By KEN CARPENTER
Great Bend Post
GREAT BEND — There was still a good turnout of visitors at the Kansas Wetlands Education Center in 2021 despite the COVID-19 pandemic. The Center overlooks Cheyenne Bottoms which is the largest inland marsh in the United States. Curtis Wolf, the Center's director, said he is pleased with last year's accomplishments.
“There's no doubt we’re still being affected by COVID and the numbers reflected that,” Wolf explained. “But I’m still very proud of the visitors' numbers that we had, the program numbers. We’ve documented over 19,000 total contacts. Our typical year is more like 24,000, 25,000 contacts. So we’re definitely down overall still. But it’s still great and we’re very proud of the numbers we have there.”
The Center was able to conduct many of its annual programs throughout the year. In addition to those, a book was written by program specialist Mandy Kern entitled "Ava: A Year of Adventure in the Life of an American Avocet." The avocet is a shorebird that migrates through central Kansas every year and is the Center's logo.
According to Wolf, another accomplishment was a project to better provide information for Spanish-speaking visitors. The Center got help from the Modern Languages Department at Fort Hays State University.
“They have an interpretation class or a translation class, and basically gave them the text of all our exhibits, and they went through and did the translation for us.”
The Education Center is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. It is closed on Mondays.