Lawrence Promoters & Hometown Teams

haitians today and kbr percent of lesser known camp of history i'm kate mcintyre and on today's program we revisit lawrence's all black basketball team the promoters this week the watkins museum of history is hosting a night of remembrances by the promoters coming up we'll hear from two of those half of our players now in their eighties will also hear about a traveling smithsonian exhibit on for hometown teams have currently making its way across kansas is now in cleveland it would be moving to greensburg next month after then in june and perry obvious later this powerful awful mark national poetry month by remembering walt whitman's visiting campus in seventy nine and that effort to get his autograph back to our state from the nineteen twenties until nineteen forty ninth lawrence like many towns had to go back one all white the other all black the

promoters had its own cheerleaders its own pep club and unlike the white lawrence high school lyons no bus transportation to away games this week several of the large high school promoters will be featured at a special panel discussion on high school basketball in the days of jim crow steve know that is the director of the watkins museum of history in downtown lawrence which is hosting the promoters a van steve as always it's great to see you thank you could be here tell me what the watkins museum has planned for thursday april twenty third oh the promoters event as an opportunity for people of lawrence to hear from former members of the promoters basketball team an african american basketball team that existed in the time when segregation was a way of life in lawrence and that it provided an opportunity for her students who wouldn't be able to play basketball in the lord high school varsity system it gave them a chance to have to compete on the basketball court and that really was an effort

that brought together owe the african american community coaches a whole range of people in the community in order to provide this opportunity on our program will give people a chance to explore that a little known part of florence's history you just about something i was just get asked about this little known part of florence's history when he first came to your attention that once high school had an all black basketball team were you surprised as i was yes it was surprisingly lawrence going back to the very founding of the community was this anti slavery community and you imagine that after the civil war and an and as time went on that those attitudes would have it engendered a kind of equality across the community and instead lawrence was pretty much like every other place was as the twentieth century progressed and ended there were examples of segregation and discrimination right here

in lawrence in the promoters is one of those examples am many towns have teams like the promoters are segregated exactly and they played each other they have to take a long bus rides to get to then use that will allow these are the students to play they had to find ways of getting uniforms and equipment because the official aquaman any reforms of the school teams they were not allowed to use what type of those items do you have at the watkins museum about the promoters unfortunately we don't really have a lot of archival material this is an area of lord sister were we would love to collect a but what we do have are a number of large high school yearbooks that show on the show the teams in that in the end the photos there it's interesting because sometimes they are added with the other sports teams and sometimes they're all put at the back of the book i know a number of african american student clubs in different sports teams the promoters had their own cheerleaders they'll show up i'm going to have a special section and

in in your books not consistently some years leave them out by wheat that's really all we know about the lore about the promoters on this from these these photos that we can see the team photos of your books if we have listeners who were promoters or members of the red peppers their pup <unk> our leaders or or maybe just went to their games and have items how would they go about letting you know about that are worth adding that to your collection the easiest thing to do is call the museum it's a four one four one zero nine and just mentioned to the person answers the phone that they have some collections materials they think we might be interested in and i'll talk with them or were they can talk with our curator britney keegan and will find a little bit more about what they have and see if it would be a good fit for a collision i know when i think of a museum like the watkins museum i think of items that you have items on

display but more and more museums are really delving into oral history as an important part of your collection talk to me about what it is you can get from an oral history that you can't necessarily get from say a yearbook well the art effects that you talk about are the core of every museum collection but what you what we draw meaning from with those artifacts is the story that goes along with them and you know knowing about the circumstances of the promoters and who played on their team we can pull that from from the yearbook or what the state of their equipment might have been like from a uniform or from the basketball one oral history allows us to do is collect of the story disassociated from an artifact and it's usually a much more complete story there are only so many things you can discern from a basketball unless someone wrote down a story about the game that was used in are or who i belong to those oral histories allow us to collect that story and make that a part of our

collection i understand why kids' museum is doing this in connection with a traveling exhibit from the smithsonian museum on home team sports tell me about why rolls sports hands in building a community what sports is something that really brings people together and it's a source of interest a source of community pride it's a way for people to associate around a common interest so that gave the connections between different sports teams in the community happen all over the place they happen all throughout time and lawrence especially in a college town as a real affinity for sports and we're celebrating this hometown teams program as a partner institution we don't don't get an opportunity to host the exhibit at the smithsonian has put together but through the kansas humanities council they've allowed a number of other organizations and institutions to sign on as partners either to do an exhibit or like we're doing

which is that our approach a little different from most of the other partners were celebrating the connections of sports and more it's only with a series of programs and the promoters is the kickoff of that series we are also looking at different sports in lawrence through other kinds of presentations we're going to look at the women's baseball team softball teams in the bloomington clear lake area we will also celebrate lawrence's interest in sort of offbeat sports today with sports day at an exhibition game day in june june twenty second i think as we're working with the city will have at the east once recreation center on a day long demonstration of things like which and pickle ball and all sorts of stuff that's great so for people that are coming to the promoters of them on thursday night april twenty thirteen what can they expect

well it's an opportunity to hear history first hand it will be an opportunity to learn about the experiences of these team members it from them you know their own recollections and then you know as the moderator built tunnel will help people understand a fuller picture of what life in lawrence was like at the time how segregation impacted the community and i think people were really come away with a much deeper understanding of this this up part of florence's history you know it occurs to me that one thing about sports is we often think of sport as existing in a vacuum like its teams playing other teams and there's a game and there are rules and it's just sports and yet those sports don't take place in a vacuum they are a reflection of what's happening in the world around them well how many places use ej hawks in there in lawrence

i mean you get the sense that the whole community is connected at the grocery store or walking down the street in on people's t shirts have everyone is making some sort of connection to some favorite team or favorite sport steve that people will find out more about the upcoming promoters a band where do they have they can call the museum at seven eight five eight four one four one zero nine or they cannot look at our website which as watkins museum dot org and if promoters or members of their pep club have items that you might be interested in or that they might be interested in donating they can also cause it that what's called museum gas gray well good luck with your upcoming event they stay again that's steve know that director of the watkins museum of history in downtown lawrence the watkins museum is hosting a panel discussion the lawrence promoters high school basketball in the days of jim crow on thursday april twenty third this event is free and the public is

invited one of the promoters who will be on hand april twenty third is leonard monroe he stopped by the kbr studios last week to talk about his time as an la jazz promoter as air forty four in nineteen fifty four nineteen forty four nineteen fifty and you played for the promoters are three years fourteen four and i see the integrated in nineteen fifty so talk to me about the promoters always that experience like rosemary liane there was all black of course you had only these kansas lee ne gala colored and we had bested joseph team from there was all that came from atchison topeka kansas city article as it races down there and that's so you played one cs is they have a team of beating and at a moment maybe ten were you in a team or the team as i'm eighteen and carrie what position did you play for excellent your favorite

memory play basketball with the plotters are very rare would be i guess like your home team win their home games that met own cheerleaders who was one of his great for business or and that courts are trips now chorus and a bus is not like that that they kiss on our trips mom my brother and his friend it took a solar gains at this intensity to begin they've oversold our games the rewrite moved to bozeman like this play when you were on the promoters to do you think there's something not fair about this horse that easily were is over though is that way was segregated it was always a good <unk> am much about it you know and then in nineteen fifty the integrated and the airlines as on the first black lions on the more citing small

was that like wow see that as nothing about that in september and in the operation and a car goes in football same operation in september i was going start of operation so i couldn't really primal football and in the compactor basketball season i went out for basketball but i couldn't cut stop and i'll discuss that they get a deal is the best work there and there is an alliance soul i put the lions bears cavorting on their what they caught city league teams and we had a lot of these identity for their city in real games and now so ago came the wolverines a new image of a poem literally come in a room and real and when i did that the good shape or tractor that women may portray it was the track team integrated oh yes this funny thing football and track was integrated women basketball

do you know why it led to the integration nineteen fifty why it was that they did away with the promoters of the point i guess they just changing it is surely integrated basketball say put boatright was always an integrated but not basketball for some reason was there any resistance on the part of the promoters that now you're going to do away with that scene and be part of their balances lions team are up he was going to say really miracles riyadh of our great guys and things like that and we won that any kale jam she won your diet or chance here one year with being really integrated course that in the promoters this is like a step a real bassa body must have my leg back and shea porter and says while i'm putting a meal when you

put the promoters was the audience for the spectators where they'll block her ordered white students skew wasted and their will to get there one year this is a letter m forty nine with a medicine for a championship in that family and then over yet the john simon is a precedent because i was as classmates no sign his younger brother and he came up to him some of basil came up their sin what have been attempts to me as european shores a big development and i'd say wood and raise at segregation like in the mean ice cream parlor so this week announced they would unload the writers unlike their images images used to tough demand that their red peppers they worked at issue or is alive and my sister went on mr franzen made it and which is a great cheerleaders a lot of

fun lot of fun that bars as their main basketball coach he is on the tv truck i think like that was the tough on you guys well yeah i guess so i mean you know is practiced so i would do in eternity pretty good about a lesson that players are mccain though on our payment to the forest they were really pretty good tell me another favorite memory you have of playing on the promoters remember one lone know it was a game or practice and credibility a man or anything or names is a sinner ok you want to and ed commando and we're only a more practical use or one among the same images now is what it was just surreal i met your aussie i don't really know leonard monroe played on lawrence's all black high school basketball team in nineteen forty eight and nineteen forty nine he'll be at the watkins museum of history on thursday april twenty

third for a panel discussion on the lawrence promoters high school basketball in the days of jim crow in just a minute we'll hear from one of his teammates james barnes but first the april twenty third event will be moderated by a bill title he's a retired american studies professor at the university of kansas and one of the old line you work for the black and there were these four percent of voters and voters which was an unusual and this has fascinated me and another example i'll lawrence normally throws of the civil war and the best to get it for you for formerly enslaved people really really radical abolitionist movement and so it was quite appalling really the writer of the nineteenth century that at the beginning of the twentieth century lawrence was a segregated in some ways has been his

veto and so the fact that there was one because isn't warranted at sixty five in reconstruction at age seventy seven free black and who insurers at eighty two during the twentieth century the town's population was about twenty five percent black and now it is under five but it was a very interesting character study especially because in the face of discrimination and exclusion black funeral institutions run businesses and that is very interesting so i'm assuming that they generally played other african american team situation on the school's it was in one of the flaws was that the guy and on the

line who recorded it in a very significant basketball coach he was elected very much attuned to the civil rights movement and what he thought would happen so we want to see that's for cause the kinds of you know we would have routinely return it and every caucus and you're right again bill title is a retired american studies professor at the university of kansas he'll be moderating the april twenty third event at the watkins museum of history in downtown lawrence if you were lawrence high promoter one of their cheerleaders or a member of their pep club the red peppers the watkins museum is looking for you it's not too late to get in on the april twenty third of then you can contact the watkins museum at eight four one four one zero nine also if you have promoters or red peppers memorabilia that you're interested

in sharing at the april twenty third event or donating to the museum they love to hear from you again their phone number is eight four one four one zero nine you can also find them online at watkins museum dot org and on facebook i'm kay mcintyre you're listening to k pr presents on kansas public radio james barnes played on the lord's high school promoters in nineteen forty nine along with leonard monroe and bill title he'll be at the watkins museum of history on thursday april twenty third for the lawrence promoters high school basketball in the days of jim crow i had a chance to visit with mr barnes earlier this week those last year of the pro morsi was nineteen forty nine thousand and i worried a junior high in nineteen forty nine and so that

was a woman only year that i got a chance to play with the promoters because in nineteen fifty they integrated that james so you played on the promoters of the ninth grade and then tenth grade as employed you can plan allies has maintained and walls in one they integrated the team they only let one are too much is a play on the team with the way it is and there's just a mess where it was for forty years i remember when we were over and he was one of the ones i was picked course he was wrote all but the other black tears to have played on the promoters say laid out in a mirror are wooden canoe to build and play pickup basketball or order or some are more now for football and someone offer trite but i didn't play football record for turks so that one year was my layers your boredom as school sports

survive city feel i'm seated and anyway they are your basketball team had disintegrated in and without as many options well matt really this nobles larcenous come out the way it was we work you work i used to be in security and there's a lot of days you weren't allowed to do and so when the only two lovers was allowed to play on the team we figured that was kind of a moral victory if if nothing else at least there were two people out there it's interesting you that you took from that that this is a moral victory really say where is my reaction was life will sue we were you know we lost our team and now with so few of us get to actually play devil's andover nineteen forty miles willis your local promoters basketball team set your recollection playing with them with the promoters lot though there was a lot of fun when alma mater of their wounds

there was four of us but do great things it was myself charles newman fill a point and five will and i am as far as i know we're all still live in with the exception of philip why he that's what the others are still alive as for the mole and one and as a ninth grader was that a pretty heady experience getting to play and the promoters of the older guys for the moderate course adding to teach them my greatest didn't get a chance to play on a team we played they had to tame said i'm a team of beating so all the ninth graders in and some of the other lower class mice a tenth grade they played on the beating so be kind of equivalent to the ad the junior varsity you know it's a moral issue in my gaming you the remember our former prime edition the teams from the other schools

like topeka and the atchison and see there was artie colds but upbeat dr became a quiet way of a lot of it is from male of the other towns scarcely to become a lot of people in topeka an o and a few in an axis of and leavenworth tommy this did you ever play against a white basmati law oh when we welcome orders within wood in play against white teams we need a scrimmage against the bill in the lower side team roy never had in them when there was crime is against them that i know of the server any type of like you know why dont wait while we were below two book they weren't about to let that happen because of weird accidentally be a domino effect if there were little rule will do you remember when the team's integrated any sense of resistance on the part of the white players

oh i don't really know i'm sure they weren't real crazy about it and i think that's a reason why the only one or two blocks away they would not let any more than a ploy and that was this is the memoirs i used for a long time after that there was never very many blacks on marseilles basket voting and there was hardly over two blocks up there on the floor to same time their memories of your your one year with a promoter or remember we see we practiced our practices that was after the leeway to its practice they weep or so a lot of times by the time we get out of practice that would be a nonprofit my anomaly been our hearts and marcos didn't have a car so that meant walking home across a brazen wintertime which i was used to it didn't bother me that much back in those days but i head out if i'm a mom offered he played on a team so

we both live in our large so as someone to war with overnight in a lot of times we would stop at the community building and watched basketball they had basketball danger to community don't merit a couple black teams there were adults but they were but basketball teams won was a woody is aces and one was green gables of five and we'd which topped thirteen once employed which i was going to do because this one phil from the law's name martin molin heroic or fancy hats and the plan would give a rogue rosenberg i wondered if that was a good team can have a ride home to a simple mr barnes thank you so much for coming in to talk to me about this today thank you james barnes played on the lawrence high school promoters in nineteen forty nine he'll be at the watkins museum of history on thursday

april twenty third for their event the lawrence promoters high school basketball in the days of jim crow again this event is free and the public is invited i'm kate mcintyre you're listening to k pr prisons on kansas public radio the promoters and then is part of the kansas humanities council project on hometown teams how sports shape america the watkins museum is vague partner site for hometown teams along with sin in cottonwood files eudora kansas city won me go and many other towns that are hosting local exhibits and programs on sports in addition six kansas towns are hosting a traveling smithsonian exhibit on sports tracy quillin for the kansas humanities council tells us more with a kansas humanities council has a partnership with the smithsonian institution's museum on main street

program and that's a program that brings smithsonian traveling exhibitions to small towns and rural communities in kansas and former all the smithsonian put a cap on twenty thousand people population so wavy i'm hometown teams it's a national exhibition it's going to be ending is currently touring six communities in kansas it was an alan ladd to open eyes now and could lend and it will move on to greensburg acheson perry and humboldt through november two thousand fifteen the smithsonian exhibition looks at the wayne that sports are a part of our culture how they're an indelible part of our culture how our communities unite around our hometown teens and so the smithsonian's looking at the next national story this story the bride quote cultural impact that sports

have on american society so there is a section that looks antsy rituals of ball games like why we sing the national employment the start of ball games and never thought about that before why do i had in there anyways in nineteen eighteen they started doing it had during world is long lines to honor the veterans from world war one and it's a tradition that stuck aren't so the exhibit isn't just about sports it's about sports and our communities and and who we are as a society right a sense it's an exhibit that is in partnership with the humanities council and we were there when a lot of that topics except sports through the lens and the community is and so we're looking at pains white house for its shape our lives how in an ideal situation in from sport you learn things like fair play and teamwork and those thirty american values but we also look at things that we have to look at sports another

way to him that not everybody loves sports in the same way say these two sides that frequency is very typical but one of the great things about this program is a bad the smithsonian exhibit we know that winnie exhibit comes to town to these small towns it is a big drop people get very excited there's lots of visitors people was his smithsonian exhibit but what the qantas humanities council also does we provide an opportunity for the local hosts of the smithsonian exhibit to do their own exhibitions telling their local sports stories and they identify the story they want to tell and we support that story to be told to help them bring that exhibit to life and so what happens is people will come to see the smithsonian but they will stay and linger and talk about that local exhibition that's where the picture of their grandfather is in

his basketball uniform or that's where they're a pee wee team lines and these things we know can be really really powerful really pleased that the diversity that we're seeing in some of the local exhibitions that are planned by our communities can you give me an example has her own lead in barton county just hosted hometown teams am in january through march and to date as a companion exhibit called heroes on the sideline and they didn't focus on athletes or the coaches they focused on the people that make the sports happen in their communities it's that people like the announcer for the high school football team or the eighty year old man who played every single pep band concert on his drum or of the last super fan who quite good stats and so does at every high school team in telling what high school going back to the early nineteen hundreds and there are photos in their statistics

the people that made the booster dinners the boosters for the teams or the paramedics that our hand in case there's an injury a football game they honored those individuals and that exhibit and one of the things i think is real leave striking is how emotional that was because these people are very day in day out and for a lot of them it's a kind of thankless jobs thankless job they're not in it for recognition they're in it for the love of their community and the love of the game and the love of the athletes and so when we look at it from that perspective that's exactly what hometown teams is about it's those stories are how we all come together it's c unite over that common bond of sports and ritual and community talk to me about the logistics of actually getting the exhibit from one place to the other and what does that look like when the smithsonian exhibit blocks and the rear location of the centers are in the exhibit about eighteen to twenty crates that are shipped from washington

dc and we do as a state wide installation workshop with every host at the very first cites everybody learned how to put together we have a wonderful partnership with the katherine museum in north newton and they ideally actual transporting of the exhibit from location location but it's daunting proposition when you have all of those carts on wheels that roll into your facility and it all goes together at the clicks together in goes in place and all the hosts received training from the smithsonian staff and how to put this exhibit together and once it's up it looks great and then they put their own exhibit installer on exhibit in addition to that too along with a host of them as there are also a number of partner cites can you describe the difference between a good host and their partner for hometown teams sheriff when we

put a call out for organizations to host the smithsonian exhibit as you would imagine we get many more applications to host than we have slots for and as we read applications for hometown teams is we read them out there was so many wonderful stories to tell and we've expanded the opportunity to those organizations and others and communities are warrants which would have been eligible to house the smithsonian and for that because the studios today to become partners sites and what a part or states does is they build off that theme of hometown teams and they developed their own local exhibition or public programming or oral history project that deals with with the theme of hometown teams in sports in their community and so where do you get that is in addition to those six hosts sites you get an array of other communities across the state that carry that conversation statewide so we have a total twenty five partners each who are doing some topic on sports now through november laurence

being one of them with the prisoner is exhibit and public programmes yes and that allows other communities to sort of get in on the fun and the excitement without actually being our host of the site's yes yes gastric because for some communities they're facility might not be large enough or that you know there's a variety of other reasons and maybe they're just not they wanted you needed at the smithsonian might seem a little overwhelming for this is a great opportunity to get them involved and hear their stories because we found that those local stories are the ones to resonate and a couple of the local stories in addition to the lord's promoters or that they're being told as not to give them always to the people through the cd aptly rapids historical society into rapids their exhibit is on the nineteen thirteen exhibition game that took place between the new york giants and the chicago white sox a blue rapids in blue rapid kansas

rapids kansas two major league teams that played in rap and kansas in nineteen thirty why have been hacked because the the activism but let me just as they had a lot to do with community involvement and that plea rapids wanted that game and how they got this spring the gay marriage what happened when the game came it's the stuff that books and movies are built around its it's a great story and the story of that is really appropriate for this time you're of baseball season is independence in southeast kansas they posted the first night games in the history of organized baseball back in nineteen thirty so there's been i think and the importance of those local baseball teams those town team baseball teams and just baseball as a pass time are so important so those small towns in the us that these

milestones happened in kansas and a lot of them i had no idea about that they're just they're there for us to learn about and it's really great to see these communities exploring the part of their history tracy what role do you think sports plays ghana building a community especially maybe a small town community i think sports are important because they helped us form a sense of identity now we can rally around our local team our team colors we would travel through small towns in kansas well a lot of times he'll you'll notice if you get it or small local person this is where the football stadium is those are the old girl the remarks of communities and you also hear the stories of our boys were to stay our girls are the state volleyball chance and those are sources of pride so it's a way for us to tell people about ourselves and a cardinal fan or a mad royals fan i'm a whatever your small town teenage

that's that's a way to have community pride it's a really visible thing are your boys and girls are going out and they're competing against other towns and they are bringing with them the values of your community and all of that fanfare so i think sports play a really important role especially in small towns and in our communities but in small towns it's it's really vivid and it's really immediate the role they play the town's the hometown teams you're talking about they're not necessarily professional teams we're talking about high school teams little league teams he had a smithsonian exhibit really looks at those hometown teams those non professional teams of amateur teams they do talk about at professional sports to predict more and have the impact that individual team participates in or support of local team's hands on individuals in their community and the things that

we learn about ourselves when we could just paid and sports oregon when we support our sporting teams or ricotta team sports is nearly everywhere in the big and small moments of the human experience and another thing i'm counting is done by you looking at those small town teams are hometown teams or are pretty patient in sports aren't looking at the coaches use a sports as a way to track changes over time and across generations and that to mean gender in race and in our culture and it's really striking that you can have nothing in common with your neighbor but if you both like the same sports team or play on the santana same team appears as though really striking story lyons and race county

where there were the ivory tip from the trading card earns the mexican american fast pitch softball really florist and housing cheney's they grew up around the local salt mines alliance can sense and rays can eat and in the nineteen fifties a gentle minimized and how morales it's another local man wonderful meeting to play and they wanted to play against other kansas towns and he meets him up for themselves we could be and diabetes or the brown and whites and it was because of their part mexicana in part a lao membership of their team and i was in the fifties that there's a way to come together across the beats and perceived cultural boundaries to form a team and represent their town so that's just one of the temples of how the power of hometown teams that makes me think about my own hometown where there's a large czech immigrant population while it they were immigrants back into the nineteen twenties and thirty even and a lot of

them formed i am czech athletic groups and teams as a way to sort of foster they air their own identity while they're trying to assimilate and so they get really had had a dual function of making those recent immigrants feel at home but also connecting in the community in a way it's a way pretty okay but still have your peers with you have you when you're on a teen you have a teen with you you're not in it alone but you're also out there you're traveling to new places or coming into contact with new people and that's away at you to become part of the culture so hometown teams in in sports teams in general i think played a larger role on there's an ethical coming to realize how much of a role that they've played and are still playing throughout the country especially in kansas tracy do you have a

couple of favorite items that are part of the hometown teams exhibit and there's some really fun went out one of them ye and in the smithsonian exhibit there's a section on how sports are so prevalent in our culture that you see them everywhere so they have on display a adam us soccer barbie doll there have been bad air jordans and wheaties boxes which are just as iconic symbols it just has so i am but as a kansas now i have to say i'm pretty excited about the cutest things that are featured in the hometown teams exhibit and that includes there is talk of a kansas missouri rivalry very famous rivalry james naismith is mentioned in the national exhibition and allen fieldhouse is also highlighted international exhibition so does her items there travel all over the country not just here in kansas

but those are part of their traveling smithsonian exhibit that right now is winding its way through hands as that also goes to other parts of the country rights as they had when the smithsonian team of curators went to look at what are some important notable sports rivalries the kansas missouri rivalry rest at the top ain't about when they were looking for iconic sports cathedral of allen fieldhouse is one of the ones mentioned they also drew a lot of inspiration from the book our boys about the smith center football team so kansas has a really prominent role as you tour the national exhibition you'll see for millionaire familiar places and names and rivalries that are featured in the exhibition so we should be proud about what led me to the kansas humanities council to get the opportunity to bring a traveling smithsonian exhibit to kansas it's very important us to do this because our organization or a statewide nonprofit it we connect communities of

history and traditions and ideas with the goal of strengthening civic life so whenever you have something like the smithsonian exhibition that engages citizens with the humanities which is our cargo at their mission we have a chance to have discussions and conversation and reflection and that's really why the humanities provide and through such a popular topic like sports it's a really easy gateway to get people in but then to stop and consider that this exhibit is about more than sports it's about who we are it's about our community it's about what our values are and that's what the humanities do really really well right now the hometown teams traveling exhibit is in cleveland kansas what are they doing in what are some of the other town's coming up doing gooden kansas at the high plains museum they were taking a left at tier sports rituals rituals

that they have developed in calais and over the course of many years and these are things that some of them are the traditional one of the powder puff the balboa the homecoming time and life and it moves on to greensburg and at the kiowa county historical museum and he had a really interesting sports story about what happens when a former rivals in the towns of montville havilland in greensburg high school now have to come together and pray for the same team at the kiowa county high school because their schools or been consolidated their schools are consolidated and what this means moving forward how that shapes the county is easier for the younger students to adapt is it harder for the older residents to it that they look at all of these challenges and opportunities that come when you consolidate in a rural community so that will be a

very exciting story a lot that and of course their history of greensburg the recent history after the two thousand seven tornado the opportunity for a smithsonian exhibit to calm to greensburg is a really really big deal compared to where we were almost three years ago at this time another post exhibition isn't perry in jefferson county and they're hosting these it'd beginning in august and august in september in the historic period were all high school gym which is now part of highland community college and eight and they are looking at what their there's a consolidation story to win period of compton consolidated but they're also looking at one section about girls' basketball in the nineteen twenties and apparently it grows best long the twenties and harry and i imagine in other places have a

separate set of rules from best men's basketball that included a free zone courts and uniforms of glimmers that had a company is say whoa i never were boos but i will tell you growing up in iowa we played three three entrees laugh court basketball gets fascinating and so just how that came to be and what that meant and finding stories from the players that played around that time is something that they're there working on now so there's just a really rich variety of stories about nan wynn man how that all worked out on the differences between their sports and a lot of stories about what it means to come together when you had been rivals and you had to come together and be teammates a fascinating angle and one that so many cans of communities are dealing with or we'll deal with in the future yes i think it's a story day you're right we will see that there will be more stories like that to toss more we can learn from the experiences of others

i think is a really really good thing to have so many interesting exhibits and so many different interesting angles that huge taking with this exhibit hometown teams is over we also you know we knew aside from the host and partner cites we need more communities one approaches a tape and learn about hometown teams so we had developed a speakers' bureau cattle on that has a variety of speakers that are available to go out and speak to different communities about mass cats title my mother's place and an other topics energy maybe they think sports to literature so that's available as lyle workman people find more information out about that they can find that on our website which is daddy daddy daddy died kansas humanities that or a g tracy thank you so much for coming in to talk about this thing good luck with your hometown team exhibit thank you so much my pleasure tracy quillin is the associate director of the kansas humanities council again as part of their hometown teams project the watkins museum of history

is hosting a panel discussion on the lawrence promoters high school basketball in the days of jim crow that event is thursday april twenty third at the watkins museum in downtown lawrence or what is a ten between us what is the account of the scores or hundreds of years or whatever it is if it's just a pale employees in celebration of national poetry month a bit of walt whitman his words and his autograph that's lawrence high school english teacher michael character reading part of whitman's poem crossing brooklyn ferry character is helping spearhead an effort to return or won't win an

autographed to kansas and security concern in iraq how walt whitman i came to kansas are on a journey of the west that he was specifically invited to attend a celebration a celebration kansas and westward expansion and he was in some ways sort of corralled in kansas city and brought to lawrence and stayed two days here september fifteenth and sixteenth and he later wrote about his time here he was very impressed with arsenic what'd he have to say about it well he spent time speaking with people i was something women enjoy doing is picking up on dialect picking up on people's stories common people in particular he he walked up the campus and then one of his memoirs letters plus monday's he wrote this as i have partially explored your charm city during the last two days and stand in an hour and hill by university have launched my view across brought expenses the living grain in every direction i have again been most impressed i

say and shall remain for the rest of my life most impressed with that feature of the topography of your western central world that vast something stretching out its own unbounded scale and can find which there is in these prayer is combining the real an ideal and beautiful instrument that's lovely isn't and so when we sit here at nineteenth louisiana my stinson and we think about women who i thought about us on i like the picture him up on the hill looking out over it's an imagining what this could be he was a visionary and he was he was very much interested in imagine himself in different places and a different time while it's here in lawrence did he have succumbed to warrant haskell well know from what i understand he

was supposed to attend a celebration just north of town there was bismarck rove and i don't i i'm not an expert in bismarck robot i believe it was a park racetrack apart park that though was quite a gathering place and i think later they made even its militia talk was there not sure there is some sort of contradictory stories as to what exactly he did while he was here but we do know he stayed at the home of judge john archer and he was mayor at the time and that said fourteen twenty four tennessee i think today it's a fraternity house her story house but some he didn't apparently see your first ad man nc campus and it apparently made an impression where he was very impressed with the potential of the prairies and while he was here he inscribed a book seems to it seems to have left a few signatures behind and one of which is what we're trying to get hee he recorded

his name and this is september sixteenth eighteen seventy nine and that is currently owned by bauman rare books and it's in there in your gallery how did you become aware that as well my colleagues and i have a fondness for women and we were always looking for for something to either add to our personal collection or add to the school and for students to see and a couple years ago i came across an online and i thought although be so nice to have and into this boy as sort of forgot about it and i forgot about him until our senior class was looking for some sort of gift to leave behind in the senior class has been so strong in the arts and in the humanities and especially in english studies and so i proposed what we get this and instantly they were they were out there really gummy about the fundraising effort to treading get it back here well if you look online baumann

is is offering those signature and it's for a nicely with a portrait of women for four thousand dollars and when i initially started my conversation with a company that they offered us an institutional price of thirty three hundred and so since really this semester we we've we've restarted a kind of a slow push for money but in april census is national poetry month we've really big extended our efforts beyond without a facebook page we've tweeted it out we've had so many people supporting the journal world last story our own budget are student writer can skip what a fantastic storyline and it's been encouraging every day one to three letters command which checks and so reassuring little stories on couples wanting to recognize and remember they're in there own children who went to lawrence hott just fans of poetry tens of

weapon and time we're well on our way to making progress towards at thirty three hundred were hoping by the end of april we have that money we have been able to order and we'd love to present the signature the frame signature early may if people are interested in donating to this cause it hardly find a more information capsule and we would really appreciate that the senior class we feel truly support her they they can come by lawrence high schooler to them in wartime a lot of companies if you want to send money to one reason great michael can we go out on a walt whitman poem i'd be great com was to a part of crossing brooklyn ferry for me that has always been the poem that that summarizes everything women was wanted to be had hoped we would be as well as americans out a long poem so what's too many sections

closer yet i approach you what thoughts you have of me now i had as much of you i laid in my stores in advance i considered long and seriously of you before you were born who was what should come on to me but i am enjoying that who knows for all the distance but i am as good as looking at you now for all you cannot see me that's my culture reading walt whitman's crossing brooklyn ferry anti mcintyre kbr percent is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas apr

percent and other locally produced programs are only possible because you support them if you meant to make a pledge during campaign for excellence you can still do so at our website a pr that kay you that edu and thanks