose to mark the campus as the centennial i hope to basically pierre presents has given you some ideas for more information go to pay as one fifty one k macintyre kbr present is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas

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