By GREG DOERING Kansas Farm Bureau Osage orange trees are still common throughout much of the United States, though not many people appreciate just how much the thorny, dense trees have shaped our country. Before Christopher Columbus’ arrival, Osage orange had a limited range in the Red River basin in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Like the droves of Europeans who followed, the tree eventually spread to all corners of our country, so long as you don’t count Alaska and Hawaii. The thorny, dense trees go by a number of names, including hedge trees, prairie hedge, hedge apple, horse apple, bowwood or yellow wood for the hue of the heartwood. Whatever moniker you choose, the trees were the original barbed wire. After sprouting, the hedge trees were aggressively pruned to promote thick growth that was woven into a living fence considered to be “horse high, bull strong and hog tight." Even after the widespread adoption of barbed wire, wood from the hedge tree is still highly prized for fence posts based on its ability to withstand the elements. Termites and other insects don’t bother the wood. Water doesn’t penetrate the dense grain either. Today, a post made from Osage orange is likely to outlast the strands of barbed wire attached to it. In fact, the posts can be difficult if not impossible to work with if they’re left to season too long after cutting. Hedge posts don’t decay, rather they almost petrify into something between wood and stone. Osage orange’s qualities extend well beyond corralling cattle and other livestock. Its tight grain makes the wood extraordinarily flexible, enough so that a bow made from the tree was worth a horse and blanket in the 1800s. Osage orange also offers the highest heat value of any species when burned as firewood. Osage orange is probably the most popular and widely distributed plant that isn’t a food source for either humans or animals. Its fruit is a softball-sized green ball with folded contours that surround a cluster of seeds. We called them brain blobs growing up because the outer shell consisted of folded contours. They were dense and would make a satisfying sound when flung into a tree trunk. They’ll start falling off trees any day this time of year. Rumor has it the fruits keep all sorts of creepy-crawlies away, from boxelder bugs and crickets to spiders and other pests, especially when placed in basements or near the foundation of a home. Research has yet to find any evidence to support those claims, yet the legends endure. &nbsp;Steel T-posts and pipe braces are gaining favor, but some still prefer to use hedge posts for fencing. Composite compound bows can launch an arrow with a much greater force than the traditional longbow, yet Osage orange bow staves are still readily available. The living fencerows are long gone, but hedge trees planted during the Great Depression as windbreaks still mark the edges of fields. There’s no one quality that has seeded the Osage orange across the countryside, rather versality is its main attribute. From hedge to post or bow to kindling, mankind has found it useful for centuries. While modern materials will eventually win out, they won’t ever have a history quite like hedge.

"Insight" is a weekly column published by Kansas Farm Bureau, the state's largest farm organization whose mission is to strengthen agriculture and the lives of Kansans through advocacy, education and service.&nbsp;

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/11/1574694551876.png" alt="Greg Doering&nbsp;" />
 <figcaption>Greg Doering&nbsp;</figcaption>
 </figure>By GREG DOERING Kansas Farm Bureau Osage orange trees are still common throughout much of the United States, though not many people appreciate just how much the thorny, dense trees have shaped our country. Before Christopher Columbus’ arrival, Osage orange had a limited range in the Red River basin in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Like the droves of Europeans who followed, the tree eventually spread to all corners of our country, so long as you don’t count Alaska and Hawaii. The thorny, dense trees go by a number of names, including hedge trees, prairie hedge, hedge apple, horse apple, bowwood or yellow wood for the hue of the heartwood. Whatever moniker you choose, the trees were the original barbed wire. After sprouting, the hedge trees were aggressively pruned to promote thick growth that was woven into a living fence considered to be “horse high, bull strong and hog tight." Even after the widespread adoption of barbed wire, wood from the hedge tree is still highly prized for fence posts based on its ability to withstand the elements. Termites and other insects don’t bother the wood. Water doesn’t penetrate the dense grain either. Today, a post made from Osage orange is likely to outlast the strands of barbed wire attached to it. In fact, the posts can be difficult if not impossible to work with if they’re left to season too long after cutting. Hedge posts don’t decay, rather they almost petrify into something between wood and stone. Osage orange’s qualities extend well beyond corralling cattle and other livestock. Its tight grain makes the wood extraordinarily flexible, enough so that a bow made from the tree was worth a horse and blanket in the 1800s. Osage orange also offers the highest heat value of any species when burned as firewood. Osage orange is probably the most popular and widely distributed plant that isn’t a food source for either humans or animals. Its fruit is a softball-sized green ball with folded contours that surround a cluster of seeds. We called them brain blobs growing up because the outer shell consisted of folded contours. They were dense and would make a satisfying sound when flung into a tree trunk. They’ll start falling off trees any day this time of year. Rumor has it the fruits keep all sorts of creepy-crawlies away, from boxelder bugs and crickets to spiders and other pests, especially when placed in basements or near the foundation of a home. Research has yet to find any evidence to support those claims, yet the legends endure. &nbsp;Steel T-posts and pipe braces are gaining favor, but some still prefer to use hedge posts for fencing. Composite compound bows can launch an arrow with a much greater force than the traditional longbow, yet Osage orange bow staves are still readily available. The living fencerows are long gone, but hedge trees planted during the Great Depression as windbreaks still mark the edges of fields. There’s no one quality that has seeded the Osage orange across the countryside, rather versality is its main attribute. From hedge to post or bow to kindling, mankind has found it useful for centuries. While modern materials will eventually win out, they won’t ever have a history quite like hedge."Insight" is a weekly column published by Kansas Farm Bureau, the state's largest farm organization whose mission is to strengthen agriculture and the lives of Kansans through advocacy, education and service.&nbsp;

Kansas Farm Bureau Insight: History of hedge

Chronic&nbsp;wasting&nbsp;disease is a debilitating, fatal disease that attacks the central nervous system of whitetail deer, mule deer, moose, caribou&nbsp;and&nbsp;elk, actually resulting in small holes developing in their brains.&nbsp;CWD was first diagnosed in captive animals in Colorado and Wyoming in the late&nbsp;1960s and 1970s, and&nbsp;was&nbsp;seen in free ranging animals in the early 1980s.&nbsp;

Kansas’s fish and game officials have been testing hunter-harvested Kansas deer since 1996, and&nbsp;during the 2005 firearms season, the first documented case was discovered in a whitetail doe taken near the Cheyenne Co. town of St. Francis, in the northwestern corner of the state.&nbsp;Later that year&nbsp;KDWP staff harvested 50&nbsp;deer, 29 mule deer and 21 whitetails within a 15-mile radius of where the infected doe was shot. Tissue samples from each deer were collected at a field lab and sent to KSU for analysis, and all 50&nbsp;dear tested negative for CWD&nbsp;at the time.&nbsp;

Many thousands of&nbsp;both&nbsp;wild&nbsp;and captive&nbsp;mule deer and whitetail deer&nbsp;have been tested for CWD since testing first began in KS in 1996, and the disease continues to spread.&nbsp;Last year, during the 2021&nbsp;–&nbsp;2022&nbsp;deer season, 190 new positive tests were confirmed, bring the total&nbsp;to 738 positive tests for Chronic Wasting Disease in our state, with the number of positive tests growing each year. With the exception of a half-dozen counties, the entire western half of the state&nbsp;has produced deer&nbsp;or elk&nbsp;testing positive for CWD. The disease continues to spread&nbsp;eastward,&nbsp;and as of the end of the 2021-2022&nbsp;deer&nbsp;season,&nbsp;CWD&nbsp;has been detected in 59 Kansas&nbsp;counties. There&nbsp;is currently no&nbsp;known&nbsp;cure for CWD, and experts advise there is no way of administering a cure if there was one.

CWD appears to target animals older than I year, and it can be several months before outward symptoms become apparent. Animals in advanced stages of the disease will seem listless, may walk in repetitive patterns with their head lowered, will probably exhibit excessive salivation and a blank expression, and will appear to be in very poor overall health.&nbsp;Many infected animals are&nbsp;killed and consumed by predators before humans even seen them.&nbsp;If you witness deer or elk with any of these symptoms, report it to a conservation officer immediately!

Extensive research shows no risk of&nbsp;humans contracting this&nbsp;disease;&nbsp;however, health officials urge common sense, and recommend that contact with CWD infected animals be avoided. Researchers are still uncertain how the disease is transmitted, but cattle and other domestic livestock appear to&nbsp;be naturally resistant.&nbsp;

Common sense should dictate not to consume any part of a known infected&nbsp;animal. Special precautions are also urged for hunters harvesting deer or elk from an area known to have produced an infected animal.&nbsp;Kansas Dept of Wildlife and Parks recommends all meat from these carcasses should be boned-out, and none of the brain, spinal cord tissue, eyes, spleen or lymph nodes&nbsp;should be consumed.&nbsp;The carcass of the infected animal should remain there where it was harvested,&nbsp;buried,&nbsp;if possible,&nbsp;to avoid further spreading the disease.&nbsp;Extra care should also be taken to thoroughly wash and disinfect hands and butchering equipment.

Yes, spread of this disease will&nbsp;hurt Kansas’ deer populations and our deer hunting industry. An even bigger fear, for now, is that people&nbsp;will “throw the baby out with the bath water,” so to speak, and immediately stop hunting deer all across the state, causing deer populations to explode out of control, thus compounding existing problems while creating new ones. 

Let’s not overreact; our wildlife officials are hunters, trappers, fishermen and outdoorsmen just like us, so trust them to stay on top of this threat! In the meantime, stay informed by visiting the KDWP website,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.kdwp.state.ks.us/">www.kdwp.state.ks.us</a>. They are very good about keeping this website updated. Oh, and keep Exploring Kansas Outdoors!&nbsp;

Steve Gilliland, Inman, can be contacted&nbsp;by email at stevenrgilliland@gmail.com.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/11/1574696211722.png" alt="Steve&nbsp;Gilliland" />
 <figcaption>Steve&nbsp;Gilliland</figcaption>
 </figure>Chronic&nbsp;wasting&nbsp;disease is a debilitating, fatal disease that attacks the central nervous system of whitetail deer, mule deer, moose, caribou&nbsp;and&nbsp;elk, actually resulting in small holes developing in their brains.&nbsp;CWD was first diagnosed in captive animals in Colorado and Wyoming in the late&nbsp;1960s and 1970s, and&nbsp;was&nbsp;seen in free ranging animals in the early 1980s.&nbsp;Kansas’s fish and game officials have been testing hunter-harvested Kansas deer since 1996, and&nbsp;during the 2005 firearms season, the first documented case was discovered in a whitetail doe taken near the Cheyenne Co. town of St. Francis, in the northwestern corner of the state.&nbsp;Later that year&nbsp;KDWP staff harvested 50&nbsp;deer, 29 mule deer and 21 whitetails within a 15-mile radius of where the infected doe was shot. Tissue samples from each deer were collected at a field lab and sent to KSU for analysis, and all 50&nbsp;dear tested negative for CWD&nbsp;at the time.&nbsp;Many thousands of&nbsp;both&nbsp;wild&nbsp;and captive&nbsp;mule deer and whitetail deer&nbsp;have been tested for CWD since testing first began in KS in 1996, and the disease continues to spread.&nbsp;Last year, during the 2021&nbsp;–&nbsp;2022&nbsp;deer season, 190 new positive tests were confirmed, bring the total&nbsp;to 738 positive tests for Chronic Wasting Disease in our state, with the number of positive tests growing each year. With the exception of a half-dozen counties, the entire western half of the state&nbsp;has produced deer&nbsp;or elk&nbsp;testing positive for CWD. The disease continues to spread&nbsp;eastward,&nbsp;and as of the end of the 2021-2022&nbsp;deer&nbsp;season,&nbsp;CWD&nbsp;has been detected in 59 Kansas&nbsp;counties. There&nbsp;is currently no&nbsp;known&nbsp;cure for CWD, and experts advise there is no way of administering a cure if there was one.CWD appears to target animals older than I year, and it can be several months before outward symptoms become apparent. Animals in advanced stages of the disease will seem listless, may walk in repetitive patterns with their head lowered, will probably exhibit excessive salivation and a blank expression, and will appear to be in very poor overall health.&nbsp;Many infected animals are&nbsp;killed and consumed by predators before humans even seen them.&nbsp;If you witness deer or elk with any of these symptoms, report it to a conservation officer immediately!Extensive research shows no risk of&nbsp;humans contracting this&nbsp;disease;&nbsp;however, health officials urge common sense, and recommend that contact with CWD infected animals be avoided. Researchers are still uncertain how the disease is transmitted, but cattle and other domestic livestock appear to&nbsp;be naturally resistant.&nbsp;Common sense should dictate not to consume any part of a known infected&nbsp;animal. Special precautions are also urged for hunters harvesting deer or elk from an area known to have produced an infected animal.&nbsp;Kansas Dept of Wildlife and Parks recommends all meat from these carcasses should be boned-out, and none of the brain, spinal cord tissue, eyes, spleen or lymph nodes&nbsp;should be consumed.&nbsp;The carcass of the infected animal should remain there where it was harvested,&nbsp;buried,&nbsp;if possible,&nbsp;to avoid further spreading the disease.&nbsp;Extra care should also be taken to thoroughly wash and disinfect hands and butchering equipment.Yes, spread of this disease will&nbsp;hurt Kansas’ deer populations and our deer hunting industry. An even bigger fear, for now, is that people&nbsp;will “throw the baby out with the bath water,” so to speak, and immediately stop hunting deer all across the state, causing deer populations to explode out of control, thus compounding existing problems while creating new ones. Let’s not overreact; our wildlife officials are hunters, trappers, fishermen and outdoorsmen just like us, so trust them to stay on top of this threat! In the meantime, stay informed by visiting the KDWP website,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.kdwp.state.ks.us/">www.kdwp.state.ks.us</a>. They are very good about keeping this website updated. Oh, and keep Exploring Kansas Outdoors!&nbsp;Steve Gilliland, Inman, can be contacted&nbsp;by email at stevenrgilliland@gmail.com.

Exploring Outdoors Kansas: Chronic wasting disease in deer

By PATRICIA E. WEEMS GASTON <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/2022/09/25/at-nicodemus-reunion-familial-and-kansas-history-converge/">Courtesy Kansas Reflector</a>

Nicodemus has been calling my name for as long as I can remember.

Maybe it was the piece that my 
University of Kansas classmate wrote more than 40 years ago about the 
first Black settlement west of the Mississippi. Maybe a ride on the 
highways and byways of western Kansas would help me better appreciate 
the diversity of my home state. Maybe it was my hunger for history, 
whetted during myriad chats with my father while cooped up during the 
COVID-19 pandemic.

Or maybe I couldn’t imagine not 
talking about the past, despite recent efforts to stymie the study of 
history in schools. Isn’t our future built on the foundations of the 
past?

The road trip was a go when another 
classmate wanted to attend the town’s annual homecoming to see if there 
was any appetite for resuming a mobile health clinic that her late 
internist sister ran for years.

We joined in Nicodemus’ celebration — its 144th
 homecoming — in late July on an uncharacteristically cool morning. It 
was a family reunion in every sense, and I felt one with the crowd 
lining Main Street for the late morning parade.

This town, which was settled in 1877 
by 300 pioneers from Kentucky in search of freedom, now has fewer than 
25 residents. But you wouldn’t have known it as hundreds of descendants 
from across the country returned to their ancestral home.

The Buffalo Soldiers in full regalia 
marched to the cheers of a grateful and proud crowd. We talked with 
families, some of them decked out in blue and green or purple and gold. 
The sense of family was palpable, whether they were clumped together 
watching the parade, trying to snag a piece of candy thrown from 
participants for one of their little ones or bounding into the visitor’s
 center in Township Hall in search of a souvenir to mark the day’s 
events.

While my people are not descendants, 
the Weemses have a tie that binds us to Nicodemus. My late grandfather 
Robert R. Weems and his friends used to hunt pheasant here during the 
late 1940s and early 1950s.

My grandfather enjoyed hunting and 
fishing, using his skills to help feed his family of five, with my 
father, Charles, being the youngest.

Seemingly every fall, Papa, and some 
of his friends — Van Taylor, George Johnson and Fred Whitaker — would 
jump into Mr. Whitaker’s panel truck on a Sunday morning and strike out 
on highways 24 and 40 for Nicodemus, which is in northwest Kansas near 
the Nebraska border. They would be hosted by a local family (they didn’t
 go to Hill City because it was a sundown town), hunt all day Monday 
through Thursday (Dad says they hunted on the Switzer family’s land) and
 then head home with their birds.

“If it was a poor hunting season, there was no pheasant for holiday meals,” Charles Weems recalled.

The men would drive straight through 
back to Kansas City because Black people were not allowed to stay in 
hotels along the way, and the men apparently had no access to the Green 
Book, which identified businesses that would have accepted Black 
customers during segregation.

Once Papa returned home, Dad recalls,
 my grandmother Flora Belle’s work began. She skinned the pheasant and 
took particular care with the breast because it was the prime cut and 
most sought after for holiday dinners. She often would take the 
red-green-black-white feathers and stick them in her favorite hats, Dad 
says.

Descendants of Nicodemus keep the 
story of this sometimes-forgotten prairie town alive through word, deed,
 song. After the parade, there were activities for everyone — live 
entertainment, a fashion and talent show, a baseball game, watermelon 
feed, a church service on Sunday morning.

Families shared, shared and shared stories of how their relatives came here in search of freedom after slavery.

That is the only way for us to 
continue sharing our history. Yes, we learned in school about the big 
events — revolutions, slavery, wars, migrations of people, moon 
landings, medical breakthroughs. While these big events influenced our 
lives, it is the everyday that makes us who we are.

I got my love for history in the 
plethora of volumes that lined our bookshelves, in the dinner table 
conversations about Dr. King and other events of the day, in the Black 
History Month classes that my Aunt Christine took us to, in the stories 
that my grandparents shared with us about growing up in the South and in
 the Midwest. Who learned how to spell Mississippi: M-i-crooked letter-crooked letter-i-crooked letter-crooked letter-i-humpback-humpback-i?

And who on vacation insisted that 
their two children do “history and culture” before they went to the 
amusement park or ballgame, or saw the Empire State Building or Statue 
of Liberty?

I did, and that is because history 
has always been valued in my family, in school, in church, in my 
community. One must know from where they have come. How else would we 
know where to take your place in life?

That is why traveling to Nicodemus and hearing about my grandfather’s hunting trips warmed my heart.

It is hard to fathom the times we are
 in because of a need to revise history, grossly downplaying the role of
 slavery in the development of this country, or banning of books that 
may talk about people who look different or think different. History is 
very much alive and present today.

As Kansas historian Angela Bates, who is a descendant of Nicodemus, remarks <a target="_blank" href="https://www.humanitieskansas.org/get-involved/kansas-stories/people/meet-angela-bates">on the Humanities Kansas website</a>: “Kansas history is not over, we are all still evolving.”

Patricia E. Weems Gaston is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the Lacy C. Haynes Professor at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications. Gaston graduated from KU in 1981; she has a master's degree in sports management from The George Washington University. Before joining The Washington Post in 1997, she worked at the Dallas Morning News, where she was an assistant foreign editor and was co-editor of the 1994 Pulitzer Prize-winning series on violence against women.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/9/1664123606812.png" alt="What would a Nicodemus parade be without the pageantry of the Buffalo Soldiers, an ode to a day gone by? They marched in the town’s 144th homecoming in late July. (Patricia E. Weems Gaston)" />
 <figcaption>What would a Nicodemus parade be without the pageantry of the Buffalo Soldiers, an ode to a day gone by? They marched in the town’s 144th homecoming in late July. (Patricia E. Weems Gaston)</figcaption>
 </figure>By PATRICIA E. WEEMS GASTON <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/2022/09/25/at-nicodemus-reunion-familial-and-kansas-history-converge/">Courtesy Kansas Reflector</a>Nicodemus has been calling my name for as long as I can remember.Maybe it was the piece that my 
University of Kansas classmate wrote more than 40 years ago about the 
first Black settlement west of the Mississippi. Maybe a ride on the 
highways and byways of western Kansas would help me better appreciate 
the diversity of my home state. Maybe it was my hunger for history, 
whetted during myriad chats with my father while cooped up during the 
COVID-19 pandemic.Or maybe I couldn’t imagine not 
talking about the past, despite recent efforts to stymie the study of 
history in schools. Isn’t our future built on the foundations of the 
past?<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/9/1664123677647.jpeg" alt="NAACP branches from across the state of Kansas marched in the Nicodemus parade this summer. (Patricia E. Weems Gaston)" />
 <figcaption>NAACP branches from across the state of Kansas marched in the Nicodemus parade this summer. (Patricia E. Weems Gaston)</figcaption>
 </figure>The road trip was a go when another 
classmate wanted to attend the town’s annual homecoming to see if there 
was any appetite for resuming a mobile health clinic that her late 
internist sister ran for years.We joined in Nicodemus’ celebration — its 144th
 homecoming — in late July on an uncharacteristically cool morning. It 
was a family reunion in every sense, and I felt one with the crowd 
lining Main Street for the late morning parade.This town, which was settled in 1877 
by 300 pioneers from Kentucky in search of freedom, now has fewer than 
25 residents. But you wouldn’t have known it as hundreds of descendants 
from across the country returned to their ancestral home.The Buffalo Soldiers in full regalia 
marched to the cheers of a grateful and proud crowd. We talked with 
families, some of them decked out in blue and green or purple and gold. 
The sense of family was palpable, whether they were clumped together 
watching the parade, trying to snag a piece of candy thrown from 
participants for one of their little ones or bounding into the visitor’s
 center in Township Hall in search of a souvenir to mark the day’s 
events.While my people are not descendants, 
the Weemses have a tie that binds us to Nicodemus. My late grandfather 
Robert R. Weems and his friends used to hunt pheasant here during the 
late 1940s and early 1950s.<h2>One with the land</h2>My grandfather enjoyed hunting and 
fishing, using his skills to help feed his family of five, with my 
father, Charles, being the youngest.Seemingly every fall, Papa, and some 
of his friends — Van Taylor, George Johnson and Fred Whitaker — would 
jump into Mr. Whitaker’s panel truck on a Sunday morning and strike out 
on highways 24 and 40 for Nicodemus, which is in northwest Kansas near 
the Nebraska border. They would be hosted by a local family (they didn’t
 go to Hill City because it was a sundown town), hunt all day Monday 
through Thursday (Dad says they hunted on the Switzer family’s land) and
 then head home with their birds.“If it was a poor hunting season, there was no pheasant for holiday meals,” Charles Weems recalled.The men would drive straight through 
back to Kansas City because Black people were not allowed to stay in 
hotels along the way, and the men apparently had no access to the Green 
Book, which identified businesses that would have accepted Black 
customers during segregation.Once Papa returned home, Dad recalls,
 my grandmother Flora Belle’s work began. She skinned the pheasant and 
took particular care with the breast because it was the prime cut and 
most sought after for holiday dinners. She often would take the 
red-green-black-white feathers and stick them in her favorite hats, Dad 
says.<h2>Remembering our roots</h2>Descendants of Nicodemus keep the 
story of this sometimes-forgotten prairie town alive through word, deed,
 song. After the parade, there were activities for everyone — live 
entertainment, a fashion and talent show, a baseball game, watermelon 
feed, a church service on Sunday morning.Families shared, shared and shared stories of how their relatives came here in search of freedom after slavery.That is the only way for us to 
continue sharing our history. Yes, we learned in school about the big 
events — revolutions, slavery, wars, migrations of people, moon 
landings, medical breakthroughs. While these big events influenced our 
lives, it is the everyday that makes us who we are.I got my love for history in the 
plethora of volumes that lined our bookshelves, in the dinner table 
conversations about Dr. King and other events of the day, in the Black 
History Month classes that my Aunt Christine took us to, in the stories 
that my grandparents shared with us about growing up in the South and in
 the Midwest. Who learned how to spell Mississippi: M-i-crooked letter-crooked letter-i-crooked letter-crooked letter-i-humpback-humpback-i?And who on vacation insisted that 
their two children do “history and culture” before they went to the 
amusement park or ballgame, or saw the Empire State Building or Statue 
of Liberty?I did, and that is because history 
has always been valued in my family, in school, in church, in my 
community. One must know from where they have come. How else would we 
know where to take your place in life?That is why traveling to Nicodemus and hearing about my grandfather’s hunting trips warmed my heart.It is hard to fathom the times we are
 in because of a need to revise history, grossly downplaying the role of
 slavery in the development of this country, or banning of books that 
may talk about people who look different or think different. History is 
very much alive and present today.As Kansas historian Angela Bates, who is a descendant of Nicodemus, remarks <a target="_blank" href="https://www.humanitieskansas.org/get-involved/kansas-stories/people/meet-angela-bates">on the Humanities Kansas website</a>: “Kansas history is not over, we are all still evolving.”Patricia E. Weems Gaston is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the Lacy C. Haynes Professor at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications. Gaston graduated from KU in 1981; she has a master's degree in sports management from The George Washington University. Before joining The Washington Post in 1997, she worked at the Dallas Morning News, where she was an assistant foreign editor and was co-editor of the 1994 Pulitzer Prize-winning series on violence against women.

At Nicodemus reunion, familial and Kansas history converge

The news coming out of Emporia last week, with at least 30 members of the faculty of Emporia State University fired on one day, was terribly sad. Not just because the firings were a blow to the education of hundreds of ESU students, but also because it reflects a failure to understand just what, realistically speaking, higher education in Kansas should be all about.

The population of Kansas overall is growing at a slow pace, relative to the rest of the country—and our rural areas are mostly shrinking in population, sometimes dramatically. This is the reality which all the universities and community colleges operating under the Kansas Board of Regents umbrella, and all the different independent colleges and universities across Kansas, have to deal with. Add to the decline of potential college students the burden of tuition costs, the plenitude of educational alternatives, and the many re-evaluations which the pandemic brought on, and it is obvious that Kansas’s colleges and universities must rethink how they do business.

Which they have done, and continue to do. It is wrong to suppose that the faculty who teach classes, run workshops, administer internships, and provide training are removed from the kind of experimental strategies which the aforementioned pressures make necessary. On the contrary, it is those faculty who do the legwork in figuring out how to combine old programs or innovate new ones, and reconstruct majors and courses to reflect diverse student needs. This has happened multiple times at my institution over the years that I’ve taught here, and almost all the faculty I know at different institutions here in Kansas have gone through the same.

Why do all that work? There are cynical answers, to be sure. But mostly, it’s because teachers at those schools have committed themselves to passing on their knowledge to Kansas’s students, and that means meeting students where they are: in those various cities and towns, large and small, in all those distinct regions, and developing educational approaches to serve those differing needs. It means making our colleges and universities “native to their place,” to quote Kansan Wes Jackson—and long-term job support to Kansas’s faculty helps make that possible.

Which is exactly what President Ken Hush has undermined at Emporia State, by getting permission from KBOR to fire tenured faculty without any particular explanation. He sold it as grand plan in “workforce management,” dismissing incremental approaches to re-developing ESU as insufficient. Perhaps Hush sees this as an ideological win over a bunch of supposed radicals, but in practice tenure—which varies greatly from one institution to another—doesn’t promise faculty any kind of lifetime intellectual isolation. Rather, by providing limited job protections (like due process guarantees that they will not be hurriedly or arbitrarily terminated), tenure enables those with the necessary expertise to take the time to build creative, lasting connections in the midst of students’ ever-changing educational needs and situations. A building which Hush’s decision has now made harder at ESU, crossing a line which Kansas higher education really can’t afford to break.

In our state, tenure is best understood as a protection which encourages faculty to root themselves in and develop a real understanding of the particular, sometimes shrinking, communities they serve. Emporia State does that, just as Fort Hays, Pittsburg State, Friends University, and many others do. ESU will no doubt continue to provide some of that unique service to those Kansas students who need it—but there will be less of it now in Emporia, and that’s a shame.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Dr. Russell Arben Fox teaches politics in Wichita.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/3/1583339056495.jpeg" alt="Dr. Russell Arben Fox teaches politics in Wichita." />
 <figcaption>Dr. Russell Arben Fox teaches politics in Wichita.</figcaption>
 </figure>The news coming out of Emporia last week, with at least 30 members of the faculty of Emporia State University fired on one day, was terribly sad. Not just because the firings were a blow to the education of hundreds of ESU students, but also because it reflects a failure to understand just what, realistically speaking, higher education in Kansas should be all about.The population of Kansas overall is growing at a slow pace, relative to the rest of the country—and our rural areas are mostly shrinking in population, sometimes dramatically. This is the reality which all the universities and community colleges operating under the Kansas Board of Regents umbrella, and all the different independent colleges and universities across Kansas, have to deal with. Add to the decline of potential college students the burden of tuition costs, the plenitude of educational alternatives, and the many re-evaluations which the pandemic brought on, and it is obvious that Kansas’s colleges and universities must rethink how they do business.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/12/1575913663048.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>Which they have done, and continue to do. It is wrong to suppose that the faculty who teach classes, run workshops, administer internships, and provide training are removed from the kind of experimental strategies which the aforementioned pressures make necessary. On the contrary, it is those faculty who do the legwork in figuring out how to combine old programs or innovate new ones, and reconstruct majors and courses to reflect diverse student needs. This has happened multiple times at my institution over the years that I’ve taught here, and almost all the faculty I know at different institutions here in Kansas have gone through the same.Why do all that work? There are cynical answers, to be sure. But mostly, it’s because teachers at those schools have committed themselves to passing on their knowledge to Kansas’s students, and that means meeting students where they are: in those various cities and towns, large and small, in all those distinct regions, and developing educational approaches to serve those differing needs. It means making our colleges and universities “native to their place,” to quote Kansan Wes Jackson—and long-term job support to Kansas’s faculty helps make that possible.Which is exactly what President Ken Hush has undermined at Emporia State, by getting permission from KBOR to fire tenured faculty without any particular explanation. He sold it as grand plan in “workforce management,” dismissing incremental approaches to re-developing ESU as insufficient. Perhaps Hush sees this as an ideological win over a bunch of supposed radicals, but in practice tenure—which varies greatly from one institution to another—doesn’t promise faculty any kind of lifetime intellectual isolation. Rather, by providing limited job protections (like due process guarantees that they will not be hurriedly or arbitrarily terminated), tenure enables those with the necessary expertise to take the time to build creative, lasting connections in the midst of students’ ever-changing educational needs and situations. A building which Hush’s decision has now made harder at ESU, crossing a line which Kansas higher education really can’t afford to break.In our state, tenure is best understood as a protection which encourages faculty to root themselves in and develop a real understanding of the particular, sometimes shrinking, communities they serve. Emporia State does that, just as Fort Hays, Pittsburg State, Friends University, and many others do. ESU will no doubt continue to provide some of that unique service to those Kansas students who need it—but there will be less of it now in Emporia, and that’s a shame.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Dr. Russell Arben Fox teaches politics in Wichita.

INSIGHT KANSAS: What Emporia has lost

By RON WILSON Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development&nbsp;

Two little goats. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but perhaps it could be the beginning of an entrepreneurial career.&nbsp;

Today we’ll meet a young rural-preneur who is using her two little goats to learn the principles of entrepreneurship for the future.&nbsp;

Kansas Lange is a teenager who won her county’s Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge in spring 2022. Kansas and her family live in Garfield, in Pawnee County.&nbsp;

Her father is Charles Lange, a K-State grad and public health veterinarian in Dodge City. While inspecting the packing plant in Dodge, Dr. Lang met one of the workers, Sabrina, who is originally from New Mexico. They married, moved to Garfield, and now have two daughters and a son.&nbsp;

Kansas is the younger daughter. “My grandfather suggested they name me Kansas because that is where they met,” Kansas said.&nbsp;

Kansas became very active in 4-H. “I’m homeschooled, so this is my creative outlet and my opportunity to meet people in the community,” Kansas said.&nbsp;

In addition to showing multiple species of livestock, she enrolled in such projects as shooting sports, woodworking, clothing and textiles, and foods and nutrition.&nbsp;

Kyle Grant is the K-State Research and Extension 4-H agent in Pawnee County.&nbsp;&nbsp;“Kansas has excelled in our Pawnee County shooting sports program,” Grant said. “She also excels at livestock judging, meats judging and skillathon, where she earned the opportunity to go to the national contest in Louisville, Kentucky. She is a good role model for Pawnee County 4-H’ers.”&nbsp;

Kansas learned about the Pawnee County Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge, sponsored by NetWork Kansas. YEC is a sequence of community-based entrepreneurship competitions for students in grades 6-12, culminating in a state championship.&nbsp;&nbsp;Students present their conceptual or business ideas to judges and compete against others in their age division locally. The top contestants advance to the state finals, held in April at K-State in partnership with the College of Business’ Center for Entrepreneurship and the Kansas Masons.&nbsp;

Erik Pedersen is president and COO of NetWork Kansas. “When you walk into one of these events at a middle school or high school, you see a student standing there with a tabletop display that they’ve created,” he said. “They’re dressed up and talking to a group of adult judges; they’re shaking hands, they’re making eye contact, they’re answering questions about their project or business idea. The life skills that they’re gaining will put them miles ahead of their peers.”&nbsp;

Kansas thought about what project she might enter in this competition. As a teenager, she was experiencing acne on her skin and looking for better skin treatments. “I found a lot of articles that said that goat milk soap could help,” she said.&nbsp;&nbsp;No big city stores carried such products nearby, but she could raise dairy goats and make soap of her own.&nbsp;

Kansas got two Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats that she milked twice daily, did the research and developed a process for producing scented goat milk soap. It worked so well that she wanted to share the products with others and started selling the product locally. She named her business Two Little Goats.&nbsp;

“My mom has a degree in business, so she could help with the business side, and my dad helped with the science and biology,” Kansas said.&nbsp;

She entered her project in the Pawnee County Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge. In 2022, she took first place and advanced to state. At the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s 2022 Ag Growth Summit, Kansas spoke about her project at the entrepreneurship breakout session.&nbsp;

“I especially enjoyed doing the research and thinking on my feet when the judges ask questions,” she said.&nbsp;

She’s a remarkable young woman from the rural community of Garfield, population 151 people. Now, that’s rural.&nbsp;

More information about YEC is&nbsp;<a href="http://www.networkkansas.com/ecommunities/youth/youth-entrepreneurship-challenge">available online</a>.&nbsp;

How do we as a state develop and encourage the next generation of entrepreneurs?&nbsp;&nbsp;The Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge is a great step in the right direction. We commend Kansas Lange and all those involved with YEC for making a difference with their ideas and business development.&nbsp;

A big career in business just might begin with two little goats.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/9/1663765914789.png" alt="Kansas Lange" />
 <figcaption>Kansas Lange</figcaption>
 </figure>By RON WILSON Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development&nbsp;Two little goats. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but perhaps it could be the beginning of an entrepreneurial career.&nbsp;Today we’ll meet a young rural-preneur who is using her two little goats to learn the principles of entrepreneurship for the future.&nbsp;Kansas Lange is a teenager who won her county’s Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge in spring 2022. Kansas and her family live in Garfield, in Pawnee County.&nbsp;Her father is Charles Lange, a K-State grad and public health veterinarian in Dodge City. While inspecting the packing plant in Dodge, Dr. Lang met one of the workers, Sabrina, who is originally from New Mexico. They married, moved to Garfield, and now have two daughters and a son.&nbsp;Kansas is the younger daughter. “My grandfather suggested they name me Kansas because that is where they met,” Kansas said.&nbsp;Kansas became very active in 4-H. “I’m homeschooled, so this is my creative outlet and my opportunity to meet people in the community,” Kansas said.&nbsp;In addition to showing multiple species of livestock, she enrolled in such projects as shooting sports, woodworking, clothing and textiles, and foods and nutrition.&nbsp;Kyle Grant is the K-State Research and Extension 4-H agent in Pawnee County.&nbsp;&nbsp;“Kansas has excelled in our Pawnee County shooting sports program,” Grant said. “She also excels at livestock judging, meats judging and skillathon, where she earned the opportunity to go to the national contest in Louisville, Kentucky. She is a good role model for Pawnee County 4-H’ers.”&nbsp;Kansas learned about the Pawnee County Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge, sponsored by NetWork Kansas. YEC is a sequence of community-based entrepreneurship competitions for students in grades 6-12, culminating in a state championship.&nbsp;&nbsp;Students present their conceptual or business ideas to judges and compete against others in their age division locally. The top contestants advance to the state finals, held in April at K-State in partnership with the College of Business’ Center for Entrepreneurship and the Kansas Masons.&nbsp;Erik Pedersen is president and COO of NetWork Kansas. “When you walk into one of these events at a middle school or high school, you see a student standing there with a tabletop display that they’ve created,” he said. “They’re dressed up and talking to a group of adult judges; they’re shaking hands, they’re making eye contact, they’re answering questions about their project or business idea. The life skills that they’re gaining will put them miles ahead of their peers.”&nbsp;Kansas thought about what project she might enter in this competition. As a teenager, she was experiencing acne on her skin and looking for better skin treatments. “I found a lot of articles that said that goat milk soap could help,” she said.&nbsp;&nbsp;No big city stores carried such products nearby, but she could raise dairy goats and make soap of her own.&nbsp;Kansas got two Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats that she milked twice daily, did the research and developed a process for producing scented goat milk soap. It worked so well that she wanted to share the products with others and started selling the product locally. She named her business Two Little Goats.&nbsp;“My mom has a degree in business, so she could help with the business side, and my dad helped with the science and biology,” Kansas said.&nbsp;She entered her project in the Pawnee County Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge. In 2022, she took first place and advanced to state. At the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s 2022 Ag Growth Summit, Kansas spoke about her project at the entrepreneurship breakout session.&nbsp;“I especially enjoyed doing the research and thinking on my feet when the judges ask questions,” she said.&nbsp;She’s a remarkable young woman from the rural community of Garfield, population 151 people. Now, that’s rural.&nbsp;More information about YEC is&nbsp;<a href="http://www.networkkansas.com/ecommunities/youth/youth-entrepreneurship-challenge">available online</a>.&nbsp;How do we as a state develop and encourage the next generation of entrepreneurs?&nbsp;&nbsp;The Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge is a great step in the right direction. We commend Kansas Lange and all those involved with YEC for making a difference with their ideas and business development.&nbsp;A big career in business just might begin with two little goats.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Now That’s Rural: Kansas Lange, Two Little Goats 

BY JACKIE MUNDT Pratt County farmer and rancher Over the past decade or two, farmhouse décor has been an in vogue style of interior design. It makes me chuckle when I think about people who don’t live on a farm trying to create clean and pretty spaces through white wash, distressed paint and vintage hardware. Real farmhouses are rarely as desirable as this style is made out to be. I live in a real farm house and can guarantee my house won’t be featured on HGTV anytime soon. I honestly don’t think there is anything in my house that resembles the farmhouse style. However, the character that inspired designers to want to recreate the functional, no frills feel of country living, can be seen in many places in this old farmhouse. Every house has its own story. Our house’s story began as a kit house made by Sears and Roebuck that was delivered by train and assembled by its owner. We don’t know the exact year the house was delivered but estimate it was likely around the 1920s. The house was built just a few yards from the original homestead, which was still standing until about a decade ago and could fit in our kitchen. I can imagine the excitement and pride that must have been felt when this model was selected. It was a statement of perseverance and success to move from a house that was merely shelter to what was likely the equivalent of a mansion for the time. The trade-off of our house’s cool story is it was built by farmers not professional carpenters. The house is sturdy and functional, even though it has lots of little imperfections that are a product of the original DIYers. The house has seen a lot of lifestyle change in the last century: the installation of indoor plumbing, electrification and the move from wood stoves and chimneys to a furnace and air conditioning. Some of the remnants of these eras can still be seen in things like a few push button light switches or nob and tub lights from the original electrification, which have been preserved as novelties. We have also seen glimpses of the interests and taste of former home owners as we have worked to make the house our own. While tearing out outdated carpeting to take advantage of the original hardwood floors, we found decorative room mats that were in style during the time of construction. Each time we discover a new detail in the house, it’s like the house is telling the story of generations that have lived here before. Though each family who has called this house their home has been unique, they all share some things in common. The kitchen has prepared many meals for families who work the land. The floors have been tracked with mud and dirt more times than they have been clean. The rooms have played host to moments of joy, hope, and love that hopefully outweighed the times of worry and grief. The bay windows provided protection for the extreme Kansas weather that has often been a blessing and a curse. Our house is worn and imperfect because it is a place where life has been lived. Character like that can’t be replicated for a home good store. This house will never be as pretty as homes designed to look like the farmhouse style, and that’s OK with me. I am happy to live in this old farmhouse.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/12/1575406519723.jpeg" alt="Jackie Mundt" />
 <figcaption>Jackie Mundt</figcaption>
 </figure>BY JACKIE MUNDT Pratt County farmer and rancher Over the past decade or two, farmhouse décor has been an in vogue style of interior design. It makes me chuckle when I think about people who don’t live on a farm trying to create clean and pretty spaces through white wash, distressed paint and vintage hardware. Real farmhouses are rarely as desirable as this style is made out to be. I live in a real farm house and can guarantee my house won’t be featured on HGTV anytime soon. I honestly don’t think there is anything in my house that resembles the farmhouse style. However, the character that inspired designers to want to recreate the functional, no frills feel of country living, can be seen in many places in this old farmhouse. Every house has its own story. Our house’s story began as a kit house made by Sears and Roebuck that was delivered by train and assembled by its owner. We don’t know the exact year the house was delivered but estimate it was likely around the 1920s. The house was built just a few yards from the original homestead, which was still standing until about a decade ago and could fit in our kitchen. I can imagine the excitement and pride that must have been felt when this model was selected. It was a statement of perseverance and success to move from a house that was merely shelter to what was likely the equivalent of a mansion for the time. The trade-off of our house’s cool story is it was built by farmers not professional carpenters. The house is sturdy and functional, even though it has lots of little imperfections that are a product of the original DIYers. The house has seen a lot of lifestyle change in the last century: the installation of indoor plumbing, electrification and the move from wood stoves and chimneys to a furnace and air conditioning. Some of the remnants of these eras can still be seen in things like a few push button light switches or nob and tub lights from the original electrification, which have been preserved as novelties. We have also seen glimpses of the interests and taste of former home owners as we have worked to make the house our own. While tearing out outdated carpeting to take advantage of the original hardwood floors, we found decorative room mats that were in style during the time of construction. Each time we discover a new detail in the house, it’s like the house is telling the story of generations that have lived here before. Though each family who has called this house their home has been unique, they all share some things in common. The kitchen has prepared many meals for families who work the land. The floors have been tracked with mud and dirt more times than they have been clean. The rooms have played host to moments of joy, hope, and love that hopefully outweighed the times of worry and grief. The bay windows provided protection for the extreme Kansas weather that has often been a blessing and a curse. Our house is worn and imperfect because it is a place where life has been lived. Character like that can’t be replicated for a home good store. This house will never be as pretty as homes designed to look like the farmhouse style, and that’s OK with me. I am happy to live in this old farmhouse."Insight" is a weekly column published by Kansas Farm Bureau, the state's largest farm organization whose mission is to strengthen agriculture and the lives of Kansans through advocacy, education and service.&nbsp;

Kansas Farm Bureau Insight: The old farmhouse

By PERRY ZURN <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-keep-kids-curious-5-questions-answered-189512">The Conversation</a>

Kids are naturally curious. But various forces in the environment
 can dampen their curiosity over time. Can anything be done to keep 
kids’ curiosity alive? For answers to this question, The Conversation 
U.S. turned to <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1fr7ljcAAAAJ&amp;hl=en">Perry Zurn</a>, a philosophy professor at American University and author of three books on curiosity, including “<a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262047036/curious-minds/">Curious Minds: The Power of Connection</a>,” which was released in September 2022.

Curiosity is a natural capacity, present in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhab080">nonhuman animals</a> as well as in humans from a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12629">very young age</a>.
 Beings of all sorts seek information, explore their environments and 
innovate new ways of solving problems. Creatures big and small, from 
elephants to bees, engage in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/npp.2017.108">exploratory foraging</a> as they discover new territory and resources, while <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1620739114">monkeys</a> – and even <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2016.0414">cells and viruses</a> – innovate new behaviors.

Among human beings, most people – scholars and nonscholars alike – 
have a sense that children are especially curious. Psychologist <a href="https://psychology.williams.edu/profile/sengel/">Susan Engel</a> validates this sense in her book “<a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674736757">The Hungry Mind</a>.”
 Engel observes children’s curiosity at work in different environments, 
from preschool nature walks and middle school science labs to asking 
questions around the dinner table. Her research confirms that children 
are bursting with curiosity, expressed in the things they touch, the way
 they talk and how they interact with others. But what happens to that 
curiosity as we age?

Some people I meet bemoan the loss of their childlike wonder, while 
others are proud to have maintained or expanded it. What might explain 
the difference?

While research clearly shows children have a high interest in <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442217331/The-Philosophical-Child">asking questions</a>,
 that interest may dull over time, particularly in school settings. One 
study found that preschoolers ask an average of 26 questions an hour at 
home, but <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/young-children-learning/oclc/11114218">less than two per hour at school</a>.
 Another study showed that fifth grade students, on average, expressed 
curiosity – via question asking, directed gazing or object manipulation –
 <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674736757">less than once every two hours</a>. Why?

Many things can dampen curiosity. Internet search engines and 
smartphones that give immediate answers limit children’s ability to sit 
with their questions and stew over their <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Experience-And-Education/John-Dewey/9780684838281">problems</a>. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK568743/">Parenting styles</a> that emphasize the value of questions only as a means to an end – such as correct <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/pedagogy-of-the-oppressed-9781501314162/">answers</a>
 – limit children’s capacity to cultivate questions for their own sake. 
Lastly, when schools train children to ask only specific kinds of 
questions in specific sorts of ways, it can limit their opportunities to
 <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262515108/insatiable-curiosity/">innovate</a> by constraining their interest and inquiry into narrow channels.

3. How good are K-12 schools at fostering curiosity?

Since teacher training focuses on conveying content and cultivating basic skills, teachers <a href="https://manifold.umn.edu/read/curiosity-studies/section/672957b4-788b-40c5-a747-f66544b641fe#conc">may not know how</a> to facilitate curiosity.

To make matters more complicated, educators are often up against <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2022/08/26/are-we-at-a-crisis-point-with-the-public-teacher-workforce-education-scholars-share-their-perspectives/">impossible odds</a>
 of growing class sizes, reduced resources and increased pressure to 
achieve generalized, measurable outcomes. As a result, many teachers 
teach “compliance” more than “curiosity,” as <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/220290/between-the-world-and-me-by-ta-nehisi-coates/">Ta-Nehisi Coates</a>
 puts it, reflecting on his time as a student in Baltimore schools. In 
his experience, it was more important for students to behave and learn 
the assigned material than for them to explore their interests and go 
out on a limb. This is especially harmful for students whose creative 
intelligence is already less likely to be encouraged, such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.0.0120">students of color</a> and students with <a href="https://manifold.umn.edu/read/curiosity-studies/section/09913fb6-4df2-4607-9192-cf745c919426#ch08/">learning differences</a>, including autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or dyslexia.

As astrophysicist and Black feminist author <a href="https://ceps.unh.edu/person/chanda-prescod-weinstein">Chanda Prescod-Weinstein</a> emphasizes in her recent book, “<a href="https://www.boldtypebooks.com/titles/chanda-prescod-weinstein/the-disordered-cosmos/9781541724709/">The Disordered Cosmos</a>,”
 not everyone is encouraged to reach for – or understand – the stars. 
She sees Black women as being especially discouraged from their academic
 and scientific aspirations.

4. How can parents protect their children’s curiosity?

Paying attention to each child’s own style of curiosity, and 
instilling in them a sense of pride in that style, will do much to equip
 kids to maintain curiosity. While children are naturally curious, they 
may express and pursue their curiosity in different ways. Research 
indicates there are multiple <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/curious/201801/what-are-the-five-dimensions-curiosity">dimensions</a> or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/sep/04/busybody-hunter-dancer-curiosity-curious-minds-bassett-zurn">styles</a> of curiosity.

One <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-00985-7">study I was involved in</a>, for example, led by communications scientist <a href="https://www.asc.upenn.edu/people/faculty/david-lydon-staley-phd">David Lydon-Staley</a>,
 showed that people who browse Wikipedia have a tendency either to be 
busybodies – clicking on radically different pages; or hunters – 
clicking on closely connected pages. Does your child like to know 
everything about a few things? Or a few things about everything?

For the ancient Greeks, these two styles were best characterized by <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/07/08/739502013/the-fox-and-the-hedgehog-a-story-of-triumphs-and-tragedy">the hedgehog and the fox</a>.
 According to Archilochus, the hedgehog “knows one thing,” but the fox 
“knows many things.” Following that instinct, in my book “<a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262047036/">Curious Minds</a>,” written with neuroscientist <a href="https://directory.seas.upenn.edu/danielle-s-bassett/">Dani S. Bassett</a>,
 we analyze 18 different creatures, from animals to insects, and 
characterize their unique curiosity styles. Perhaps your child is more 
like an octopus, with inquisitive arms stretched out in every direction,
 or an inchworm, slow and steady.

If people are to have the curiosity and creative imagination 
necessary to address pressing problems the world over, we will have to 
rethink what happens in the college classroom, and what happens <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/beyond-education">beyond it</a>.

Fellow philosopher of curiosity Lani Watson argues that however much 
colleges and universities tout a central commitment to curiosity, they 
continue to rely primarily on “<a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-16-5277-6">answers-oriented education</a>.”
 Over and over again, the written exam, the multiple choice test or the 
position paper are the gold standard by which students demonstrate that 
they have learned and what they have learned.

Asking better, more insightful and more creative questions is rarely 
prized in educational settings except as a means to other ends – higher 
grades, more published papers, more discoveries or innovations. The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1521025115622777">rising</a> social pressures to work longer hours on classes, jobs and internships, and a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/12/the-liberal-arts-may-not-survive-the-21st-century/577876/">declining</a>
 investment in a liberal arts education, make questioning itself an 
endangered art. Few students have the time or encouragement to get 
curious for curiosity’s sake.

Perry Zurn is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at American University.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/9/1663613887084.jpg" alt="Image courtesy of Pixabay" />
 <figcaption>Image courtesy of Pixabay</figcaption>
 </figure>By PERRY ZURN <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-keep-kids-curious-5-questions-answered-189512">The Conversation</a>Kids are naturally curious. But various forces in the environment
 can dampen their curiosity over time. Can anything be done to keep 
kids’ curiosity alive? For answers to this question, The Conversation 
U.S. turned to <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=1fr7ljcAAAAJ&amp;hl=en">Perry Zurn</a>, a philosophy professor at American University and author of three books on curiosity, including “<a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262047036/curious-minds/">Curious Minds: The Power of Connection</a>,” which was released in September 2022.<h2>1. Is curiosity abundant at birth?</h2>Curiosity is a natural capacity, present in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhab080">nonhuman animals</a> as well as in humans from a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12629">very young age</a>.
 Beings of all sorts seek information, explore their environments and 
innovate new ways of solving problems. Creatures big and small, from 
elephants to bees, engage in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/npp.2017.108">exploratory foraging</a> as they discover new territory and resources, while <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1620739114">monkeys</a> – and even <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2016.0414">cells and viruses</a> – innovate new behaviors.Among human beings, most people – scholars and nonscholars alike – 
have a sense that children are especially curious. Psychologist <a href="https://psychology.williams.edu/profile/sengel/">Susan Engel</a> validates this sense in her book “<a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674736757">The Hungry Mind</a>.”
 Engel observes children’s curiosity at work in different environments, 
from preschool nature walks and middle school science labs to asking 
questions around the dinner table. Her research confirms that children 
are bursting with curiosity, expressed in the things they touch, the way
 they talk and how they interact with others. But what happens to that 
curiosity as we age?Some people I meet bemoan the loss of their childlike wonder, while 
others are proud to have maintained or expanded it. What might explain 
the difference?<h2>2. What kills kids’ curiosity?</h2>While research clearly shows children have a high interest in <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442217331/The-Philosophical-Child">asking questions</a>,
 that interest may dull over time, particularly in school settings. One 
study found that preschoolers ask an average of 26 questions an hour at 
home, but <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/young-children-learning/oclc/11114218">less than two per hour at school</a>.
 Another study showed that fifth grade students, on average, expressed 
curiosity – via question asking, directed gazing or object manipulation –
 <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674736757">less than once every two hours</a>. Why? Many things can dampen curiosity. Internet search engines and 
smartphones that give immediate answers limit children’s ability to sit 
with their questions and stew over their <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Experience-And-Education/John-Dewey/9780684838281">problems</a>. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK568743/">Parenting styles</a> that emphasize the value of questions only as a means to an end – such as correct <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/pedagogy-of-the-oppressed-9781501314162/">answers</a>
 – limit children’s capacity to cultivate questions for their own sake. 
Lastly, when schools train children to ask only specific kinds of 
questions in specific sorts of ways, it can limit their opportunities to
 <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262515108/insatiable-curiosity/">innovate</a> by constraining their interest and inquiry into narrow channels.<h2>3. How good are K-12 schools at fostering curiosity?</h2>Since teacher training focuses on conveying content and cultivating basic skills, teachers <a href="https://manifold.umn.edu/read/curiosity-studies/section/672957b4-788b-40c5-a747-f66544b641fe#conc">may not know how</a> to facilitate curiosity.To make matters more complicated, educators are often up against <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2022/08/26/are-we-at-a-crisis-point-with-the-public-teacher-workforce-education-scholars-share-their-perspectives/">impossible odds</a>
 of growing class sizes, reduced resources and increased pressure to 
achieve generalized, measurable outcomes. As a result, many teachers 
teach “compliance” more than “curiosity,” as <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/220290/between-the-world-and-me-by-ta-nehisi-coates/">Ta-Nehisi Coates</a>
 puts it, reflecting on his time as a student in Baltimore schools. In 
his experience, it was more important for students to behave and learn 
the assigned material than for them to explore their interests and go 
out on a limb. This is especially harmful for students whose creative 
intelligence is already less likely to be encouraged, such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.0.0120">students of color</a> and students with <a href="https://manifold.umn.edu/read/curiosity-studies/section/09913fb6-4df2-4607-9192-cf745c919426#ch08/">learning differences</a>, including autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or dyslexia.As astrophysicist and Black feminist author <a href="https://ceps.unh.edu/person/chanda-prescod-weinstein">Chanda Prescod-Weinstein</a> emphasizes in her recent book, “<a href="https://www.boldtypebooks.com/titles/chanda-prescod-weinstein/the-disordered-cosmos/9781541724709/">The Disordered Cosmos</a>,”
 not everyone is encouraged to reach for – or understand – the stars. 
She sees Black women as being especially discouraged from their academic
 and scientific aspirations. <h2>4. How can parents protect their children’s curiosity?</h2>Paying attention to each child’s own style of curiosity, and 
instilling in them a sense of pride in that style, will do much to equip
 kids to maintain curiosity. While children are naturally curious, they 
may express and pursue their curiosity in different ways. Research 
indicates there are multiple <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/curious/201801/what-are-the-five-dimensions-curiosity">dimensions</a> or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/sep/04/busybody-hunter-dancer-curiosity-curious-minds-bassett-zurn">styles</a> of curiosity.One <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-00985-7">study I was involved in</a>, for example, led by communications scientist <a href="https://www.asc.upenn.edu/people/faculty/david-lydon-staley-phd">David Lydon-Staley</a>,
 showed that people who browse Wikipedia have a tendency either to be 
busybodies – clicking on radically different pages; or hunters – 
clicking on closely connected pages. Does your child like to know 
everything about a few things? Or a few things about everything?For the ancient Greeks, these two styles were best characterized by <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/07/08/739502013/the-fox-and-the-hedgehog-a-story-of-triumphs-and-tragedy">the hedgehog and the fox</a>.
 According to Archilochus, the hedgehog “knows one thing,” but the fox 
“knows many things.” Following that instinct, in my book “<a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262047036/">Curious Minds</a>,” written with neuroscientist <a href="https://directory.seas.upenn.edu/danielle-s-bassett/">Dani S. Bassett</a>,
 we analyze 18 different creatures, from animals to insects, and 
characterize their unique curiosity styles. Perhaps your child is more 
like an octopus, with inquisitive arms stretched out in every direction,
 or an inchworm, slow and steady. <h2>5. What role can colleges play?</h2>If people are to have the curiosity and creative imagination 
necessary to address pressing problems the world over, we will have to 
rethink what happens in the college classroom, and what happens <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/beyond-education">beyond it</a>. Fellow philosopher of curiosity Lani Watson argues that however much 
colleges and universities tout a central commitment to curiosity, they 
continue to rely primarily on “<a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-16-5277-6">answers-oriented education</a>.”
 Over and over again, the written exam, the multiple choice test or the 
position paper are the gold standard by which students demonstrate that 
they have learned and what they have learned.Asking better, more insightful and more creative questions is rarely 
prized in educational settings except as a means to other ends – higher 
grades, more published papers, more discoveries or innovations. The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1521025115622777">rising</a> social pressures to work longer hours on classes, jobs and internships, and a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/12/the-liberal-arts-may-not-survive-the-21st-century/577876/">declining</a>
 investment in a liberal arts education, make questioning itself an 
endangered art. Few students have the time or encouragement to get 
curious for curiosity’s sake.Perry Zurn is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at American University.<div><iframe src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189512/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-advanced" width="1" height="1"></iframe></div>

ANALYSIS: How to keep kids curious. Five questions answered

I love the&nbsp;Kansas&nbsp;State Fair and&nbsp;I&nbsp;enjoy&nbsp;talking to people about&nbsp;trapping,&nbsp;so I&nbsp;spend some time each year at the Kansas&nbsp;Fur Harvesters booth&nbsp;at the&nbsp;Kansas State Fair.That booth is an excellent way to educate people about the importance of trapping here in the U.S.&nbsp;

As people stop by the booth, one of the things we point out is that&nbsp;furbearers in Kansas are very prolific&nbsp;breeders and trapping is a&nbsp;perfect&nbsp;and necessary&nbsp;tool to keep their populations&nbsp;manageable. Beavers have from one to six young each&nbsp;year, and they&nbsp;do considerable damage by damming streams and ponds that flood farmland, back roads and golf courses.&nbsp;They cut off newly planted saplings with just a couple bites and kill large standing trees by completely chewing off the bark as high as they can reach.&nbsp;Beavers can be beneficial in creating wetlands and other wildlife habitat in pastures or in other out-of-the-way places, but they won’t be tolerated in farm country or in places like city parks&nbsp;or golf courses.&nbsp;Muskrats have three to five litters per year, each containing up to five kits, and even though they don’t chew trees, they can absolutely riddle dikes, stream banks and pond dams with holes for dens.&nbsp;Raccoons birth three or four young each year and their taste&nbsp;for&nbsp;eggs leads&nbsp;them to destroy large numbers of songbird, pheasant and quail nests every spring.&nbsp;Coyotes&nbsp;have six to ten pups each year and even if only three survive, that’s a three hundred percent population increase.&nbsp;

Displayed at the booth are tanned pelts representing every furbearer found in Kansas. Everyone enjoys trying to identify each pelt as they run their fingers through the soft luxurious fur. The skunk pelt is always a good conversation starter, and visitors are usually astonished&nbsp;at how soft and beautiful skunk fur really is; even more surprising to them is the fact that skunk essence is used in minute amounts in perfume as an agent to hold and carry the aroma, making it last longer (ever noticed how long skunk smell hangs around?)&nbsp;I always have a good time with a skunk hat we have at the booth each year. Letting kids try it on and getting their pictures taken&nbsp;is as much fun for me as it is&nbsp;for&nbsp;the kids and their families. Most people are also amazed at how soft and plush a possum pelt&nbsp;actually is. Its hard for them to believe something that soft can come from an animal&nbsp;as&nbsp;homely&nbsp;as a possum&nbsp;that is pretty much a four-legged vulture.&nbsp;

Numerous men who stop at the booth trapped when they were kids and they&nbsp;usually&nbsp;ask about fur prices today.&nbsp;They are often surprised to hear that most wild caught fur ends up in foreign countries where the garment trade still exists, and&nbsp;thatprices for American wild-caught fur are&nbsp;dependent&nbsp;on&nbsp;the economies of those countries and of the political climate of the world in general.

As recently as a generation ago, hunting, trapping and fishing were&nbsp;never questioned and were just a part of life. Today, because&nbsp;of&nbsp;seasons&nbsp;and harvest&nbsp;limits there are more game and fish available for harvest than ever before in the history of our country, so it makes no sense to me that hunting, trapping and fishing would be challenged now. I&nbsp;wish every anti-hunter could envision&nbsp;a world without&nbsp;regulated&nbsp;hunting, trapping and fishing, where wildlife died from starvation, rampant disease and indiscriminate shooting;&nbsp;it wouldn’t be pretty! 

Steve Gilliland, Inman, can be contacted by email at stevenrgilliland@gmail.com.&nbsp;

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/11/1574696211722.png" alt="Steve&nbsp;Gilliland" />
 <figcaption>Steve&nbsp;Gilliland</figcaption>
 </figure>I love the&nbsp;Kansas&nbsp;State Fair and&nbsp;I&nbsp;enjoy&nbsp;talking to people about&nbsp;trapping,&nbsp;so I&nbsp;spend some time each year at the Kansas&nbsp;Fur Harvesters booth&nbsp;at the&nbsp;Kansas State Fair.That booth is an excellent way to educate people about the importance of trapping here in the U.S.&nbsp;As people stop by the booth, one of the things we point out is that&nbsp;furbearers in Kansas are very prolific&nbsp;breeders and trapping is a&nbsp;perfect&nbsp;and necessary&nbsp;tool to keep their populations&nbsp;manageable. Beavers have from one to six young each&nbsp;year, and they&nbsp;do considerable damage by damming streams and ponds that flood farmland, back roads and golf courses.&nbsp;They cut off newly planted saplings with just a couple bites and kill large standing trees by completely chewing off the bark as high as they can reach.&nbsp;Beavers can be beneficial in creating wetlands and other wildlife habitat in pastures or in other out-of-the-way places, but they won’t be tolerated in farm country or in places like city parks&nbsp;or golf courses.&nbsp;Muskrats have three to five litters per year, each containing up to five kits, and even though they don’t chew trees, they can absolutely riddle dikes, stream banks and pond dams with holes for dens.&nbsp;Raccoons birth three or four young each year and their taste&nbsp;for&nbsp;eggs leads&nbsp;them to destroy large numbers of songbird, pheasant and quail nests every spring.&nbsp;Coyotes&nbsp;have six to ten pups each year and even if only three survive, that’s a three hundred percent population increase.&nbsp;Displayed at the booth are tanned pelts representing every furbearer found in Kansas. Everyone enjoys trying to identify each pelt as they run their fingers through the soft luxurious fur. The skunk pelt is always a good conversation starter, and visitors are usually astonished&nbsp;at how soft and beautiful skunk fur really is; even more surprising to them is the fact that skunk essence is used in minute amounts in perfume as an agent to hold and carry the aroma, making it last longer (ever noticed how long skunk smell hangs around?)&nbsp;I always have a good time with a skunk hat we have at the booth each year. Letting kids try it on and getting their pictures taken&nbsp;is as much fun for me as it is&nbsp;for&nbsp;the kids and their families. Most people are also amazed at how soft and plush a possum pelt&nbsp;actually is. Its hard for them to believe something that soft can come from an animal&nbsp;as&nbsp;homely&nbsp;as a possum&nbsp;that is pretty much a four-legged vulture.&nbsp;Numerous men who stop at the booth trapped when they were kids and they&nbsp;usually&nbsp;ask about fur prices today.&nbsp;They are often surprised to hear that most wild caught fur ends up in foreign countries where the garment trade still exists, and&nbsp;thatprices for American wild-caught fur are&nbsp;dependent&nbsp;on&nbsp;the economies of those countries and of the political climate of the world in general.As recently as a generation ago, hunting, trapping and fishing were&nbsp;never questioned and were just a part of life. Today, because&nbsp;of&nbsp;seasons&nbsp;and harvest&nbsp;limits there are more game and fish available for harvest than ever before in the history of our country, so it makes no sense to me that hunting, trapping and fishing would be challenged now. I&nbsp;wish every anti-hunter could envision&nbsp;a world without&nbsp;regulated&nbsp;hunting, trapping and fishing, where wildlife died from starvation, rampant disease and indiscriminate shooting;&nbsp;it wouldn’t be pretty! Continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors.Steve Gilliland, Inman, can be contacted by email at stevenrgilliland@gmail.com.&nbsp;

Exploring Outdoors Kansas: Talking trapping at the fair

The Kansas State Fair kicked off with a debate between two candidates for governor. During the debate Republican Derek Schmidt was asked if Kansas is better off today than it was under former Governor Sam Brownback. Schmidt refused to answer the question.

As&nbsp;a state&nbsp;are we&nbsp;better off? Yes. And&nbsp;I think most Kansans would agree.&nbsp;

However, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t still&nbsp;progress&nbsp;to be made.

Statistically,&nbsp;our economy has improved over the past four and a half years since Brownback left office. But&nbsp;even as the economy has strengthened,&nbsp;much of the improvement has been concentrated in certain areas of the workforce.

Notably, Kansas has major shortages of “pink collar” occupations like teachers, nurses, and childcare workers.&nbsp;These workers have left their&nbsp;professions&nbsp;in droves after bearing too much of the burden of the state’s pandemic response.&nbsp;

Long working hours, inadequate professional support, serious staff shortages, and high COVID-19 infection and death rates among frontline workers, especially during the pandemic’s early stages, have left a mark.

But to blame the pandemic alone would be a mistake. COVID revealed the cracks in&nbsp;our&nbsp;already&nbsp;strained&nbsp;human infrastructure. A system&nbsp;that was&nbsp;built on the&nbsp;labor&nbsp;— paid and unpaid —&nbsp;of&nbsp;Kansas&nbsp;women.

“Caring professions” like nurses, teachers, and childcare workers have long been paid significantly less than&nbsp;male-dominated&nbsp;technical and managerial professions.

Workers in these&nbsp;caring&nbsp;occupations&nbsp;have been undervalued primary because&nbsp;they are&nbsp;mostlywomen. Their status as essential workers throughout the pandemic finally laid that bare for all to see.&nbsp;

But the pandemic didn’t cause the problem.

According to a recent report from United WE, in 2019,&nbsp;Kansas women were less likely to be employed and&nbsp;more likely to be&nbsp;underemployed&nbsp;or not&nbsp;part of&nbsp;the labor force at all. The statewide gender pay gap has also widened over the past five years&nbsp;and&nbsp;one-third of women workers earn less than $25,000 per year.

Data from the&nbsp;US Department of Labor&nbsp;shows that&nbsp;salaries&nbsp;in&nbsp;the top occupations for women&nbsp;are&nbsp;also&nbsp;lower in Kansas than in the&nbsp;rest of the&nbsp;country, while the top occupations for men are comparable.

According to the US Chamber of Commerce nearly one million women nationwide are still missing from the workforce, mostly due to unreliable childcare and elder care options.&nbsp;

During the debate both Kelly and Schmidt acknowledged Kansas’ serious childcare crisis — there is too large a demand for services and too few options,&nbsp;resulting&nbsp;in rising costs&nbsp;that&nbsp;price many women out of the workforce.

Over the past year there&nbsp;here has&nbsp;been some&nbsp;action at the&nbsp;state-level&nbsp;that&nbsp;compensated&nbsp;some&nbsp;of these caring professionals by giving bonuses to workers and offering&nbsp;their employers&nbsp;state funds for retention incentives.&nbsp;

But these will likely only have short term effects.

Offering a one-time bonus to a childcare worker whose average pay is $10.80 an hour is like throwing a single bucket of water on a wildfire. Better than nothing, but wholly inadequate to stop the blaze.

Worker shortages across the country have led to a historic surge in collective action, and&nbsp;Kansas has not been immune to&nbsp;this&nbsp;wave of&nbsp;labor organizing.&nbsp;But with so many women&nbsp;forced&nbsp;out of the workforce, many, especially those low-income women who&nbsp;stand to&nbsp;benefit the most, have been unable to take advantage of the activism that&nbsp;could, if successful,&nbsp;significantly raise&nbsp;wagesand&nbsp;better&nbsp;working conditions —&nbsp;union representation reduces the gender pay gap by nearly 40 percent, per the US Department of Labor.

The underappreciation of women-dominated&nbsp;occupations&nbsp;did not start with the pandemic, and it certainly won’t end with it either. One-time bonuses are not going to fix the&nbsp;systemic&nbsp;problems causing these shortages.&nbsp;

We live in a society.&nbsp;Not an economy. Even more importantly, we live in communities. And our communities&nbsp;desperately&nbsp;need caregivers&nbsp;and educators.

Kansas needs to re-invest in its human infrastructure, especially it’s women.&nbsp;

Alexandra Middlewood, PhD&nbsp;is an Assistant&nbsp;Professor of Political Science at&nbsp;Wichita State&nbsp;University.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2021/10/1633377761670.jpeg" alt="Alexandra Middlewood, PhD&nbsp;is an Assistant&nbsp;Professor of Political Science at&nbsp;Wichita State&nbsp;University." />
 <figcaption>Alexandra Middlewood, PhD&nbsp;is an Assistant&nbsp;Professor of Political Science at&nbsp;Wichita State&nbsp;University.</figcaption>
 </figure>The Kansas State Fair kicked off with a debate between two candidates for governor. During the debate Republican Derek Schmidt was asked if Kansas is better off today than it was under former Governor Sam Brownback. Schmidt refused to answer the question.As&nbsp;a state&nbsp;are we&nbsp;better off? Yes. And&nbsp;I think most Kansans would agree.&nbsp;However, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t still&nbsp;progress&nbsp;to be made.Statistically,&nbsp;our economy has improved over the past four and a half years since Brownback left office. But&nbsp;even as the economy has strengthened,&nbsp;much of the improvement has been concentrated in certain areas of the workforce.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/12/1575913663048.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>Notably, Kansas has major shortages of “pink collar” occupations like teachers, nurses, and childcare workers.&nbsp;These workers have left their&nbsp;professions&nbsp;in droves after bearing too much of the burden of the state’s pandemic response.&nbsp;Long working hours, inadequate professional support, serious staff shortages, and high COVID-19 infection and death rates among frontline workers, especially during the pandemic’s early stages, have left a mark.But to blame the pandemic alone would be a mistake. COVID revealed the cracks in&nbsp;our&nbsp;already&nbsp;strained&nbsp;human infrastructure. A system&nbsp;that was&nbsp;built on the&nbsp;labor&nbsp;— paid and unpaid —&nbsp;of&nbsp;Kansas&nbsp;women.“Caring professions” like nurses, teachers, and childcare workers have long been paid significantly less than&nbsp;male-dominated&nbsp;technical and managerial professions.Workers in these&nbsp;caring&nbsp;occupations&nbsp;have been undervalued primary because&nbsp;they are&nbsp;mostlywomen. Their status as essential workers throughout the pandemic finally laid that bare for all to see.&nbsp;But the pandemic didn’t cause the problem.According to a recent report from United WE, in 2019,&nbsp;Kansas women were less likely to be employed and&nbsp;more likely to be&nbsp;underemployed&nbsp;or not&nbsp;part of&nbsp;the labor force at all. The statewide gender pay gap has also widened over the past five years&nbsp;and&nbsp;one-third of women workers earn less than $25,000 per year.Data from the&nbsp;US Department of Labor&nbsp;shows that&nbsp;salaries&nbsp;in&nbsp;the top occupations for women&nbsp;are&nbsp;also&nbsp;lower in Kansas than in the&nbsp;rest of the&nbsp;country, while the top occupations for men are comparable.According to the US Chamber of Commerce nearly one million women nationwide are still missing from the workforce, mostly due to unreliable childcare and elder care options.&nbsp;During the debate both Kelly and Schmidt acknowledged Kansas’ serious childcare crisis — there is too large a demand for services and too few options,&nbsp;resulting&nbsp;in rising costs&nbsp;that&nbsp;price many women out of the workforce.Over the past year there&nbsp;here has&nbsp;been some&nbsp;action at the&nbsp;state-level&nbsp;that&nbsp;compensated&nbsp;some&nbsp;of these caring professionals by giving bonuses to workers and offering&nbsp;their employers&nbsp;state funds for retention incentives.&nbsp;But these will likely only have short term effects.Offering a one-time bonus to a childcare worker whose average pay is $10.80 an hour is like throwing a single bucket of water on a wildfire. Better than nothing, but wholly inadequate to stop the blaze.Worker shortages across the country have led to a historic surge in collective action, and&nbsp;Kansas has not been immune to&nbsp;this&nbsp;wave of&nbsp;labor organizing.&nbsp;But with so many women&nbsp;forced&nbsp;out of the workforce, many, especially those low-income women who&nbsp;stand to&nbsp;benefit the most, have been unable to take advantage of the activism that&nbsp;could, if successful,&nbsp;significantly raise&nbsp;wagesand&nbsp;better&nbsp;working conditions —&nbsp;union representation reduces the gender pay gap by nearly 40 percent, per the US Department of Labor.The underappreciation of women-dominated&nbsp;occupations&nbsp;did not start with the pandemic, and it certainly won’t end with it either. One-time bonuses are not going to fix the&nbsp;systemic&nbsp;problems causing these shortages.&nbsp;We live in a society.&nbsp;Not an economy. Even more importantly, we live in communities. And our communities&nbsp;desperately&nbsp;need caregivers&nbsp;and educators.Kansas needs to re-invest in its human infrastructure, especially it’s women.&nbsp;Alexandra Middlewood, PhD&nbsp;is an Assistant&nbsp;Professor of Political Science at&nbsp;Wichita State&nbsp;University.

INSIGHT KANSAS: Want to solve the ‘worker shortage’? Invest in women

Who cares about Saturday night entertainment when you can spend the day at a country auction? Now that it’s cooling down, local auctioneers are&nbsp;revving&nbsp;their season&nbsp;with weekly sales&nbsp;before snow flies. Both my husband and I enjoy looking at the ads to see what what’s&nbsp;on the sale block and where.&nbsp;Fortunately&nbsp;or unfortunately, we’re at that place in our lives where we don’t need anything, but it sure is fun to&nbsp;examine&nbsp;what other folks collected during their time on earth&nbsp;and see how&nbsp;our gathering skills&nbsp;compare.&nbsp;

One of the bonuses to attending local auctions is that we’re sure to run into old&nbsp;friends.&nbsp;A number&nbsp;of us&nbsp;were part of these Saturday crowds for decades as we furnished&nbsp;houses, kitchens, and tool shops&nbsp;from scratch.&nbsp;Once we&nbsp;found&nbsp;our&nbsp;necessities,&nbsp;some of us&nbsp;got hooked on belongings&nbsp;someone else&nbsp;first&nbsp;loved. Others&nbsp;bid on&nbsp;treasures that reminded&nbsp;them&nbsp;of childhood or visits to grandparents’ homes.&nbsp;Depending on the collection, a&nbsp;great&nbsp;auction&nbsp;is&nbsp;better than visiting a museum. It’&nbsp;fascinating&nbsp;to see snippets&nbsp;from folks’ lives&nbsp;from&nbsp;decades before.&nbsp;Sometimes,&nbsp;I find&nbsp;a treasure&nbsp;I didn’t know I needed&nbsp;and my head keeps nodding yes during the bidding.

Oftentimes,&nbsp;regular&nbsp;attendees turn their&nbsp;interest and time&nbsp;into businesses where they buy furniture&nbsp;or&nbsp;equipment&nbsp;to&nbsp;re-sell. Others run booths or online businesses&nbsp;marketing&nbsp;finds&nbsp;to those who don’t have the inclination or time to spend at an all-day auction.&nbsp;A few&nbsp;turn&nbsp;their homes and yards into artistic&nbsp;showcases&nbsp;full of&nbsp;quirky&nbsp;items they&nbsp;repurpose. Nothing like a worn-&nbsp;out wheel barrow, rusty cast iron kettle,&nbsp;or cream separator to&nbsp;display&nbsp;overflowing blooms.&nbsp;Some&nbsp;win the bid on&nbsp;giant carved&nbsp;birds&nbsp;to decorate their world.&nbsp;

Who knows who&nbsp;you’ll run into at an auction,&nbsp;so&nbsp;prepare for catch-up&nbsp;gab.&nbsp;This can involve hours discovering where old colleagues&nbsp;now&nbsp;live&nbsp;or&nbsp;finding&nbsp;out what&nbsp;kids and grandkids are&nbsp;up to.&nbsp;Heaven’s,&nbsp;some early starters&nbsp;share&nbsp;stories about great grands!&nbsp;It doesn’t&nbsp;seem possible&nbsp;time&nbsp;enough&nbsp;has passed&nbsp;to create great grands&nbsp;when&nbsp;everyone&nbsp;still feels&nbsp;young on the inside.&nbsp;These conversations&nbsp;also&nbsp;remember&nbsp;those we’ve lost&nbsp;since last&nbsp;we&nbsp;visited.

For those of us who enjoy local comedy, there’s no one better to poke fun than a good auctioneer.&nbsp;From the time I first attended Stithem and Fabrizius auctions back in the '70s,&nbsp;Leon would interrupt the chatter long enough to tease someone in the crowd and then resume business without losing&nbsp;his&nbsp;concentration. This last week, we were in the community&nbsp;center&nbsp;in&nbsp;a nearby town&nbsp;and&nbsp;folks&nbsp;competitively&nbsp;bid&nbsp;high dollar on foofoorah.&nbsp;Eventually,&nbsp;boxes of religious objects, pictures, crosses, and other&nbsp;sentimental&nbsp;objects crossed the table. For whatever reason, it took&nbsp;a&nbsp;while for folks to bid,&nbsp;triggering the auctioneer to astutely remind us, “Jesus is watching.”

For&nbsp;fans of&nbsp;homemade food, auctions&nbsp;showcase local cooks.&nbsp;Area vendors&nbsp;sell homemade pies and cinnamon rolls.&nbsp;Kirwin auctions once guaranteed&nbsp;slices&nbsp;of fresh coconut cream or butterscotch pies. Auctions at the Ellis K of C Hall promise&nbsp;so many&nbsp;choices that diners&nbsp;have to hit the kitchen more than once.&nbsp;Hungry buyers can snag hot-off-the grill brauts, burgers, and dogs. Add a pickled egg or brownie to complete the meal and you’re set&nbsp;to&nbsp;bid the rest of the day.&nbsp;

Folks in big cities might attend&nbsp;concerts and professional&nbsp;entertainment&nbsp;more often than those of us&nbsp;from&nbsp;rural areas.&nbsp;That said, it’s hard to beat a good auction for a full day’s entertainment shared with friends. 

You might even&nbsp;haul&nbsp;home treasure you didn’t know you needed.

Karen is a retired teacher, writer, photographer, outdoors lover, and
 sixth-generation Kansan. After a time away, she’s glad to be home.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/9/1662584443128.jpeg" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>By KAREN MADORINWho cares about Saturday night entertainment when you can spend the day at a country auction? Now that it’s cooling down, local auctioneers are&nbsp;revving&nbsp;their season&nbsp;with weekly sales&nbsp;before snow flies. Both my husband and I enjoy looking at the ads to see what what’s&nbsp;on the sale block and where.&nbsp;Fortunately&nbsp;or unfortunately, we’re at that place in our lives where we don’t need anything, but it sure is fun to&nbsp;examine&nbsp;what other folks collected during their time on earth&nbsp;and see how&nbsp;our gathering skills&nbsp;compare.&nbsp;One of the bonuses to attending local auctions is that we’re sure to run into old&nbsp;friends.&nbsp;A number&nbsp;of us&nbsp;were part of these Saturday crowds for decades as we furnished&nbsp;houses, kitchens, and tool shops&nbsp;from scratch.&nbsp;Once we&nbsp;found&nbsp;our&nbsp;necessities,&nbsp;some of us&nbsp;got hooked on belongings&nbsp;someone else&nbsp;first&nbsp;loved. Others&nbsp;bid on&nbsp;treasures that reminded&nbsp;them&nbsp;of childhood or visits to grandparents’ homes.&nbsp;Depending on the collection, a&nbsp;great&nbsp;auction&nbsp;is&nbsp;better than visiting a museum. It’&nbsp;fascinating&nbsp;to see snippets&nbsp;from folks’ lives&nbsp;from&nbsp;decades before.&nbsp;Sometimes,&nbsp;I find&nbsp;a treasure&nbsp;I didn’t know I needed&nbsp;and my head keeps nodding yes during the bidding.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/7/1658158605319.jpeg" alt="Karen Madorin" />
 <figcaption>Karen Madorin</figcaption>
 </figure>Oftentimes,&nbsp;regular&nbsp;attendees turn their&nbsp;interest and time&nbsp;into businesses where they buy furniture&nbsp;or&nbsp;equipment&nbsp;to&nbsp;re-sell. Others run booths or online businesses&nbsp;marketing&nbsp;finds&nbsp;to those who don’t have the inclination or time to spend at an all-day auction.&nbsp;A few&nbsp;turn&nbsp;their homes and yards into artistic&nbsp;showcases&nbsp;full of&nbsp;quirky&nbsp;items they&nbsp;repurpose. Nothing like a worn-&nbsp;out wheel barrow, rusty cast iron kettle,&nbsp;or cream separator to&nbsp;display&nbsp;overflowing blooms.&nbsp;Some&nbsp;win the bid on&nbsp;giant carved&nbsp;birds&nbsp;to decorate their world.&nbsp;Who knows who&nbsp;you’ll run into at an auction,&nbsp;so&nbsp;prepare for catch-up&nbsp;gab.&nbsp;This can involve hours discovering where old colleagues&nbsp;now&nbsp;live&nbsp;or&nbsp;finding&nbsp;out what&nbsp;kids and grandkids are&nbsp;up to.&nbsp;Heaven’s,&nbsp;some early starters&nbsp;share&nbsp;stories about great grands!&nbsp;It doesn’t&nbsp;seem possible&nbsp;time&nbsp;enough&nbsp;has passed&nbsp;to create great grands&nbsp;when&nbsp;everyone&nbsp;still feels&nbsp;young on the inside.&nbsp;These conversations&nbsp;also&nbsp;remember&nbsp;those we’ve lost&nbsp;since last&nbsp;we&nbsp;visited.For those of us who enjoy local comedy, there’s no one better to poke fun than a good auctioneer.&nbsp;From the time I first attended Stithem and Fabrizius auctions back in the '70s,&nbsp;Leon would interrupt the chatter long enough to tease someone in the crowd and then resume business without losing&nbsp;his&nbsp;concentration. This last week, we were in the community&nbsp;center&nbsp;in&nbsp;a nearby town&nbsp;and&nbsp;folks&nbsp;competitively&nbsp;bid&nbsp;high dollar on foofoorah.&nbsp;Eventually,&nbsp;boxes of religious objects, pictures, crosses, and other&nbsp;sentimental&nbsp;objects crossed the table. For whatever reason, it took&nbsp;a&nbsp;while for folks to bid,&nbsp;triggering the auctioneer to astutely remind us, “Jesus is watching.”For&nbsp;fans of&nbsp;homemade food, auctions&nbsp;showcase local cooks.&nbsp;Area vendors&nbsp;sell homemade pies and cinnamon rolls.&nbsp;Kirwin auctions once guaranteed&nbsp;slices&nbsp;of fresh coconut cream or butterscotch pies. Auctions at the Ellis K of C Hall promise&nbsp;so many&nbsp;choices that diners&nbsp;have to hit the kitchen more than once.&nbsp;Hungry buyers can snag hot-off-the grill brauts, burgers, and dogs. Add a pickled egg or brownie to complete the meal and you’re set&nbsp;to&nbsp;bid the rest of the day.&nbsp;Folks in big cities might attend&nbsp;concerts and professional&nbsp;entertainment&nbsp;more often than those of us&nbsp;from&nbsp;rural areas.&nbsp;That said, it’s hard to beat a good auction for a full day’s entertainment shared with friends. You might even&nbsp;haul&nbsp;home treasure you didn’t know you needed.Karen is a retired teacher, writer, photographer, outdoors lover, and
 sixth-generation Kansan. After a time away, she’s glad to be home.

MADORIN: Saturday auction fun

By RON WILSON Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development&nbsp;

Today let’s go to the center of the country to visit an innovative family which has centered its business on high quality, locally produced fresh food, including their own specialty pork.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Last week we met Kaden and Emily Roush, the owners of R Family Farms near Lebanon — the geographic center of the contiguous United States. The Roushes operate a niche hog production system involving Berkshire pigs. What is the history of Berkshire hogs?&nbsp;

According to legend, 300 years ago Oliver Cromwell’s army was encamped in winter quarters at Reading, the county seat of the shire of Berks in England. They discovered the hogs there to be larger than any swine of the time and to produce ham and bacon of remarkable quality. That was the beginning of the Berkshire breed.&nbsp;

For years, the royal family kept a large herd of Berkshires at Windsor Castle due to the excellent carcass quality of the hogs. In 1823, the first Berkshires were imported to the U.S. In 1875 the American Berkshire Association was created, becoming the first swine registry to be established in the world.&nbsp;

In modern times, Kaden took note of the carcass quality of these hogs. For example, in a summary of tests conducted over a 20-year span at the National Barrow Show in Austin, Minnesota, Berkshire pigs scored highest of all major American pure breeds in sensory quality.&nbsp;

R Family Farms began raising Berkshire hogs. The business now specializes in private label production and direct online marketing of their Berkshire pork. R Family Farms is a member of the From the Land of Kansas program of the Kansas Department of Agriculture.&nbsp;

During the pandemic, the Roushes were handling more than 1,000 orders per year out of their garage. They were looking for a retail outlet when something happened in their hometown.&nbsp;

A grocery store had been operated in Lebanon for many, many years. In the 1970s, it was purchased by the LaDow family and operated as LaDow’s Market for decades.&nbsp;

As the LaDows were getting older, some people wondered what would happen to the store when the LaDows retired. Then the husband passed away. It appeared the store would close.&nbsp;

“We wanted to keep a store in our community and we were looking for a retail storefront,” Kaden Roush said. In February 2022, they purchased the store, which continues to operate as LaDow’s Market.&nbsp;

With help from K-State’s Rural Grocery Initiative, R Family Farms applied for a grant from the Healthy Food Financing Initiative. The HFFI was authorized by the 2014 farm bill. Its’ mission is to improve access to healthy foods in underserved areas, create and preserve quality jobs and revitalize low income communities.&nbsp;

The program is administered by the Reinvestment Fund on behalf of USDA Rural Development. HFFI provides capacity building and financial resources to eligible healthy food retail projects in underserved areas.&nbsp;

In June 2022, USDA announced the current HFFI grants, including three in Kansas. All three of these received help in developing grant proposals from the Rural Grocery Initiative. The grants went to the Groundwork Northeast Revitalization Group, a neighborhood coalition in Kansas City, Kansas; the Marmaton Market (as we have previously profiled) and R Family Farms.&nbsp;

The R Family Farms grant will help support the overall construction and costs of rehabilitating the LaDow’s Market historic building into a retail space, adding both refrigerated and dry warehousing capacity. This will accommodate R Family Farms’ growing local meat business as well as creating a permanent aggregation location for other food producers.&nbsp;

As the LaDow’s Market logo states: “The freshest groceries come from the Center.”&nbsp;

For more information on the store, search for LaDow’s Market.on Facebook. For more information on the rural grocery initiative, see&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ruralgrocery.org/">www.ruralgrocery.org</a>.&nbsp;

It’s time to leave this center of creative pork marketing in the center of the contiguous United States. We commend Kaden and Emily Roush of R Family Farms and LaDow’s Market for making a difference with innovative pork production.&nbsp;

Their commitment to quality for their customers is front and center.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/9/1663163404589.png" alt="Courtesy photo" />
 <figcaption>Courtesy photo</figcaption>
 </figure>By RON WILSON Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development&nbsp;Today let’s go to the center of the country to visit an innovative family which has centered its business on high quality, locally produced fresh food, including their own specialty pork.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Last week we met Kaden and Emily Roush, the owners of R Family Farms near Lebanon — the geographic center of the contiguous United States. The Roushes operate a niche hog production system involving Berkshire pigs. What is the history of Berkshire hogs?&nbsp;According to legend, 300 years ago Oliver Cromwell’s army was encamped in winter quarters at Reading, the county seat of the shire of Berks in England. They discovered the hogs there to be larger than any swine of the time and to produce ham and bacon of remarkable quality. That was the beginning of the Berkshire breed.&nbsp;For years, the royal family kept a large herd of Berkshires at Windsor Castle due to the excellent carcass quality of the hogs. In 1823, the first Berkshires were imported to the U.S. In 1875 the American Berkshire Association was created, becoming the first swine registry to be established in the world.&nbsp;In modern times, Kaden took note of the carcass quality of these hogs. For example, in a summary of tests conducted over a 20-year span at the National Barrow Show in Austin, Minnesota, Berkshire pigs scored highest of all major American pure breeds in sensory quality.&nbsp;R Family Farms began raising Berkshire hogs. The business now specializes in private label production and direct online marketing of their Berkshire pork. R Family Farms is a member of the From the Land of Kansas program of the Kansas Department of Agriculture.&nbsp;During the pandemic, the Roushes were handling more than 1,000 orders per year out of their garage. They were looking for a retail outlet when something happened in their hometown.&nbsp;A grocery store had been operated in Lebanon for many, many years. In the 1970s, it was purchased by the LaDow family and operated as LaDow’s Market for decades.&nbsp;As the LaDows were getting older, some people wondered what would happen to the store when the LaDows retired. Then the husband passed away. It appeared the store would close.&nbsp;“We wanted to keep a store in our community and we were looking for a retail storefront,” Kaden Roush said. In February 2022, they purchased the store, which continues to operate as LaDow’s Market.&nbsp;With help from K-State’s Rural Grocery Initiative, R Family Farms applied for a grant from the Healthy Food Financing Initiative. The HFFI was authorized by the 2014 farm bill. Its’ mission is to improve access to healthy foods in underserved areas, create and preserve quality jobs and revitalize low income communities.&nbsp;The program is administered by the Reinvestment Fund on behalf of USDA Rural Development. HFFI provides capacity building and financial resources to eligible healthy food retail projects in underserved areas.&nbsp;In June 2022, USDA announced the current HFFI grants, including three in Kansas. All three of these received help in developing grant proposals from the Rural Grocery Initiative. The grants went to the Groundwork Northeast Revitalization Group, a neighborhood coalition in Kansas City, Kansas; the Marmaton Market (as we have previously profiled) and R Family Farms.&nbsp;The R Family Farms grant will help support the overall construction and costs of rehabilitating the LaDow’s Market historic building into a retail space, adding both refrigerated and dry warehousing capacity. This will accommodate R Family Farms’ growing local meat business as well as creating a permanent aggregation location for other food producers.&nbsp;As the LaDow’s Market logo states: “The freshest groceries come from the Center.”&nbsp;For more information on the store, search for LaDow’s Market.on Facebook. For more information on the rural grocery initiative, see&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ruralgrocery.org/">www.ruralgrocery.org</a>.&nbsp;It’s time to leave this center of creative pork marketing in the center of the contiguous United States. We commend Kaden and Emily Roush of R Family Farms and LaDow’s Market for making a difference with innovative pork production.&nbsp;Their commitment to quality for their customers is front and center.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Now That’s Rural: Kaden & Emily Roush, LaDow’s Market 

I&nbsp;recently&nbsp;read a posting by Meredith Houston&nbsp;Carr&nbsp;entitled living a “round up” kind of life. In her article,&nbsp;she relayed a story about checking&nbsp;out of a store when the cashier asked her if she would like to round up her total in support of a children’s charity. As she went about her day, she wondered: “where else in my life can I do&nbsp;round up – giving just a little more?”&nbsp;

Since reading her&nbsp;piece, I have been thinking&nbsp;about&nbsp;how I can be a little more intentional in “rounding up” my life. I&nbsp;realize it is the simple stuff: greeting everyone enthusiastically all day long, pausing before meetings to check how my colleagues are doing, embracing the gift of “hallway or sidewalk time” to connect with people rather than rush off to the next meeting, sending just one more email or note that focuses on gratitude and affirmation, and even inviting someone to cut in front of me in line or take that great parking spot&nbsp;I had my eye on.&nbsp;Simple, intentional&nbsp;moments, “round up” moments of generosity,&nbsp;make a difference.

These&nbsp;“round up”&nbsp;moments are also what defines&nbsp;our community of care. A community&nbsp;in whichmy wonderful colleagues “round up” every day.&nbsp;As I reminisced about so many heart-warming stories of care, memories flooded my thoughts.&nbsp;Here are just a few.

Before class,&nbsp;Dr. David Fitzhugh asks his students every Monday morning&nbsp;about&nbsp;their weekend&nbsp;and listens&nbsp;purposefully.&nbsp;These moments&nbsp;of belonging&nbsp;and connection&nbsp;matter.

Ken&nbsp;Windholz,&nbsp;one of the kindest, affirming persons&nbsp;I know, sends&nbsp;emails to acknowledge the works&nbsp;of&nbsp;others.&nbsp;I have been&nbsp;a&nbsp;recipient of his kindness,&nbsp;and it made my day better&nbsp;and brighter.

Dr. Emily Weber&nbsp;arrives early&nbsp;for&nbsp;each class to stand at the door to greet every student by their first name.&nbsp;A student shared with me that two years later,&nbsp;after having&nbsp;just one course with&nbsp;Dr. Weber,&nbsp;they bumped into one another.&nbsp;Dr. Weber remembered her name and asked her how she was doing. Remarkable.

I have asked&nbsp;Vice President for Student Affairs,&nbsp;Joey Linn,&nbsp;to “adopt” struggling students, checking in with them constantly to ensure they&nbsp;have the support they need to&nbsp;graduate. He does,they succeed,&nbsp;and then I get to shake their hands as they walk across the commencement stage.This is the intentionality that drives our mission.

I loved how&nbsp;our&nbsp;chemistry&nbsp;faculty&nbsp;wrapped their support around&nbsp;Mallory Fischer – a non-traditional student about to achieve her dream of walking across the commencement stage to receive her diploma when she ruptured her ACL with&nbsp;additional&nbsp;complications. Doubting that she would physically be able to make it to commencement, her professors insisted she&nbsp;participate in graduation&nbsp;and&nbsp;“rounded up”&nbsp;their love and support.&nbsp;Mallory did cross the commencement stage as&nbsp;chemistry’s&nbsp;Dr.&nbsp;Balthazor, a commencement&nbsp;marshal, pushed Mallory’s wheelchair&nbsp;– making a longtime dream come true.

The unforgettable redemption story of&nbsp;Tuan&nbsp;Huyn&nbsp;will always remind me of our&nbsp;purpose&nbsp;in action. A&nbsp;naturally gifted artist,&nbsp;Tuan’s&nbsp;early&nbsp;life&nbsp;was&nbsp;marked by&nbsp;deep&nbsp;pain and bad choices.&nbsp;Tuan’s future&nbsp;was turned around by the kindness&nbsp;of many, beginning with Chris Hauck, who befriended Tuan through his church’s prison ministry. Chris connected&nbsp;Tuan with professor&nbsp;Chaiwat&nbsp;Thumsujarit.&nbsp;Chaiwat&nbsp;became&nbsp;Tuan’s&nbsp;mentor.&nbsp;Tuan, overcoming herculean barriers,&nbsp;not only graduated from FHSU but also enjoyed a remarkable career with&nbsp;the&nbsp;Leo Burnett advertising agency. Later he created a non-profit organization, Chicago Peace, to revitalizeneighborhoods by building bridges between stakeholders through partnerships, education, the arts, compassion, and entrepreneurship.

The “round-up” intersection between Curtis Pitts and the Nichol family&nbsp;is&nbsp;another example of Tiger Nation’s powerful relationships.&nbsp;Curtis&nbsp;came to FHSU in 1980 to play football. In 1982 he left FHSU for an internship and did not return. Life continued to happen – including the loss of his parents. Prior&nbsp;to their deaths,&nbsp;he had promised he would&nbsp;complete his&nbsp;college education. Long story short,&nbsp;Curtis was able to complete all of his classes except for&nbsp;one&nbsp;in which he continued to struggle. So,&nbsp;last&nbsp;summer,&nbsp;FHSU staff connected him with a KAMS student living in the same area. That student’s entire family “rounded up” their love and support&nbsp;and,&nbsp;together,&nbsp;tutored Curtis. Curtis is now a proud alumnus of FHSU.&nbsp;I smile every time I think of Curtis saying: “The Nichols embraced me like family and always made sure I had snacks and a cold drink in a glass engraved with Fort Hays State University's logo on it. I couldn’t have completed this class for graduation without&nbsp;their&nbsp;help!”

Small acts of kindness,&nbsp;such as donating&nbsp;professional clothing&nbsp;to Tailored for Tigers,&nbsp;a closet brimming with&nbsp;complimentary&nbsp;professional&nbsp;attire for interviews, business presentations, career fairs, and other professional activities, have&nbsp;been a game changer for our students. We were&nbsp;even able to help a student&nbsp;who lost nearly everything when the family home caught fire.&nbsp;

I am so grateful for&nbsp;our community’s&nbsp;focus on&nbsp;caring for one another authentically and generously. I appreciate&nbsp;this&nbsp;simple&nbsp;reminder that in my life, with just&nbsp;a&nbsp;bit&nbsp;more focus,&nbsp;I&nbsp;cancontinue to&nbsp;round up – giving just a little more&nbsp;to those around me.

As noted author and professor Leo&nbsp;Buscaglia&nbsp;shared, “too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word... all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/12/1575301942236.jpeg" alt="Dr. Tisa Mason, FHSU president" />
 <figcaption>Dr. Tisa Mason, FHSU president</figcaption>
 </figure>I&nbsp;recently&nbsp;read a posting by Meredith Houston&nbsp;Carr&nbsp;entitled living a “round up” kind of life. In her article,&nbsp;she relayed a story about checking&nbsp;out of a store when the cashier asked her if she would like to round up her total in support of a children’s charity. As she went about her day, she wondered: “where else in my life can I do&nbsp;round up – giving just a little more?”&nbsp;Since reading her&nbsp;piece, I have been thinking&nbsp;about&nbsp;how I can be a little more intentional in “rounding up” my life. I&nbsp;realize it is the simple stuff: greeting everyone enthusiastically all day long, pausing before meetings to check how my colleagues are doing, embracing the gift of “hallway or sidewalk time” to connect with people rather than rush off to the next meeting, sending just one more email or note that focuses on gratitude and affirmation, and even inviting someone to cut in front of me in line or take that great parking spot&nbsp;I had my eye on.&nbsp;Simple, intentional&nbsp;moments, “round up” moments of generosity,&nbsp;make a difference.These&nbsp;“round up”&nbsp;moments are also what defines&nbsp;our community of care. A community&nbsp;in whichmy wonderful colleagues “round up” every day.&nbsp;As I reminisced about so many heart-warming stories of care, memories flooded my thoughts.&nbsp;Here are just a few.Before class,&nbsp;Dr. David Fitzhugh asks his students every Monday morning&nbsp;about&nbsp;their weekend&nbsp;and listens&nbsp;purposefully.&nbsp;These moments&nbsp;of belonging&nbsp;and connection&nbsp;matter.Ken&nbsp;Windholz,&nbsp;one of the kindest, affirming persons&nbsp;I know, sends&nbsp;emails to acknowledge the works&nbsp;of&nbsp;others.&nbsp;I have been&nbsp;a&nbsp;recipient of his kindness,&nbsp;and it made my day better&nbsp;and brighter.Dr. Emily Weber&nbsp;arrives early&nbsp;for&nbsp;each class to stand at the door to greet every student by their first name.&nbsp;A student shared with me that two years later,&nbsp;after having&nbsp;just one course with&nbsp;Dr. Weber,&nbsp;they bumped into one another.&nbsp;Dr. Weber remembered her name and asked her how she was doing. Remarkable.I have asked&nbsp;Vice President for Student Affairs,&nbsp;Joey Linn,&nbsp;to “adopt” struggling students, checking in with them constantly to ensure they&nbsp;have the support they need to&nbsp;graduate. He does,they succeed,&nbsp;and then I get to shake their hands as they walk across the commencement stage.This is the intentionality that drives our mission.I loved how&nbsp;our&nbsp;chemistry&nbsp;faculty&nbsp;wrapped their support around&nbsp;Mallory Fischer – a non-traditional student about to achieve her dream of walking across the commencement stage to receive her diploma when she ruptured her ACL with&nbsp;additional&nbsp;complications. Doubting that she would physically be able to make it to commencement, her professors insisted she&nbsp;participate in graduation&nbsp;and&nbsp;“rounded up”&nbsp;their love and support.&nbsp;Mallory did cross the commencement stage as&nbsp;chemistry’s&nbsp;Dr.&nbsp;Balthazor, a commencement&nbsp;marshal, pushed Mallory’s wheelchair&nbsp;– making a longtime dream come true.The unforgettable redemption story of&nbsp;Tuan&nbsp;Huyn&nbsp;will always remind me of our&nbsp;purpose&nbsp;in action. A&nbsp;naturally gifted artist,&nbsp;Tuan’s&nbsp;early&nbsp;life&nbsp;was&nbsp;marked by&nbsp;deep&nbsp;pain and bad choices.&nbsp;Tuan’s future&nbsp;was turned around by the kindness&nbsp;of many, beginning with Chris Hauck, who befriended Tuan through his church’s prison ministry. Chris connected&nbsp;Tuan with professor&nbsp;Chaiwat&nbsp;Thumsujarit.&nbsp;Chaiwat&nbsp;became&nbsp;Tuan’s&nbsp;mentor.&nbsp;Tuan, overcoming herculean barriers,&nbsp;not only graduated from FHSU but also enjoyed a remarkable career with&nbsp;the&nbsp;Leo Burnett advertising agency. Later he created a non-profit organization, Chicago Peace, to revitalizeneighborhoods by building bridges between stakeholders through partnerships, education, the arts, compassion, and entrepreneurship.The “round-up” intersection between Curtis Pitts and the Nichol family&nbsp;is&nbsp;another example of Tiger Nation’s powerful relationships.&nbsp;Curtis&nbsp;came to FHSU in 1980 to play football. In 1982 he left FHSU for an internship and did not return. Life continued to happen – including the loss of his parents. Prior&nbsp;to their deaths,&nbsp;he had promised he would&nbsp;complete his&nbsp;college education. Long story short,&nbsp;Curtis was able to complete all of his classes except for&nbsp;one&nbsp;in which he continued to struggle. So,&nbsp;last&nbsp;summer,&nbsp;FHSU staff connected him with a KAMS student living in the same area. That student’s entire family “rounded up” their love and support&nbsp;and,&nbsp;together,&nbsp;tutored Curtis. Curtis is now a proud alumnus of FHSU.&nbsp;I smile every time I think of Curtis saying: “The Nichols embraced me like family and always made sure I had snacks and a cold drink in a glass engraved with Fort Hays State University's logo on it. I couldn’t have completed this class for graduation without&nbsp;their&nbsp;help!”Small acts of kindness,&nbsp;such as donating&nbsp;professional clothing&nbsp;to Tailored for Tigers,&nbsp;a closet brimming with&nbsp;complimentary&nbsp;professional&nbsp;attire for interviews, business presentations, career fairs, and other professional activities, have&nbsp;been a game changer for our students. We were&nbsp;even able to help a student&nbsp;who lost nearly everything when the family home caught fire.&nbsp;I am so grateful for&nbsp;our community’s&nbsp;focus on&nbsp;caring for one another authentically and generously. I appreciate&nbsp;this&nbsp;simple&nbsp;reminder that in my life, with just&nbsp;a&nbsp;bit&nbsp;more focus,&nbsp;I&nbsp;cancontinue to&nbsp;round up – giving just a little more&nbsp;to those around me.As noted author and professor Leo&nbsp;Buscaglia&nbsp;shared, “too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word... all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”

Heart of a Tiger: Rounding up

Fears about socialism will take the stage in this year's election

By JASON PROBST <a href="https://thatguyinhutch.substack.com/p/lets-talk-about-the-s-word?fbclid=IwAR1vF9rD5ytgUs4UGWbAM4-s2BCb6B0t8vJ4w5_x9n71hfUez0997CfK0RI">That Guy In Hutch</a>

Saturday’s raucous gubernatorial debate at the Kansas State Fair made
 one thing very clear: This election cycle Kansas Republicans - led by 
the sometimes conservative, sometimes moderate, sometimes sue-happy Kris
 Kobach-esque candidate Derek Schmidt - are going to make the election 
about Joe Biden, inflation, and the oldest and most reliable political 
boogeyman - Socialism.&nbsp;

And why wouldn’t they? Those Photoshopped 
sepia-toned images of your friendly neighborhood do-gooder alongside 
some scary national Democrat has long been an effective tool. It frees 
Republican candidates of the need to run their own campaigns, show up at
 public forums, or explain their policy positions. Thanks to the power 
of graphic design and misinformation, even good and reasonable 
Republicans have been vanquished by an engineered appearance with the 
sinister Washington Democrat de jour.&nbsp;

Now I don’t blame them for 
the inflation bit - it’s a legitimate concern for families in Kansas. 
But let’s not allow ourselves to believe the lie that inflation is 
exclusively under the control of one party or another. What we’re 
experiencing now is the result of global economic realities, breakdowns 
in supply systems (that were largely built around maximizing profit and 
less around ensuring a reliable supply of goods), and global monetary 
policies that artificially restrained natural inflation for a 
generation.

Way before Covid, and way before both Presidents Trump and Biden infused money into the economy, there were the <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/government-financial-bailout.asp">“Too Big to Fail” handouts</a>
 that bailed out large investment banks who had been grossly 
irresponsible and nearly trashed the world economy in 2007-08. Aside 
from putting taxpayers on the hook for banks and car manufacturers, it 
also saw the public propping up of the housing market - largely 
destabilized by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikecollins/2015/07/14/the-big-bank-bailout/?sh=195433472d83">irresponsible
 lending practices and large financial institutions deploying incredibly
 creative methods to make money from bad loans</a>. And let’s not forget that before that we had the eerily similar Savings &amp; Loan bailout in the 1980s.&nbsp;

So
 let’s not pretend that throwing a few bones at the working stiff has 
led to the downfall of our economy - especially when we’ve made a habit 
of socializing the cost of bad business decisions.

Which brings me to the most curious and interesting of this year’s campaign rhetoric - the big, scary “S” word: Socialism.&nbsp;

When
 a Republican candidate can’t figure out how to win an election, there’s
 the ever reliable cry of Socialism and how it’s ruining our country. 
The threat of Socialism has been an effective political tool since World
 War I, and only gained in power during the protracted “Cold War” in 
which anything that looked in the general direction of Russia sent waves
 of <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/red-scare">fear across the country</a>.&nbsp;

There was even a movie to tell us how pervasive the threat was to the American way of life.&nbsp;

But I wondered why our tax money is being used to clean up a mess 
that was created by people who made the mess in the first place - and 
who quite likely made a healthy profit in the process.&nbsp; Just like those 
people who don’t want their money going to pay off others’ student 
loans, I don’t really want my money going to plug gas wells that 
should’ve been paid for by people who hoped to find wealth by poking 
holes in the ground .&nbsp;

In Kansas, we carve out about <a href="https://www.ksrevenue.gov/prtaxexreports.html">$10.7 billion in various tax exemptions and deductions</a>
 each year. Now, not all of this is decidedly good or bad. Some of that 
includes things like deductions for families on their income taxes, as 
well as property tax and sales tax rebates. But some of that includes 
exemptions and deductions for large corporations. And sometimes that 
savings helps us get things we want - like better access to utilities, 
internet, and infrastructure. But sometimes, it’s just a tool for big 
companies to reduce their tax burdens.

Speaking of 
tax burdens, did you know that in 1992 residential property accounted 
for 35 percent of the state’s overall assessed property valuation 
(property tax base) but that has grown to 54 percent by 2022 - while 
commercial valuation as a percent of the state’s property tax base has 
dropped to 24 percent? Or that for every dollar Kansas collects in 
taxes, <a href="http://www.kslegresearch.org/KLRD-web/Publications/FiscalFacts/2022-Fiscal-Facts.pdf">90 cents comes from you in the way of individual income and sales tax, while only 7 cents comes from the corporate income tax?</a>

So, about that big, scary “S” word that will take center stage this 
election…We do have a Socialism problem, but not in the way we’ve often 
been told.&nbsp;

I have friends who tell me that between health 
insurance premiums, copays, and co-insurance, they’re spending upwards 
of $20,000 a year on health care. I have other friends who won’t change 
jobs - or are terrified of losing the one they have - because they have 
had cancer or some other serious health issue and fear losing their 
health insurance.&nbsp;

I have other friends who work in small 
businesses that don’t offer insurance, and they’re just out of luck. I 
have other friends who had to downsize or close their small business 
because they can’t compete for labor thanks to the prohibitive cost of 
employer-sponsored health insurance.&nbsp;

Yet your tax money is used every day to prop up some dying business - or to invest in a new venture.&nbsp;

We
 have industries with enough money to influence the laws that govern 
them and build tax policy to their liking, while parents are spending 
upwards of $10,000-$12,000 a year for childcare.&nbsp;

And when people 
struggle in their personal lives, make some bad choices, aren’t born to 
the right people, or just aren’t gifted with the right tools to navigate
 an increasingly complex world, there’s a chorus of those who scream 
that they should just try harder, and do better, at life.&nbsp;

But 
throughout our history, both nationally and in Kansas, when the biggest 
for-profit players need a little help pulling up those bootstraps, when 
they make mistakes that threaten the world’s wellbeing, or when they’re 
done making their money and leave a mess behind - we barely hesitate to 
hit up taxpayers for a collective - one might say socialist - bailout 
that we later celebrate as good and necessary.&nbsp;

I’m not saying 
that it’s all bad. We sometimes decide as a nation, state, or community 
how we’d like to make public investments. In the case of the 
aforementioned gas well plugging, it’s probably good for all of us to 
chip in and address a public safety and health nuisance - even if I 
think it really ought to be someone else’s problem to fix.

Public 
education, infrastructure, transportation, and scientific research have 
all come from public, collective investment. And we’ve all benefited 
from it in one way or another. It’s allowed companies to make more money
 and grow, while it’s helped the average family to live a more 
comfortable life filled with more opportunity for growth and 
prosperity.&nbsp;

It is, however, disingenuous to pretend that one 
thing is Socialism while the other is not. We can’t label Wall Street 
bailouts an investment while calling any move to address spiraling 
healthcare costs for poor and working families a socialist entitlement.&nbsp;

And
 we sure shouldn’t let politicians who have been party to the giveaways 
scare us into believing that a vote for them is a vote for good old 
American capitalism when the record shows they’ve supported their own 
version of Socialism for a very long time.&nbsp;

State Rep. Jason Probst, D-Hutchinson, represents the 102nd District in the Kansas House of Representatives.

<div><iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?height=314&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjason.probst%2Fvideos%2F475845714205836%2F&show_text=false&width=560&t=0" width="560" height="314" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowFullScreen="true"></iframe></div><h2>Fears about socialism will take the stage in this year's election</h2>By JASON PROBST <a href="https://thatguyinhutch.substack.com/p/lets-talk-about-the-s-word?fbclid=IwAR1vF9rD5ytgUs4UGWbAM4-s2BCb6B0t8vJ4w5_x9n71hfUez0997CfK0RI">That Guy In Hutch</a>Saturday’s raucous gubernatorial debate at the Kansas State Fair made
 one thing very clear: This election cycle Kansas Republicans - led by 
the sometimes conservative, sometimes moderate, sometimes sue-happy Kris
 Kobach-esque candidate Derek Schmidt - are going to make the election 
about Joe Biden, inflation, and the oldest and most reliable political 
boogeyman - Socialism.&nbsp;And why wouldn’t they? Those Photoshopped 
sepia-toned images of your friendly neighborhood do-gooder alongside 
some scary national Democrat has long been an effective tool. It frees 
Republican candidates of the need to run their own campaigns, show up at
 public forums, or explain their policy positions. Thanks to the power 
of graphic design and misinformation, even good and reasonable 
Republicans have been vanquished by an engineered appearance with the 
sinister Washington Democrat de jour.&nbsp;<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2019/12/1575913663048.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>Now I don’t blame them for 
the inflation bit - it’s a legitimate concern for families in Kansas. 
But let’s not allow ourselves to believe the lie that inflation is 
exclusively under the control of one party or another. What we’re 
experiencing now is the result of global economic realities, breakdowns 
in supply systems (that were largely built around maximizing profit and 
less around ensuring a reliable supply of goods), and global monetary 
policies that artificially restrained natural inflation for a 
generation.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/9/1663188520784.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>Way before Covid, and way before both Presidents Trump and Biden infused money into the economy, there were the <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/government-financial-bailout.asp">“Too Big to Fail” handouts</a>
 that bailed out large investment banks who had been grossly 
irresponsible and nearly trashed the world economy in 2007-08. Aside 
from putting taxpayers on the hook for banks and car manufacturers, it 
also saw the public propping up of the housing market - largely 
destabilized by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikecollins/2015/07/14/the-big-bank-bailout/?sh=195433472d83">irresponsible
 lending practices and large financial institutions deploying incredibly
 creative methods to make money from bad loans</a>. And let’s not forget that before that we had the eerily similar Savings &amp; Loan bailout in the 1980s.&nbsp;So
 let’s not pretend that throwing a few bones at the working stiff has 
led to the downfall of our economy - especially when we’ve made a habit 
of socializing the cost of bad business decisions.Which brings me to the most curious and interesting of this year’s campaign rhetoric - the big, scary “S” word: Socialism.&nbsp;When
 a Republican candidate can’t figure out how to win an election, there’s
 the ever reliable cry of Socialism and how it’s ruining our country. 
The threat of Socialism has been an effective political tool since World
 War I, and only gained in power during the protracted “Cold War” in 
which anything that looked in the general direction of Russia sent waves
 of <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/red-scare">fear across the country</a>.&nbsp;There was even a movie to tell us how pervasive the threat was to the American way of life.&nbsp;<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/9/1663188565264.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure><figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2022/9/1663188616770.png" alt="Is it just me that finds it amusingly weird that there was such a fascination with things being filmed behind locked doors in the 1940s and 50s?" />
 <figcaption>Is it just me that finds it amusingly weird that there was such a fascination with things being filmed behind locked doors in the 1940s and 50s?</figcaption>
 </figure>But I wondered why our tax money is being used to clean up a mess 
that was created by people who made the mess in the first place - and 
who quite likely made a healthy profit in the process.&nbsp; Just like those 
people who don’t want their money going to pay off others’ student 
loans, I don’t really want my money going to plug gas wells that 
should’ve been paid for by people who hoped to find wealth by poking 
holes in the ground .&nbsp;In Kansas, we carve out about <a href="https://www.ksrevenue.gov/prtaxexreports.html">$10.7 billion in various tax exemptions and deductions</a>
 each year. Now, not all of this is decidedly good or bad. Some of that 
includes things like deductions for families on their income taxes, as 
well as property tax and sales tax rebates. But some of that includes 
exemptions and deductions for large corporations. And sometimes that 
savings helps us get things we want - like better access to utilities, 
internet, and infrastructure. But sometimes, it’s just a tool for big 
companies to reduce their tax burdens.Speaking of 
tax burdens, did you know that in 1992 residential property accounted 
for 35 percent of the state’s overall assessed property valuation 
(property tax base) but that has grown to 54 percent by 2022 - while 
commercial valuation as a percent of the state’s property tax base has 
dropped to 24 percent? Or that for every dollar Kansas collects in 
taxes, <a href="http://www.kslegresearch.org/KLRD-web/Publications/FiscalFacts/2022-Fiscal-Facts.pdf">90 cents comes from you in the way of individual income and sales tax, while only 7 cents comes from the corporate income tax?</a>So, about that big, scary “S” word that will take center stage this 
election…We do have a Socialism problem, but not in the way we’ve often 
been told.&nbsp;I have friends who tell me that between health 
insurance premiums, copays, and co-insurance, they’re spending upwards 
of $20,000 a year on health care. I have other friends who won’t change 
jobs - or are terrified of losing the one they have - because they have 
had cancer or some other serious health issue and fear losing their 
health insurance.&nbsp;I have other friends who work in small 
businesses that don’t offer insurance, and they’re just out of luck. I 
have other friends who had to downsize or close their small business 
because they can’t compete for labor thanks to the prohibitive cost of 
employer-sponsored health insurance.&nbsp;Yet your tax money is used every day to prop up some dying business - or to invest in a new venture.&nbsp;We
 have industries with enough money to influence the laws that govern 
them and build tax policy to their liking, while parents are spending 
upwards of $10,000-$12,000 a year for childcare.&nbsp;And when people 
struggle in their personal lives, make some bad choices, aren’t born to 
the right people, or just aren’t gifted with the right tools to navigate
 an increasingly complex world, there’s a chorus of those who scream 
that they should just try harder, and do better, at life.&nbsp;But 
throughout our history, both nationally and in Kansas, when the biggest 
for-profit players need a little help pulling up those bootstraps, when 
they make mistakes that threaten the world’s wellbeing, or when they’re 
done making their money and leave a mess behind - we barely hesitate to 
hit up taxpayers for a collective - one might say socialist - bailout 
that we later celebrate as good and necessary.&nbsp;I’m not saying 
that it’s all bad. We sometimes decide as a nation, state, or community 
how we’d like to make public investments. In the case of the 
aforementioned gas well plugging, it’s probably good for all of us to 
chip in and address a public safety and health nuisance - even if I 
think it really ought to be someone else’s problem to fix.Public 
education, infrastructure, transportation, and scientific research have 
all come from public, collective investment. And we’ve all benefited 
from it in one way or another. It’s allowed companies to make more money
 and grow, while it’s helped the average family to live a more 
comfortable life filled with more opportunity for growth and 
prosperity.&nbsp;It is, however, disingenuous to pretend that one 
thing is Socialism while the other is not. We can’t label Wall Street 
bailouts an investment while calling any move to address spiraling 
healthcare costs for poor and working families a socialist entitlement.&nbsp;And
 we sure shouldn’t let politicians who have been party to the giveaways 
scare us into believing that a vote for them is a vote for good old 
American capitalism when the record shows they’ve supported their own 
version of Socialism for a very long time.&nbsp;State Rep. Jason Probst, D-Hutchinson, represents the 102nd District in the Kansas House of Representatives.

Opinion