The Journal, Winter 2016

THE

JOURNAL

INSPIRATION FOR THE COMMON GOOD •

The story of two pastors working to heal police-community divisions in Kansas

VOLUME 8 •

ISSUE 1 •

WINTER 2016 • $10.00

(Print edition: ISSN 2328-4366; Online edition: ISSN 2328-4374) is published quarterly by the Kansas Leadership Center, which receives core funding from the Kansas Health Foundation.

The Kansas Leadership Center equips people with the ability to make lasting change for the common good. KLC focuses on leadership being an activity, not a role or position. Open to anyone seeking to move the needle on tough challenges in the civic arena, KLC envisions more Kansans sharing responsibility for acting together in pursuit of the common good.

KLC MISSION

To foster civic leadership for healthier Kansas communities

Jeff Tuttle Photography 316.706.8529 jefftuttlephotography.com ARTWORK

Bill McBride billmcbridestudio.com

To be the center of excellence for civic leadership development

David Lindstrom, Overland Park (Chair) Ed O’Malley, Wichita (President & CEO) Ron Holt, Wichita Karen Humphreys, Wichita Susan Kang, Lawrence Carolyn Kennett, Parsons Greg Musil, Overland Park Reggie Robinson, Topeka Consuelo Sandoval, Garden City Clayton Tatro, Fort Scott Frank York, Ashland

JOURNAL CONTRIBUTORS

MANAGING EDITOR

Chris Green 316.712.4945 cgreen@kansasleadershipcenter.org ART DIRECTION + DESIGN

Novella Brandhouse 816.868.9825 www.novellabrandhouse.com CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

KLC VISION

KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER BOARD OF DIRECTORS

PHOTOGRAPHY

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Sarah Caldwell Hancock Mark McCormick Dawn Bormann Novascone Laura Roddy Joe Stumpe Patsy Terrell Brian Whepley

Mark E. McCormick CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Presently the executive director of The Kansas African American Museum in Wichita (his second stint there), Mark is a New York Times best-selling author with 20 years of journalism experience as a reporter, editor and columnist.

COPY EDITORS

Bruce Janssen Shannon Littlejohn CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Andy Marso Erin Perry O’Donnell

WEB EDITION

www.klcjournal.com

Laura Roddy CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Laura is a freelance writer who works in marketing and development for a Wichita arts center and is an active community volunteer.

She has a background in newspapers, loves to read and is on a quest to visit all 50 state capitols. She is married and has three children.

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Annual subscriptions available at klcjr.nl/amzsubscribe ($24.95 for four issues).

Single issues available for $10 at Watermarkbooks.com.

PERMISSIONS

Abstracting is permitted with credit to the source.

For other reprint, copying or reproduction permission contact Mike Matson at mmatson@kansasleadershipcenter.org.

Andy Marso CONTRIBUTING WRITER

KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER

325 East Douglas Avenue Wichita, KS 67202 www.kansasleadershipcenter.org

Andy Marso joined the Kansas Health Institute in 2014 as a journalist for the KHI News Service. He previously covered state government news for the Topeka CapitalJournal, where he won the Burton W. Marvin Kansas News Enterprise Award, and received the Great Plains Journalism Award for investigative/project reporting.

Contents INSPIRATION FOR THE COMMON GOOD • VOLUME 8 • ISSUE 1 • WINTER 2016 PUBLISHED BY KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER

2.

Putting Your Name on the Ballot BY: PRESIDENT AND CEO ED O’MALLEY

4.

The Leadership Library BY: CHRIS GREEN

6.

Dispatches from the Kansas Leadership Center BY: CHRIS GREEN

8.

Full Court Press BY: LAURA RODDY

18.

74.

BY: DARRIN STINEMAN

BY: CHRIS GREEN

28.

76.

BY: ANDY MARSO

BY: LINDA RODRIGUEZ

Entering the Fray

Out on a Limb

42.

#NoFergusonHere BY: LAURA RODDY

58.

The Path to Reconciliation BY: MARK MCCORMICK

62.

The Starting Line BY: ERIN PERRY O’DONNELL

Making Waves

Tallgrass

78.

Aquifer FEATURED ARTIST BILL MCBRIDE

80.

The Back Page BY: MIKE MATSON

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LETTER FROM KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER PRESIDENT & CEO ED O’MALLEY

Putting Your Name on the Ballot YOU DON’T NEED A POSITION TO LEAD. BUT OUR STATE NEEDS MORE PEOPLE IN KEY ROLES WITH THE ABILITY TO EXERCISE LEADERSHIP. MAYBE YOU SHOULD BE ONE OF THEM.

Run for office.

At least consider it.

Don’t dismiss it out of hand.

I’m feeling bullish on encouraging people to run for office lately. It’s an election year. Whether you’ve considered running before or not, please keep reading with an open mind. (By the way, an open mind is so useful in politics today.)

Nine years ago, as we started the Kansas Leadership Center, we began developing a set of ideas, based on listening to Kansans.

A core idea then and now in our work is that leadership is an activity, not a position.

And now here I am, encouraging you to seek a position. What gives?

You don’t need a position to exercise leadership, but we do need more people in key civic positions who know how to exercise leadership and have the inspiration and courage to do so.

An aspiration listed in the KLC logic model (an internal guiding document) states:

“KLC alumni are positioned in key roles and functions in civic life and are using their authority to make progress on challenging issues affecting the common good.”

The ideas we teach at KLC – the principles and four competencies – are useful anywhere one

tries to mobilize others. And from my experience as a legislator and from working with elected officials at all levels, I believe these ideas are especially useful for leadership in the always vexing and complicated political environment.

In his classic work “The Political Vocation,” Paul Tillett writes (please forgive the use of male pronouns as it was written in 1965) that at least theoretically:

“He (the politician) does best by appealing coolly to reason … does not attempt to stir the emotions and does not stoop to crass appeals to self-interest. He is a discussion leader. … Though his is only one voice among many, it is a voice that stands out for its sanity and coolness.”

KLC competencies – manage self, diagnose situations, intervene skillfully and energize others – help public officials live out that aspirational description.

In another classic work, “The Lawmakers”

by James David Barber, the author divides all lawmakers into four groups: •

The spectator – someone who likes being an elected official, but spends little energy and has no interest in working to advance solutions on issues.

• The advertiser – someone who is there to advance their favorite/pet issue, with little regard to other issues at play.

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• The reluctant – someone who feels they have to serve, out of obligation, but has no passion and little commitment.

• The lawmaker – someone who is there to make laws, to do their part in solving the myriad problems facing a state or community.

Read Barber’s book and you’re left thinking that it’s more of these lawmakers we need in elected bodies.

KLC cares little about where you are on the partisan continuum but cares greatly that the ideas our participants learn become more a part of Kansas political life. The ideas aren’t partisan, and our experience and research suggest more progress would be made on our state and communities’ daunting challenges if more politicians understood how to, among other KLC ideas, work across factions, distinguish technical and adaptive work, choose among competing values, act experimentally, speak to loss and so on.

Serving in the Legislature was a unique endeavor.

It taught me so much about others and myself.

It gave me a laboratory to exercise leadership for the common good. Sometimes I succeeded.

Sometimes I failed. I met good people from across the political spectrum who cared deeply for Kansas. It made me a better person and a better Kansan.

If you think there might be a political vocation in you … If you think you have the ability to be a “lawmaker”… If you want a unique experience and one that will bring out the best Kansan in you … Put your name on a ballot. Any ballot. Run.

Onward!

PRESIDENT & CEO KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER

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The Leadership Library AN EDITOR’S READING LIST

Almost any book you read can contain a kernel of truth on leadership.

Here’s what Journal managing editor Chris Green learned about leadership from some of the 20-plus fiction and nonfiction books he read last year.

“The Road to Character”

BY DAVID BROOKS

Most of us know the feeling of being our own worst enemy in leadership.

In this book, Brooks explores how the quest to manage one’s self is an ongoing process and that the “road to character often involves moments of moral crisis, confrontation and recovery.”

Brooks maps out this road by telling the stories of historical greats – including President Eisenhower – who are far from perfect. Which is OK, because as Brooks reminds us, we all struggle with flaws. “We are all stumblers,” Brooks writes, “and the beauty and meaning of life are in the stumbling – in recognizing the stumbling and trying to become more graceful as the years go by.”

“Between the World and Me”

BY TA-NEHISI COATES

The KLC’s curriculum calls on participants to explore tough and systemic interpretations in the process of diagnosing the elements of leadership challenges. Coates’ book about race in the U.S. is one of the most thoughtfully crafted, tough interpretations I’ve ever had to explore. Coates writes to his adolescent son about his concerns for him as a young, black male in America, saying, “This is your country, this is your world, this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.”

Yet even as he rejects more optimistic views of progress related to race relations and the American Dream, Coates still urges his son to struggle and find meaning within that struggle. Readers might find the most meaning of their own by struggling to engage with Coates’ views without quick judgments and remaining open to interpretations that don’t fit neatly with their own lived experience.

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“The Luminaries”

BY ELEANOR CATTON

At one point in this sprawling, 826-page novel set in a 19th century New Zealand “gold rush” town, one of the dozen main characters is described as not knowing “how to see the world” through someone else’s eyes.

The challenge of seeing the world from a different point of view is hardly unique to fictional characters. One of the beauties of this Man Booker Prize-winning novel is that we’re given the vantage point to see quite clearly how what really happened can only be found in piecing fragments of different stories together. “The Luminaries” illuminates how myopic we all too often are as humans and how testing different points of view is a crucial step along the path to unearthing anything resembling the truth.

“Ghettoside”

BY JILL LEOVY

A single incident can seem senseless when viewed in isolation. But dig a little deeper and a clearer, bigger picture can come more cleanly into focus. In this book, Leovy uses the investigation of one murder case to make a plague of homicides in South Los Angeles involving mostly young African-American men more tragically understandable. She shows how systemic conflicts between police and civilians get in the way of solving cases and how a lack of accountability is the primary cause of high homicide rates in some African-American neighborhoods.

Leovy’s book exposes seemingly senseless murders for what they really are – the products of systems that too often fail at the job of administering justice and adequately protecting human life. It makes a compelling case for why it’s important to move beyond individual interpretations to systemic ones in tackling deeply entrenched social problems.

“The Conservative Heart”

BY ARTHUR C. BROOKS

It’s not just what you do, it’s how you do it. In this book, Brooks, the president of the free-market promoting American Enterprise Institute, makes the argument that people who share his conservative ideology too often fail to invoke compassion and fairness in their efforts to shape society.

What elevates this book above the many others aimed at a particular ideology is that Brooks asks members of his own political tribe to make changes to their behavior to become more effective. His “Seven Habits of Highly Effective Conservatives” – which includes the sage advice “Go Where You’re Not Welcome” – provide a good outline for intervening skillfully. By focusing on the how not just the what, Brooks provides insights we’d all be wise to consider, no matter where we fall on the political pendulum.

What are you reading, watching or listening to as a way of continuing your leadership learning? Email your book, film or other suggestions to Chris Green, managing editor of The Journal, at cgreen@kansasleadershipcenter.org.

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Dispatches FROM THE KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER

LEADERSHIP GRADUATES

Nine people graduated last fall from the inaugural class of the Latino Leadership Collaborative, a leadership program founded by three Latino organizations in Topeka and supported by the Kansas Leadership Center.

The Topeka League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Council #11071, El Centro of Topeka and MANA de Topeka announced the creation of the program last spring. The goal of the effort was to train participants to serve the community and enhance the placement of Latinos on boards, organizations, committees, community projects and policy-making positions.

Schools of Wichita/Sedgwick County, the Iasis Christian Center Academy of Excellence, the Children’s Alliance of Kansas, the South Central Community Foundation, the Climate + Energy Project, and Eden Vigil.

Also, Kansas Agri-Women, the American Diabetes Association, the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority, Arts Partners, Inc., Eight Oaks, Wyandot, Inc., Heartland Community Health Center, Young Professionals of Wichita, Community LinC, PastorServe, Inc., Communities Creating Opportunity, the Kansas Association for Conservation & Environmental Education, and the American Legion Boys State of Kansas Leadership Academy.

Vidal Campos, Ruben Salamanca, Rosa Cavazos, Roman Ruiz, Nancy Ochoa, Susana Prochaska, Bianca Merriweather, Rico Aguayo and Angela Valdivia were in the initial class of graduates. The program was facilitated by Lalo Munoz, Michelle Cuevas Stubblefield, Irene Caballero, Tina Williams and Veronica Padilla, all alumni of KLC’s Building Community Leadership program.

Also, a joint venture of Derby USD 260, the City of Derby, the Derby Chamber of Commerce, Lead Derby and the Derby Recreation Commission, the Catholic Diocese of Wichita, Lead4Change, Girl Scouts of the Heartland, Heartland Healthy Neighborhoods, United Way of Ellis County, NBC Community Development Corp., Hunter Health Clinic, Inc., First United Methodist Church of Wichita, and First United Methodist Church of El Dorado.

TRANSFORMATION GRANTS

Also, Pine Valley Christian Church, NAMI Kansas, the Center for Children’s Healthy Lifestyles & Nutrition, the Kansas Association of Area Agencies on Aging & Disabilities, the Kansas State Department of Education, Rainbows United, Inc., the Ali Foundation, the Central States Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Faith Works, and the City of Wichita’s Atwater Neighborhood Resource Center.

The Kansas Leadership Center recently awarded the equivalent of $1 million in leadership transformation grants to 50 organizations throughout the state for 2016. The grants provide access to first-class leadership training opportunities to increase the capacity of individuals and groups to make progress on tough problems.

The recipients of the grants are: Young Professionals of Independence, the City of Hutchinson, the City of Lindsborg, Circle USD 357, Haysville USD 261, Valley Center USD 262, Kansas City Turner USD 202, Communities in

And, the Kansas Hispanic Education & Development Foundation, the Kansas Council on Developmental Disabilities, the Incubator for Nonprofits of Kansas, and the Kansas Hispanic and Latino American Affairs Commission.

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‘YOUR LEADERSHIP EDGE’ BOOK SIGNING

The Kansas Leadership Center celebrated its newest resource during a launch party in January at the Kansas Leadership Center & Kansas Health Foundation Conference Center in Wichita. Authors Ed O’Malley and Amanda Cebula, KLC’s president & CEO and director of project development, respectively, signed copies of their book, “Your Leadership Edge: Lead Anytime, Anywhere,” for attendees.

The book is specifically written to help readers thrive through tough challenges and is the first publication to detail all 24 elements of KLC’s four competencies of leadership.

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The annual Wheelchair Basketball Bash sponsored by the American Collegiate Society for Adapted Athletics draws teams of college athletes from around the country, including the University of Alabama and the University of Missouri.

FULL COURT

PRES S

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RO B EGA N LON GE D FOR OPPORTU NI T I E S TO B E ACT I V E I N S P O RTS , J UST LI KE H I S YOU N GE R BR OT H E RS . N O W H E ’ S P U RS U I N G A PA SSI ON OF CR E ATI N G A W AY FO R OT H E RS TO PA RT I C I PAT E I N I N TER COLLEGI ATE A DA PT E D AT H L E T I CS .

By: LAURA RODDY

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DREAM BIG. You may hear it from your mentor

or have it pinned on an inspiration board. But how do you make the leap from having a great idea to making it actually happen?

Rob Egan of Wichita is someone who took an idea – to create more opportunities for disabled students to compete in adapted athletics – and turned it into a functioning, sustainable organization. It certainly wasn’t easy, and it took a strong dose of persistence coupled with an infusion of the right team to make it happen.

Sierra Scott, a Wichita television personality, first met a young Egan when she did a story on Heartspring, where he received services for his cerebral palsy, a muscle disorder he was born with that impedes movement. At that time, she told him she would serve on the board of the organization he wanted to create.

Without that initial vision, though, Wichita wouldn’t be playing host to a tournament for every intercollegiate wheelchair basketball team in the nation in 2016, lifting up the entire sport in the process. The story of Egan, an alumnus of a three-day leadership program at the Kansas Leadership Center in 2014, and his work serve as a testament to the principle that leadership is an activity that starts with you but also must engage others.

It wasn’t that Scott didn’t think Egan would follow through – it’s just that she thought it would take him a decade or so. After all, he was just a kid, albeit a highly articulate one.

Before she knew it, Egan was knocking on her door with an open board seat to fill.

Egan, now a 20-year-old college student, launched the beginnings of what would become the American Collegiate Society for Adapted Athletics in 2009, when he was an incoming high school freshman. The society is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization governed by a board of directors.

Even with the support of a board and a stable of reliable volunteers, it is still largely fueled

by Egan’s passion and vision. Egan oversees daily operations as president while also attending classes full time at the University of Arizona.

BEGINNINGS

The people who work with Egan on the society say it’s both amazing and yet unsurprising that Egan has taken the seed of an idea and nurtured it into a full-fledged organization.

As volunteer Patricia Sherwood puts it: “He’s not as young as you think he is in his demeanor.”

To understand Egan’s passion for adapted athletics, it helps to understand his background. He has four younger brothers, all active in sports.

“For a long time, I was jealous of them – upset that I couldn’t join them,” he says. “Obviously, there’s a limit to what I can physically do. I’m not going to be on the stage and do a tap routine.”

Egan’s parents sent him to camps where he could participate in adapted athletics for kids with disabilities. Adapted programs for basketball, tennis, archery, bowling and swimming exist, but usually only in big cities.

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As it turns out, Egan did not find his passion in actually playing sports. “I more wanted the opportunity to play.”

A middle-school essay inspired him to envision expanding opportunities in adapted athletics to students with disabilities. He soon homed in on intercollegiate athletics, where options have been even fewer. Wheelchair basketball is the largest such sport nationwide with 13 teams – but all have extremely limited budgets, especially compared with typical college basketball programs.

Egan had a vision for a tournament modeled after the NCAA Tournament, and he began doing research. “I wrote actual letters and sent surveys through the mail” to what he determined were disability friendly universities.

“They said, ‘What you want to do is awesome, but where’s the money?’ At that point I was afraid of money – afraid of asking for it.”

Egan turned to his grandparents, both accountants, to help get the group’s nonprofit status in place. Some of the first members of his board

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of directors were his teachers and mentors.

He launched the first Wheelchair Basketball Bash in 2010, a fundraiser for his organization that involved able-bodied athletes paying an entry fee and attempting wheelchair basketball.

The games were played in the gym at his high school, Wichita Collegiate. Friends and friends’ parents helped execute the event.

Egan was proud that the event helped educate people about disabilities. Many were surprised by the intense physicality of wheelchair basketball and the extensive training it takes to play the game well.

“Society has this sort of longstanding image of dependency,” he says. “Most people either are productive or want to be. If we can get people a partial scholarship for a college degree, it opens up all kinds of opportunities that allow them to lead independent, productive lives.”

Egan, who uses a cane for balance when walking, is already there with independence.

He drives his own car and lives alone in an on-campus apartment.

Rob Egan of Wichita, now a student at the University of Arizona, is creating opportunities for disabled athletes to compete at the college level. Egan, who has cerebal palsy and desired to play sports growing up, founded what would become the American Collegiate Society for Adapted Athletics in 2009.

James Bohnett of the University of 52 THE JOURNAL Missouri practices shooting before a game against the University of Alabama during the 2015 Wheelchair Basketball Bash at the YMCA Farha Sports Center in Wichita. The tournament drew all 11 intercollegiate wheelchair basketball teams in 2015 and added two more in 2016.

Egan achieved the next part of his dream through a connection with the manager at Abuelo’s Mexican Restaurant, which had been used as a caterer at the Wheelchair Basketball Bash dinner and auction.

The manager’s dad turned out to be Doug Garner, the adapted athletics director at the University of Texas at Arlington.

Egan began cultivating a relationship with Garner and trying to find out how the society for adapted athletics could be useful to the collegiate programs.

TURNING POINT That relationship with Garner was crucial in Egan achieving his dream of hosting an intercollegiate wheelchair basketball tournament – and it also represented a tipping point with his board of directors.

In May 2013, Egan was a senior in high school and on a school trip to Chicago when Garner called from the annual coaches meeting for intercollegiate adapted athletics. Garner wondered: “Do you have any interest in hosting a tournament in Wichita?” Garner thought Wichita could be a good market – not too big, not too small and geographically central, a benefit because teams travel by bus.

But there was one catch, Egan recalls.

Garner said: You have to pay for it – for everything.

At that point Egan had raised some scholarship money but knew that wouldn’t be enough. He knew he needed to gain the support of his board members, and he wasn’t even 18. He found his high school principal, who was on the Chicago trip and serving as board president, and they quickly calculated a bill of $50,000 to cover transportation, room, board and a tournament, including certified referees and facilities.

Egan asked his principal what he thought about making a run at hosting the tournament. “He said, ‘I don’t know, but if we don’t, they’re never going to ask again.’”

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They decided to go for it, but there was some unease. It all seemed too soon, too much and too expensive. It felt risky.

“I was not against it, but I did not think we would be able to pull it off,” Scott says.

The board decided on a deadline to have the money for the tournament raised. Scott had traveled with Egan to see teams play in Birmingham, Alabama, several months earlier and was moved. “I was sad to see the lack of support that these teams have,” she says. “They are amazing athletes.”

With persistence and some pluck, Egan and his board and volunteers made that tournament happen for 2014. Four men’s teams traveled to Wichita with all expenses covered, and they were celebrated at the annual Wheelchair Basketball Bash banquet.

“The players and the coaches, I think, marveled at the fact that, (A) we did it and, (B) we wanted to,” Egan says. “Nobody had ever hosted a tournament outside of a college umbrella.”

Scott says Egan and other volunteers had to hustle for every dollar and every arrangement.

“I think the toughest thing is just getting people to buy into the dream,” Scott says. “I thought it would be an easier sell than it has been.”

For 2015, the tournament returned to Wichita, and it grew: all 11 intercollegiate teams, both men’s and women’s, played.

The expansion of the tournament to all intercollegiate wheelchair basketball teams was once again met with caution by Egan’s board of directors. Egan didn’t want to give up the model of paying all expenses, and it seemed like a big leap to several members: “I said: ‘I’m going to steal the line that was given to me last year: If we don’t, I don’t think they’ll ask again.’”

Once again, the board decided on a fundraising deadline as the best way to move forward prudently with a tournament.

Ultimately, the fundraising goal was met, and the 2015 tournament moved to the YMCA’s Farha Sports Center, which allowed for three courts to be used at the same time. Egan also achieved another goal in 2015: With help from a grant, his organization was able to offer $1,000 scholarships to 10 student athletes.

The 2016 tournament in January also took place at Farha, this time with the addition of two new intercollegiate teams: Arizona State University, a co-ed team, and Auburn University, a men’s team.

Egan says the teams are meeting the minimum three tournaments required for membership in the National Wheelchair Basketball Association Intercollegiate Division, in part because of Egan’s all-expenses-paid Wichita tournament.

“It’s intense to see those kids in their sport wheelchairs,” says Sherwood, a family friend and volunteer who has been with the American Collegiate Society for Adapted Athletics since the beginning. “They move fast. Chairs are tipping over. Fingers are getting smashed.”

Discussion Guide 1. Which of the five leadership principles do you see reflected in Rob Egan’s work to create more opportunities in adapted athletics?

2. Where do you see Egan engaging others effectively? Where might he have room for improvement?

3. Mayor To what are you Wichita Jeffextent Longwell sayswilling to take risks in exercising leadership? Would you be willing to take on the level of that EganKansas did in this story on your own challenges? Why or why not? the days of risk south-central cities competing with each other to score jobs are over.

Alabama’s Ryan Morich tries to elude Missouri’s Matt Bolig and Carter Arey in a 2015 tournament game. Participation in the all-expenses-paid Wheelchair Basketball Bash helps teams qualify for membership in the National Wheelchair Basketball Association Intercollegiate Division.

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LESSONS IN LEADING

Egan is also pretty self-aware.

As Egan reflects on the progress his organization has made and the goals he still wants to achieve, he acknowledges the importance of surrounding himself with the right team.

“I will admit that my board, like all boards, has it strengths and its weaknesses,” he says.

“You can’t do it all. One of the most important things is evaluating where my strengths lie. Find people to fill those gaps. So much gets done by a fabulous support team.”

“I am the vision person; I am the big-picture person,” Egan says. “It’s good to have a strong mix of the types of mindsets in your closest advisers – people that will be your devil’s advocates. I need those people who will put a wall somewhere and say when you get there, you need to stop.”

Sherwood, who uses her expertise in development and fundraising, says that because Egan dreams so big, sometimes her job is to help rein him in.

She says Egan’s passion is his strength and, at times, it’s also his weakness. “He’s aggressive, very aggressive,” says Sherwood, also noting that he is creative and not a micromanager.

Scott agrees. “Rob’s leadership style, which I really respect, is: He has a goal in mind but doesn’t get stuck on how he’s going to get there,” she says.

Ryan Morich of Alabama shoots past the outstretched arm of Missouri’s James Bohnett. College wheelchair basketball features physical and fast play.

Egan is continually looking to the future. He wants to take his love affair with all things wheelchair basketball and spread it. He’s sold it to “a small but mighty group of sponsors.” And he’s sold it to members of the intercollegiate wheelchair basketball community, earning their trust and respect. Now he wants to sell it to the wider Wichita community and get more fans and spectators.

“The focus is not on what you can’t do, but what you can do,” he says. “I don’t believe in limits, and I don’t believe in boxes. You can compartmentalize your time but not yourself.”

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TAKING YOUR BEST SHOT: Leadership lessons from Rob Egan

1.

WHY SHOULDN’T IT BE YOU?

Even though he was just a teenager, Rob Egan identified something that he cared about enough to champion. The result has been an organization lifting up participation in intercollegiate adapted athletics. Leadership is a self-authorizing activity – the only person who can give you permission to do it is you.

2.

DON’T GO IT ALONE.

While leadership can start with you, it must engage others. While Egan’s passion and vision represent a key force in this story, it took the help of an engaged board of directors, donors and other partners for the American Collegiate Society for Adapted Athletics to become a functioning organization and to host tournaments for teams across the country.

3.

DON’T PLAY IT SAFE.

Leadership is risky. You often don’t know how things are going to turn out.

When Egan and his board president saw an opportunity to host a tournament in Wichita, they didn’t look back even though no one was sure they could pull it off. Progress in leadership comes from taking smart gambles to achieve something that may seem just out of reach.

4.

KNOW YOUR GAPS.

Despite his energy, Egan knows he can’t do it all and recognizes that he has strengths, weaknesses, vulnerabilities and triggers. Working with others who have different strengths and who can tell what you often don’t want to hear can help keep you grounded and from getting knocked off-purpose.

“I don’t believe in limits, and I don’t believe in boxes.

You can compartmentalize your time but not yourself.”

ROB EGAN

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ENTER ING TH E

F RAY Local fight over community water fluoridation offers lessons for leading on contentious public health issues.

By: DARRIN STINEMAN

When some of her colleagues greeted news of a challenge to the fluoridation of Salina’s water with a shrug, dentist Allison Lesko decided to take action.

She became a driving force in the city’s Keep Fluoride campaign.

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T H E CL IM ATE FO R M A K I NG P RO GRESS O N PU B L I C HE ALT H C HA L L EN GE S H A S B E E N D I FF ICU LT AT T I ME S I N R E CEN T Y EA RS , BOT H I N KA NSA S A N D ACROSS THE CO U NTRY.

Voters in Wichita, for instance, soundly defeated a proposal to add fluoride to their water in 2012.

Other high-profile proposals widely supported by public health advocates in the Statehouse have also languished.

Meanwhile, national conflicts over mandating vaccinations in order for children to attend school have ratcheted up as several states passed laws curtailing religious and personal exemptions to vaccinations in response to a growing number of parents opting out of them.

Amid the clashes, the outcome of the Salina fluoridation debate in 2014 looms large as an example that health advocates in Kansas can look to at a time when distrust of authority and government runs high, and when balancing the common good with deeply held ideals of individual liberty and autonomy can be tough.

The result, it is worth noting, didn’t come solely through disseminating scientific information to the public. Instead, the driving force was the existence of passionate local supporters who were willing to get out in front of the issue with a clear purpose, get organized, be visible, understand their own limitations and productively deal with conflict.

The story begins with a petition drive for a ballot question on whether to continue fluoridating Salina’s water supply. The proposal was greeted with a fair amount of apathy, even among the city’s dentists.

“Some of them were like, ‘This is silly. Salina is going to (keep fluoride). They’re smart people.

Don’t worry about it. You don’t need to do anything,’” says Allison Lesko, a Salina dentist in her 30s.

She didn’t listen. Instead, she and others decided to act. Lesko was a driving force behind the Keep Fluoride campaign, which sought to unite the Salina medical community and leverage the support of state and national health organizations to persuade residents to keep community water fluoridation.

Fluoridation became an issue because Lou Tryon, a retired schoolteacher in her 70s, and other members of a group she named Salina Cares pushed the Salina City Commission and city administration to remove fluoride from the water more than a year earlier.

Based on her belief that the compound causes health problems, Tryon had been concerned about fluoride since 2001, when she held community

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meetings on fluoridation. When Wichita voters rejected adding fluoride to their water, it inspired her to take her effort a step further.

Getting Out In Front

“We decided we wanted the fluoride out of the water, and there wasn’t anybody else out saying they were opposed to it, so we took it upon ourselves,” says Tryon, whose group consisted of her husband, Reg, and about a dozen other Salina residents.

In response to fluoridation becoming an issue in Salina, the city’s public works department posted an information page on its website that states, in part: “Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral in our water. When fluoride is adjusted to an optimal level, it has been proven to reduce the incidence of dental decay.

Pursuing the issue as a matter of freedom of choice, of allowing people to decide what to put in their bodies, the group launched a petition drive that successfully forced a vote. That set the stage for what has become a familiar battle in Kansas and elsewhere: Public health supporters spar with small but fervent networks of grassroots activists over the scientifically validated but hardly universally understood benefits of fluoridation.

The public then has to sort through competing and potentially confusing claims to try to determine what the facts actually are, often pitting the professional expertise of medical professionals against the personal credibility and emotional claims of friends and neighbors.

But unlike in Wichita, fluoride supporters in Salina scored a convincing victory at the polls in 2014. By a vote of 6,596 to 3,160 – more than a 2-1 ratio – voters refused to repeal the ordinance that allows the municipality to fluoridate its water.

That means the city of about 50,000 people – which since 1968 has been fluoridating its water to the level prescribed by the Centers for Disease Control for tooth-decay prevention – will remain among the majority of cities in Kansas (64 percent) and the United States (75 percent) that fluoridate their water.

Here’s how the story unfolded.

“In the United States, 44 of the 50 largest cities adjust the level of fluoride in their drinking water.

They are all regulated and monitored by several different entities to ensure public safety.”

But even in situations where common practice and scientific information seem clearly documented, they do not always hold sway. The benefits of governmental action might not be good for everyone in every situation, opening the door to exceptions that muddy the big picture. And a clash of values – distrust of authority and the desire to preserve personal choice and autonomy versus doing what might be good for the greatest number of people in a community – is never far from the surface, even if it’s often couched in the presentation of information rather than ideals.

Lesko and other oral-health supporters weren’t content to assume that voters would find factual information about fluoride on their own – or that it would sufficiently motivate them to vote against repealing the fluoridation ordinance.

After participating in a November 2013 fluoridation public forum that Salina Cares had pushed for, Lesko says she was convinced that the anti-fluoride group would at some point conduct a petition drive to try to put the issue to a public vote. In preparation for that day, Lesko got in touch with organizations such as Oral Health Kansas, the Kansas Dental Association, the American Medical Association and the Kansas Bureau of Oral Health.

Tanya Dorf Brunner serves as executive director of Oral Health Kansas. The organization provided support to the Keep Fluoride effort in Salina. She says that making progress on oral health issues requires involving “unusual suspects� beyond dentists and hygienists.

“ON E O F T H E R E A SON S WE G E T I N VOLV E D IS W E K N OW TH AT TO M AK E PROG R E SS IN O RAL H E A LTH O R FLU O RI DAT I O N I SSU ES, YOU RE AL LY N EE D U N US UAL S USP E CTS.” DORF BRUNNER

“I figured it was inevitable that it was going to be a vote, so we made what we called the fluoride SWAT team,” Lesko says.

Groups supportive of community water fluoridation agreed in advance to provide campaign contributions as well as advocacy to respond to claims being made

by Salina Cares about the health effects of fluoride.

“The idea of the SWAT team was to find a team of individuals from these organizations, because we don’t know everything,” Lesko says, referring to the campaign’s core group of dentists. “We didn’t know how to answer all the claims being made by the anti-fluoride people. We didn’t have time to reinvent the wheel, so we contacted people who have already done that.”

One of those people was Tanya Dorf Brunner, executive director of Oral Health Kansas, an advocacy organization that has been involved in several fluoridation battles over its 10 years of existence.

“It really started bubbling in Salina about a year (earlier),” Dorf Brunner says, referring to the Salina City Commission’s rejection of the Salina Cares’ request to repeal the fluoridation ordinance. “We very quietly talked to people behind the scenes about, ‘What do you need?’ We’ve kind of always been at the table with them.

“One of the reasons we get involved is that we know that to make progress in oral health or fluoridation issues, you really need unusual suspects. It can’t be dentists and hygienists beating the same drum.”

Organizing for a Tough Debate

By Election Day, more than 150 health professionals and 20 to 30 lay volunteers – most of whom contacted Keep Fluoride through its Facebook page – were on board.

Fluoridation is an issue Lesko is passionate about because she sees a night-and-day difference between the oral health of children she treats from Salina and those who come from towns without fluoridation.

She identified early on the need to unite Salina’s medical community, and many of Keep Fluoride’s campaign materials contained quotes from local

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doctors or dentists. A late-October postcard the group sent to likely voters pointed out that Salina’s water had been fluoridated for 46 years, that removing fluoride could increase Salina’s dental costs by $580,000 a year and that nearly 70 years of research proves water fluoridation is safe and effective for people of all ages.

A second, larger postcard sent just before the election listed the endorsements of more than 30 Salina dentists, more than 20 doctors and several other medical professionals. It also included a quote from William Cathcart-Rake, a Salina oncologist and dean of the KU School of Medicine’s Salina campus: “I urge voters to be wary of unproven claims regarding the effects of fluoride, especially with regards to an association with cancer. This claim is simply not true.”

Being Visible The effort required a considerable amount of work. Lesko estimates that she put in at least 35 hours a week in the three months leading up to the election.

campaign for office, except that fluoride has no face. It’s very odd to be running a campaign for a nonperson.”

Keep Fluoride sought to have a high degree of visibility in the community. Its strategy included 1,400 yard signs – nearly three times the number of its competitors’ – and a “blitz week” on the final full week leading up to the election, Lesko says. That’s when the final postcard went out with the medical-community endorsements.

Local dentists took advantage of a holiday that normally is their nemesis by giving away 5,000 toothbrushes with a pro-fluoride message on Halloween.

Keep Fluoride sent out 20,000 postcards to likely voters, using an app developed by Sharp that allows her clients to access loads of real-time voter data on their personal digital devices even as they are going door-to-door to shake hands and pass out fliers. The group also ran full-page newspaper ads on the three days leading up to Election Day, and Lesko and two other members of her group scored guest spots on local radio talk shows over that time.

“It truly felt like a second full-time job for me, on top of being a dentist and a mom,” says Lesko, who is president of the Salina Dental Society. “The other members of our campaign put in numerous hours, too, anywhere from 10 to 25 hours per week depending on what was needed.”

The group’s efforts resulted in an immense spending gap in the race. Keep Fluoride raised $50,000 – including $25,000 from Oral Health Kansas and $15,000 from the United Methodist Health Ministry Fund – and ended up spending about $40,000, Lesko says. Salina Cares spent about $3,000, Tryon says, mostly on yard signs and radio commercials.

Oral-health advocates in Salina also tried to recognize their limitations and turned to professional help for dealing with matters outside their expertise. Because they were inexperienced in running an election campaign, Keep Fluoride hired Stephanie Sharp, a former member of the Kansas House of Representatives who runs a Lenexa-based political communications firm called Sharp Connections LLC.

To put that into perspective, the fee of about $4,000 paid to Sharp to run the Keep Fluoride campaign was more than Salina Cares’ total spending. Tryon, who in the weeks leading up to the election spent hours holding up homemade anti-fluoride signs at busy Salina intersections, noted spending as a factor when asked what led to the lopsided loss.

“We have a campaign strategist we hired to do this, because as dentists we have no clue,” Lesko says. “I’ve never done anything political, so we hired an expert. It’s much like running a

“There’s no way a grassroots group of 15 people could keep up with that,” Tryon says. “Even if we could spend a couple of thousand, that would be our limit.”

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“WHEN YO U ’ RE LOOKI N G AT A LOCAL COMMUNITY FLUORIDE ISSUE, IT’ S BEST D ON E BY THE LOCA L CO M M UNITY. YOU CA N ’ T J UST SI T BACK AND N OT DO A N YT HI NG. YOU HAVE TO DO S OM E T HI NG.” ALLISON LESKO

Dealing with Conflict Yet even a professionalized campaign doesn’t insulate supporters from conflict when there’s a contentious public dialogue. Being able to stomach conflict in promoting public health is one lesson that carried over from one of the last times that Salina found itself at the epicenter of a far-reaching public health issue.

In 2002, the city at the crossroads of Interstates 70 and 135 passed the state’s first ordinance to restrict smoking in public places. It was a landmark action and a hotly debated one.

Trent Davis, a Salina neurologist who was chairman of the anti-smoking coalition, says there can be immense pressure on community members to stay out of such a fray for fear of angering others.

“I was surprised how hard it was to get my medical colleagues involved,” says Davis, who is currently serving as a Salina city commissioner. “They were afraid they might lose patients or they might lose referrals. A lot of people don’t want to risk their livelihood because of a ‘little’ issue.”

In a local controversy, conflict often feels very personal, sometimes pitting individuals against

people who on any other day might be colleagues, customers, friends or neighbors. Davis says that it’s important to choose to advance what you truly believe in and understand going in that exercising leadership may carry some consequences.

“You can’t really be afraid of losing anything,” Davis says. “If I believe enough in an issue and I lose some friends or lose some influence or lose a few patients, if that issue means that much to me, then that’s the cost of doing business. So many times, we want to hold on to everything and we don’t want to risk anything, but we want to win it all. That’s just not the way it works.”

Lesko needed to look no farther than Wichita – where she has dentist friends who took a stand for fluoridation in the campaign there and paid a price for it – to understand that there were risks involved in spearheading Keep Fluoride in Salina.

“It was kind of an ugly battle in Wichita,” Lesko says. “The anti-fluoride people were kind of going after the personal lives of the dentists and discrediting dentists individually, and I’m really grateful that they didn’t do that here.”

Any fears she might have had about consequences haven’t materialized.

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“No one left our practice,” Lesko says. “We know there are anti-fluoride patients here, but they’re still our patients. But I did have patients who saw us in our ads and did come to us because they knew that I was behind keeping fluoride, which was really cool. I did not expect that at all. Some of those patients were some of our biggest helpers and turned out to be some of our volunteers, which was really neat. I didn’t expect that flip side.”

When it was approved back in 2002, Salina’s clean indoor air ordinance applied only to restaurants and only at certain times of the day. It was later replaced with stronger ordinances and caused a ripple effect throughout the state.

Will there be any ripples elsewhere in the state stemming from Salina’s vote on community water fluoridation? So far, the answer appears to be no. The anti-smoking ordinance was a relatively new idea in Kansas when Salina passed it, but water fluoridation is something that has been on the books for decades.

Yet Salina is unlikely to be the last battlefront over fluoridating community water supplies in Kansas. An organization called Fluoride Free Kansas seeks to “stop new referendums/initiatives by the fluoride mafia,” according to its website.

That’s not news to Lesko and the health organizations that supported Keep Fluoride, which is why she was glad to see such a decisive victory in Salina.

“I know state-level-wise that we believe there are things we are going to need to get involved in,” Lesko says. “There will be other cities that will be attacked. They’ve gone after Wichita, and they had a state bill (in 2014). We feel like there is a big push that they are trying to make, and we are organizing on our end as well.”

If public-health supporters learned one lesson from Salina, she says, it’s the need for doctors, dentists and others who care about the health of a community to step forward and engage others when they can make a difference.

“When you’re looking at a local community fluoride issue, it’s best done by the local community,” says Lesko, who was named Oral Health Kansas’ Outstanding Community Leader of the Year two days after the Salina vote took place. “You can’t sit back and not do anything. You have to do something.”

Discussion Guide 1. What makes leadership difficult on public health challenges?

2. What aspects of the challenge facing the Keep Fluoride group were technical?

Which were adaptive? How do you know the difference?

3. Mayor It’s notJeff uncommon for people to get motivated about an issue for a short period of time before Wichita Longwell says turning their attention the days of south-central Kansaselsewhere. What kind of leadership does it take to keep people engaged cities competing each other after thewith big vote? to score jobs are over.

Leading on a Contentious Public Health Issue:

LESSONS FROM SALINA

1.

BE PROACTIVE.

While some of her colleagues greeted news of a challenge to the fluoridation of Salina’s water with a shrug, dentist Allison Lesko decided to take action and became a driving force in the Keep Fluoride campaign. By giving herself permission to exercise leadership in a heated situation, Lesko made a difference in her community.

2.

GET ORGANIZED.

Keep Fluoride helped unite the Salina medical community and leverage the support of state and national organizations. By seeking out a SWAT team of experts to help them, Salina advocates could benefit from the resources and expertise of others and put their focus on engaging the public.

3.

BE VISIBLE.

Keep Fluoride group members made sure to get their message out in multiple ways using yard signs, postcards, newspaper ads, radio interviews and a toothbrush giveaway on Halloween. By taking on the role of being visible advocates for a policy, group members were able to capture the public’s attention on an issue that can often become a confusing hodgepodge of claims and counterclaims.

4.

UNDERSTAND LIMITATIONS.

The campaign’s core group of dentists realized they didn’t know everything. They sought professional help for dealing with matters outside their expertise, such as the running of election campaigns.

While technical knowledge can’t solve adaptive challenges on its own, it can be a useful tool for fostering progress.

5.

BE WILLING TO DEAL WITH CONFLICT.

In a local controversy, conflict feels especially personal. Expressing support for something may put you up against good people – colleagues, customers, friends and neighbors. You have to know what you want to truly stand for and know going in that exercising leadership can carry consequences.

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CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN LAWMAKER MARK HUTTON WENT AGAINST THE GRAIN – AND SOME OF HIS POLITICAL ALLIES – IN PURSUING A FIX TO THE STATE’S BUDGET WOES LAST YEAR. BUT HE STRUGGLED TO

OUT ON A LIMB BRING ENOUGH OF THE LEGISLATURE’S SPLINTERED FACTIONS TOGETHER ON A PLAN. HIS STORY PROVIDES LEADERSHIP LESSONS FOR THIS YEAR’S SESSION AS L A W M A K E R S A G A I N T R Y TO K E E P T H E STATE’S BUDGET IN BALANCE.

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“WE’VE KIND OF HIT A TIPPING POINT WHERE IF WE KEEP PURSUING THIS, WE’RE GOING TO HURT PEOPLE – THE PEOPLE OF KANSAS, THE VERY PEOPLE WE WERE WORKING HARD TO GET SOME EQUITY TO AND SOME PARITY FOR ON THE TAX POLICY.” MARK HUTTON

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By: ANDY MARSO

It was May 7, 2015, and Rep. Mark Hutton was about to unveil what would become the Kansas Legislature’s most talked-about tax plan.

The House Taxation Committee meeting had been moved to a larger room, but it was still overflowing. Legislators, lobbyists and journalists who couldn’t get a seat stood in the doorway.

Until that day, Hutton was basically a face in the crowd – a generally conservative Republican in a generally conservative Legislature.

But the second-term legislator from Wichita would soon rise to prominence in a legislative session marked by a prolonged standoff over a $400 million budget gap.

Despite the stakes, little had been accomplished publicly for four months, in part because of the elephant in the room: an income-tax exemption for about 300,000 businesses passed three years earlier.

Some legislators wanted to add the businesses back to the tax rolls, but few were willing to be the one to bring it up. The 2012 tax plan was a centerpiece of Brownback’s legacy and the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, one of the state’s heavy-hitting lobbying groups, was protective of it.

Hutton would get the public debate started.

Legislators had known since the session began that the budget was in bad shape. Gov. Sam Brownback had already initiated a series of fund transfers and spending cuts to get through the current fiscal year.

For the next fiscal year that began July 1, Hutton and the rest of the tax committee had to fill an even bigger hole. State worker furloughs and a government shutdown loomed if they failed.

The room was hushed as the bespectacled Hutton, charts in hand, explained why he was breaking ranks with fellow conservatives and asking for the business tax to be reinstated.

In his mind, it was a matter of both fairness and practicality. The tax exemption, he said, was not the jobs driver it had been promised to be.

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“I’ll go so far today as to say it never will,” Hutton said.

As the chairman of the House Commerce Committee and the founder of one of the state’s largest commercial construction firms, Hutton knew how to take control of a meeting. He could be fiery at times, but now he was calm, almost professorial.

Rep. Tom Sawyer, a veteran Wichita legislator and the committee’s top Democrat, scanned the other members to gauge their reactions. He had been surprised when Hutton told him what he planned to introduce. It was something the Democrats had wanted for years, but Hutton was presenting data the committee had not seen before.

Rep. Tom Phillips, a moderate Republican from Manhattan, was also impressed. Hutton was considered close to Brownback and was sticking his neck out by casting doubt on the governor’s signature tax policy.

Rep. Jerry Lunn, a conservative Republican from Johnson County, respected Hutton but disagreed with what he was proposing. Lunn believed the tax exemption was working, as evidenced by the steady churn of new business filings, especially in his county. He thought the jobs would come eventually. Meanwhile, it would be disruptive to pull the tax exemption out from under business owners who were counting on it.

Five days later the committee passed Hutton’s bill 13-8.

But the fight over tax policy was just beginning.

PLAN FAILS The tax committee’s chairman, Rep. Marvin Kleeb of Overland Park, had supported the business-tax exemption when it passed in 2012.

He and Hutton usually voted similarly, but Kleeb was not surprised to see Hutton break ranks on the exemption. The budget difficulties had forced the Republican supermajority into difficult

31

decisions about where to find revenue. The future of the business exemption would have to be hashed out as part of that discussion, and Kleeb thought Hutton was showing leadership in starting the conversation.

Hutton was well-positioned to do it. He wasn’t in the Legislature in 2012, so he wasn’t politically invested in the plan. He had a reliably conservative voting record that would make it difficult for a primary election opponent to come at him from the right. And he had a successful business, so he didn’t need a legislative job.

He believed his tax plan was the state’s best option, but if voters disagreed, he’d happily return to the private sector.

Some of his colleagues cheered him on. Others asked if he was worried about ending up on the wrong side of the Kansas Chamber or businesses such as Koch Industries, the powerful Wichitabased industrial conglomerate.

Hutton was not particularly worried.

Most of his friends in the business community told him they were willing to pay some income tax again if that’s what it took to fix the budget.

But he fielded some calls from business owners who asked if he was trying to “ruin” them. He went over the numbers with them and asked if the small amount of income tax he was proposing would really end their businesses.

No one within state government, including Brownback, told him to back off. But the governor had veto power, and even if Hutton could get something through the House, there was no guarantee it would ever make it through the Senate.

Senate President Susan Wagle of Wichita was open to revisiting the business tax exemption, but many other Republican senators were not.

Tensions rose under the dome as the tax debate wore on with little progress.

“I DON’T JUST SEE COMPROMISE DECREASING IN TOPEKA AND WASHINGTON I SEE IT DECREASING ON A LOT OF STREETS ACROSS THE COUNTRY.”

STEVEN JOHNSON

Rep. Steven Johnson of Assaria walks past the barn on his farm. Johnson is one of the House’s foremost fiscal wonks and assisted Rep. Mark Hutton in developing a compromise plan to balance the state budget in 2015.

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House Republicans fractured into four factions: one that rejected the idea of raising taxes based on principle, one that would grudgingly accept some new taxes but was not willing to touch the business exemption, one coalescing around Hutton that wanted some rollback of the business tax and one on the party’s moderate wing that wanted a larger reversal of the 2012 tax plan.

One of the first to join Hutton was Rep. Steven Johnson, a Republican from Assaria who is one of the House’s foremost fiscal wonks. Hutton and Johnson huddled, sometimes late into the night, trying to develop a compromise plan to balance the budget.

Johnson says that Hutton’s leadership was key to fueling a better debate about tax policy within the Statehouse. “He was willing to be the first one to step out,” Johnson says of Hutton. “He studied the data, he knew the state, he knew the impact and he knew the issue from being a participant in the real world, from having a small business and having a large business.”

Yet Hutton and Johnson quickly found that the staunchest conservatives wouldn’t budge on the business tax, no matter the numbers. If any of it was restored, they were a “no.” The moderates were more receptive, but Hutton’s offerings did not go far enough toward undoing the 2012 plan for many of them.

By then, the governor had threatened to veto any reversal of the business-tax exemption, which Johnson would later describe as a “major squelch” for changes to the policy.

Some of the moderates told Hutton there was no point in making a tax increase vote that could be used against them in future elections, when the bill had no hope of becoming law.

Hutton’s conservative record and his professional ties to Koch and its politically active owners prompted at least a couple of people within the

Statehouse to voice suspicion about his motives.

After all, Hutton seemed an unlikely prospect to sit opposite from Brownback and his allies on such a prominent issue. One of Brownback’s key goals as governor is fostering a “march to zero” on the state’s income tax rate, and removing the exemption could be seen as retreating from that objective.

Hutton had received the endorsement of the Kansas Chamber in both of his campaigns for office and counted Koch and the Chamber – whom moderate Republicans and Democrats quite often view as their political nemeses – among his campaign donors. Hutton’s company had also been chosen to manage an expansion of Koch’s headquarters in Wichita. But several House members would later dismiss rumors that Hutton was anything but sincere in his efforts.

As the session dragged into June, the budget crisis became more urgent and Hutton decided to push a version of his plan to the House floor.

It added back about half of the business taxes and mixed in some other tax increases to balance the budget.

The bill needed 63 votes to pass.

As a lengthy debate on the measure drew to a close, Rep. Will Carpenter, a Republican from El Dorado, said he was ready to face the potential political consequences.

“Some people have told me that I may not be here next year if I vote for this tax plan,” Carpenter said, his voice breaking with emotion.

“That’s a chance I’ll take.”

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“HE WAS WILLING TO BE THE FIRST ONE TO STEP OUT. HE STUDIED THE DATA, HE KNEW THE STATE, HE KNEW THE IMPACT AND HE KNEW THE ISSUE FROM BEING A PARTICIPANT IN THE REAL WORLD, FROM HAVING A SMALL BUSINESS AND HAVING A LARGE BUSINESS.” REP. STEVEN JOHNSON on Rep. Mark Hutton’s leadership on the state budget in 2015

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DIVIDING LINES WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

NO CHANGE KEEP BUSINESS TAX EXEMPTION

GOVERNOR BROWNBACK

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

“NO-TAX-HIKE” REPUBLICANS SENATE AND HOUSE REPUBLICANS

“NO-TAX-HIKE” REPUBLICANS

GOVERNOR

LAST YEAR: Opposed repealing business tax exemption because of their loyalty to not increasing taxes.

LAST YEAR: Focused on preserving the business tax exemption as a key element of his signature policy achievement, the 2012 income tax cuts.

THIS YEAR: Will they be even more resistant to raising taxes in an election year?

THIS YEAR: Doesn’t want to go the tax increase route. Will he remain pledged to protecting the business tax exemption with his veto?

SENATE AND HOUSE REPUBLICANS LAST YEAR: A bare majority of Republicans in the Senate and House, including Hutton, were willing to vote in favor of non-income-tax increases to balance the state budget and keep the state at a functioning level.

THIS YEAR: Will the votes get easier – or tougher?

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Tax and budget issues figure to remain at the forefront of the Legislature. A year after raising sales and cigarette taxes, Gov. Sam Brownback doesn’t want to propose any further tax increases and some lawmakers believe there’s too much fatigue to deal with taxes again this year. But a stretch of unexpectedly weak tax collections has left the state’s budget in a precarious place. Last year, the Legislature splintered into different camps based on how much change they were willing to accept in tax policy to balance the state budget. Finding a long-term solution to the state’s budget challenges likely will require additional discussions and compromise among these groups.

BIG CHANGE REPEAL BUSINESS TAX EXEMPTION

HOUSE MODERATE REPUBLICANS THE HUTTON-JOHNSON COALITION

DEMOCRATS

THE HUTTON-JOHNSON COALITION

HOUSE MODERATE REPUBLICANS

LAST YEAR: Influenced the conversation but mustered just 27 votes on the House floor when their plan came to a vote last year. Need members of other factions on board to make progress.

LAST YEAR: Want to see a broader reversal of the 2012 income tax cuts, including the business tax exemption. Concerned about voting for tax increases that won’t pass and could come back to haunt them politically.

THIS YEAR: Will they be back – and how will they sway anyone to join them?

THIS YEAR: What incentives do they have for biting the bullet this time?

DEMOCRATS LAST YEAR: Seeking repeal of Brownback tax cuts. Willing to sit on the sidelines to let Republicans fight it out in hopes it will help them gain more political support.

THIS YEAR: Do things get better for them as circumstances get more challenging for Republicans? Or do they need to be in the fight?

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The voting rolls opened and heads turned to stare up at the two voting boards at the front of the room. A smattering of “yes” votes lit up green in a sea of red “no” votes. Hutton’s plan was overwhelmingly defeated 82-27.

THE LAST EFFORT A week passed. Other tax plans went to the House floor and got even fewer votes. The budget situation became increasingly desperate.

A legislative session traditionally lasts 90 days, but this one had rolled past that on its way to being the longest in Kansas history. On June 11, the Legislature’s 112th day, the governor called a rare joint caucus of House and Senate Republicans and pleaded with them to approve a tax increase.

His budget director outlined a series of consequences if one wasn’t passed within days. They included cuts to state hospitals or pulling all state funding for higher education.

From where Hutton sat, things looked bleak.

Brownback had been willing to talk with him about tax policy but never backed off his veto threat.

Hutton thought there was little more he could say.

Getting the House to pass something could ramp up the pressure.

Hutton had 27 precious votes, but had to get at least one other voting bloc to agree to a compromise to have a prayer of reaching 63.

Democrats had largely pulled back from the talks.

Sawyer told the Topeka Capital-Journal that Republicans had made the budget mess and they would

have to clean it up. Hutton intensified talks with the moderate Republicans.

His plan was more palatable to them than others, but some of them still said it was an incomplete fix – it would only postpone the state’s budget crisis, not solve it.

None of them formally introduced an alternative.

Hutton hoped he might be able to get the moderates on board if he could break down the Senate’s resistance.

Late that night he met with Wagle and a few moderate leaders to see if they could coalesce behind something.

But Wagle saw no path to 21 Senate votes for any plan that significantly changed the business tax exemption.

At that point Hutton’s coalition had nowhere to go for votes but their right flank – and it was going without much leverage because it did not have the moderates.

By the next day a bill had emerged that raised sales and cigarette taxes, mandated more budget cuts while projecting a razor-thin margin of error for the budget. The only nod to Hutton’s business tax proposal was a small levy on guaranteed payments, which several legislators said any savvy accountant could avoid.

Hutton felt like the plan was being rammed down his throat, but it was the only option that could keep the state from going into default. If he held out for a plan that he thought was better for the state in the long term, it could be devastating in the short term.

He emerged from the negotiations to address a gaggle of reporters who had gotten word that a deal had been struck. Exhausted from stress and long nights, his tone was more resigned than triumphant.

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“We’ve kind of hit a tipping point where if we keep pursuing this, we’re going to hurt people – the people of Kansas, the very people we were working hard to get some equity to and some parity for on the tax policy,” Hutton said.

THE COMMENTARY The plan passed, and business owners kept nearly all of their tax exemption.

On social media, Kansans who wanted to see the governor’s tax policy crash and burn ripped Hutton’s group for caving. Meanwhile, anti-tax groups criticized legislators who raised taxes rather than cut spending.

Hutton was frustrated with the way things had ended, but could not see what he could have done differently.

He had examined a budget problem, proposed a solution, made an evidence-based case for it and gathered as much support as he could. After it failed, he used what leverage he had to shape the final product, which, though disparaged in some quarters, kept government running.

He had wanted an open discussion about tax policy.

Politics and ideology, he thought, had hampered that discussion, and he wanted the public to know it.

So he started writing an op-ed article, despite receiving advice not to. Five days later the opinion piece landed with a thud in The Wichita Eagle.

It criticized the governor for being beholden to ideologues, moderates for being afraid of electionyear postcards, no-tax-hike conservatives for being willing to crater the state budget and Democrats for focusing on the political gains they might be able to make from the dysfunction.

Moderate Republicans, in particular, took umbrage with how he characterized them. They said they were not scared of postcards (a popular and sometimes incendiary form of campaign communication used by interest groups) but were waiting for a more comprehensive tax reform plan.

Sitting in his fifth-floor Statehouse office months later, Hutton leaned back and contemplated the piece.

He stood by what he had written about the “power of the postcard” and said his intention was to lessen some of that power by warning the electorate of the impact of skewed and misleading mailers.

Discussion Guide 1. How would you characterize the leadership challenge Rep. Mark Hutton faced last session?

What aspects of these challenges would you describe as adaptive or systemic in nature?

2. On a scale of one to 10, how would you assess the level of heat around the tax issue in the Legislature during the session? What level of heat do you think Hutton personally faced?

3. Would you say that Hutton effectively exercised leadership last session? Why or why not?

4. How do you think the commentary Hutton wrote will affect his ability to exercise leadership in the future?

Will his positioning to lead be better, worse or unchanged?

40 THE JOURNAL

He still has no regrets about voting for the tax plan that finally passed, though it was a bitter pill to swallow. “If people want to say I caved and backed up on the whole business exemption thing, then I guess they can say that,” Hutton says.

“I can honestly say it was a very hard decision, but it was one that I made with a clear conscience.

I did it, maybe not in the best long term for Kansas, but it was certainly the best decision for the short term. Sometimes in politics that’s what you get.”

In the run-up to this year’s session, Brownback told reporters that he wouldn’t be proposing further tax increases in 2016. He contends the state budget is in good shape and that his signature tax cuts are boosting the economy. But a months-long stretch of unexpectedly weak tax collection has left the state’s budget with almost no cushion.

As a result, the existence of the business tax exemption figures to still be an issue for some under the dome. But it remains to be seen whether Hutton will continue leading the debate.

“The issue has certainly not gone away,” Hutton says. “There remains a large contingent of people that believe it’s not just a revenue issue; it’s an equity or fairness issue. It’s an image issue for our state.”

Johnson, the Assaria lawmaker, says the Legislature will need more leadership like Hutton showed last session. There are “good people on both sides” that Hutton and the coalition can try to persuade, Johnson says, but they are also increasingly dug in and unwilling to compromise on major issues.

It’s the kind of situation where leadership among lawmakers can only carry things so far. Breaking the gridlock would require elected officials to engage the electorate and get people outside of the Statehouse discussing solutions in an open, serious way.

“I don’t just see compromise decreasing in Topeka and Washington,” says Johnson, a 2010 alumnus of the Kansas Leadership Center. “I see it decreasing on a lot of streets across the country. I think government may now be thought of by many of us as a class that we have to take, where 200 years ago it was an active way of thinking and discussing that a free democracy relied upon to become established and flourish.”

If the atmosphere in Topeka doesn’t change, Hutton says, the state could find itself in a Washington-esque mode of governing crisis-to-crisis, doing just enough at the last minute to stave off government shutdowns and leaving little energy for long-term planning.

“The paralysis that I’m concerned about is the fact that once again our state’s revenues are not meeting estimates … and I believe we’re going to be significantly underwater,” Hutton says.

“Where do we go from here?”

Andy Marso is a reporter for the KHI News Service in Topeka, an editorially independent initiative of the Kansas Health Institute and a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor reporting collaboration.

The news service provides in-depth reporting on health issues in Kansas and the public policy debates surrounding them at www.khi.org/news.

THE JOURNAL 41

STEPPING OUT

LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM REP. MARK HUTTON

By: CHRIS GREEN

1.

GIVING VOICE TO WHAT OTHERS CAN’T SAY SERVES THE COMMON GOOD.

Some legislators wanted to talk about scaling back the income tax exemptions for 300,000 businesses that passed in 2012. But few wanted to bring it up because of the political risks involved. Because he was willing to broach the issue himself, Hutton allowed for an important public debate in the Legislature about whether taxes on pass-through income should be reinstated.

2.

LEADERSHIP MEANS ENGAGING IN DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS WITH THE PEOPLE ON YOUR OWN SIDE.

Hutton is a conservative Republican and business owner who is seen as generally agreeing with Gov. Sam Brownback on many issues. But that didn’t stop him from questioning a policy that he didn’t think was working and raising the issue with fellow business owners and other conservative Republicans. You can’t really lead unless you’re willing to have tough talks with the people who are usually on your side.

3.

THE STORIES OTHERS TELL ABOUT YOU – REGARDLESS OF THEIR TRUTH – CAN MAKE LEADERSHIP HARDER.

Hutton’s strong conservative credentials gave his push to revisit aspects of the 2012 tax cuts more credibility. But his strengths may also have been a double-edged sword in some quarters. Some moderates and liberals may have remained skeptical of his motives even as his allies defended the sincerity of his effort. Dealing with the less noble stories others tell about you – even if they’re not true – and building trust despite them is important for leading effectively.

4.

WHAT’S NOT RISKY FOR YOU MAY BE A BITTER PILL FOR OTHERS TO SWALLOW.

Hutton indicates he had little to lose in pushing changes to state tax policy. But others had a lot to lose. Conservatives faced the prospect of taking a step back from a signature tax initiative while moderates and liberals risked taking a vote that could be used against them in the future.

Leadership means understanding the risks and losses others face and speaking to them in a way that energizes progress.

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The Rev. Kevass Harding of Dellrose United Methodist Church and the Rev. Junius Dotson, senior pastor at Saint Mark United Methodist Church, began planning a community forum to improve police and community relations in Wichita after unrest erupted in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014.

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After watching frustration and anger boil over following the use of force by police in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri, two Wichita pastors sought to prevent a similar explosion in their own community. Eighteen months after it began, The Journal takes a look at the #NoFergusonHere effort they helped launch and the extent to which it’s been able to bridge police and community divisions.

By: LAURA RODDY

43

44 THE JOURNAL

W

hen the friction between the

Ferguson law enforcement

community and African Americans exploded into a

national storm in the summer of 2014, the Rev. Kevass Harding of Wichita had a special vantage point from which he could set out to try to bridge the divide back home.

Before being called into the ministry, Harding had served as a Wichita police officer for nearly four years in the early 1990s. He’d lived the challenges that officers face.

He is also an African-American and the pastor of a predominantly African-American church in northeast Wichita, a historic population center for some of the community’s 40,000 blacks.

protesters chanting, “Hands up, don’t shoot.” And there was looting and other violence, prompting the Missouri governor to establish a curfew and turn over power to the Highway Patrol, which showed up with military-style vehicles.

“There’s great cops, and I felt like I was one of them,” Harding says. “But there’s instances where police brutality really exists.”

Harding was on an annual guys golfing trip in August 2014 when Ferguson, a St. Louis suburb, captured the nation’s attention. Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old African-American accused of theft from a convenience store, was shot and killed by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, in the middle of a street on a Saturday afternoon.

The shooting ignited chaos in Ferguson, a city of 20,000 with a majority of black residents but an almost entirely white police force. In the months to come, Wilson would not be indicted for the shooting and would be cleared of civil rights violations. However, the U.S. Department of Justice also issued a scathing report, calling on the city to overhaul its criminal justice system.

In the immediate aftermath of the killing, though, the nation witnessed a vivid dichotomy relative to the efficacy of violence and nonviolence.

At times, the city reverberated with peaceful

Some 400 miles away, key figures in Wichita’s African-American community started mobilizing.

They didn’t want what had happened in Ferguson to happen in their community.

“You saw the frustration and anger, and I said, ‘Man, that can happen in any city,’” Harding said.

Including Wichita.

Ferguson became a launching pad for a heated national conversation over racial justice and the use of force by police. Some saw Brown as the victim of a racially biased criminal justice system.

Others lionized Wilson, convinced he was unfairly accused. Many blacks and whites saw the situation very differently.

There were signs of tension in Wichita, too.

Just weeks earlier, 26-year-old Icarus Randolph, a Marine veteran, had been shot and killed by a Wichita police officer outside his family’s home.

Police officials said the shots were fired after the man had charged officers with a knife. But his family said the man suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and accused the officers of allowing the situation to escalate.

It was just the latest in a series of incidents in the city in which family members of those killed had been speaking out about officer-involved shootings. In 2012, the families of three people shot and killed by Wichita police approached the City Council, criticizing the department’s use of force and wanting more information about the shootings.

“ T H E R E ’ S I N S TA N C E S W H E R E P O L I C E B R U TA L I T Y R E A L LY E X I S T S .”

Rev. Kevass Harding

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45

“ W E F E LT T H AT T H I S ISSUE BELONGED TO THE W H O L E C I T Y.” Rev. Junius Dotson

Although a handful of lawsuits were filed accusing officers of excessive use of force in recent years, over the previous three decades no Wichita officer had been charged with wrongdoing in a police shooting, according to The Wichita Eagle.

To the law enforcement community, the existing system of oversight – involving the Police Department, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and the Sedgwick County district attorney – to ensure the reasonable use of force by police was fair. But critics, including some of the families of those killed, expressed suspicion about whether it truly held police accountable for their actions.

As he followed the events in Ferguson, Harding didn’t want to wait to see whether tensions between police and the community in Wichita would worsen. He resolved to do something pre-emptive – to help turn down the heat between police and minority groups in Wichita to get it to a productive level, instead of cranking it up.

“I’ll be an agitator if I have to be, but I’d rather be a collaborator,” Harding said.

One of Harding’s first calls was to another AfricanAmerican church official in Wichita, the Rev. Junius Dotson, senior pastor at St. Mark United Methodist Church, which is just over a mile west of Harding’s Dellrose United Methodist Church.

Framed on Dotson’s desk are the results of a personality test. “Thinker” gets the largest bar – but the results also describe him as an imaginer, a promoter and a rebel.

Dotson was in. He and Harding began planning a community forum, but they wanted results, not just another town hall filled with people venting.

“The goal was not just to have a meeting where nothing would happen,” Dotson said. “We felt that this issue belonged to the whole city.”

At the outset, Dotson and Harding, both of whom are alumni of Kansas Leadership Center programs, moved quickly, bringing together the mayor, city manager, a City Council member, the interim police chief, the sheriff, community organizers and several others.

Dotson wanted viable action items. “How do we bring together people?” he asked. “It’s not just a black issue.”

T

SEIZING A MOMENT

he racial tensions across the

nation added urgency. The ministers

decided on a forum, drew from

their constituencies, created fliers

and took to social media. “We don’t want what happened in Ferguson to happen here,” was repeated again and again, Harding recalled.

To rally residents to that goal, a Twitter hashtag was born to promote the gathering: #NoFergusonHere. Twitter hashtags, most famously #BlackLivesMatter, had emerged as a way to raise public awareness of a campaign to reduce the use of force against African-Americans. The #BlackLivesMatter hashtag evolved to become a movement, and the #NoFergusonHere organizers sought a local movement of their own toward reconciliation.

On Aug. 28, 2014 – a scant two and a half weeks after Michael Brown’s death – more than 600 people showed up for a community forum on police relations in the auditorium of Wichita East High School. The event brought in an extremely diverse crowd.

“It was one of the most beautiful meetings culturally,” Harding said.

46 THE JOURNAL

The turnout surprised Dotson. People were fired up, which was great, but the atmosphere was tense. “The heat was already sky high,” Dotson said. “We seized a moment.”

Harding and Dotson served as moderators for the event, which included a panel discussion featuring then-Mayor Carl Brewer, City Manager Robert Layton, Wichita interim Police Chief Nelson Mosley, Kenya Cox of the Wichita branch of the NAACP, Carlos Contreras of Kansas People’s Action and the Rev. Reuben Eckels of Sunflower Community Action.

As people began discussing concerns about their relationships with police officers, the organizers were careful to record responses. Harding afterward had this message for the people in attendance: “We’ve heard you. We’ve taken notes. We’re going to compile that data, sit down and find a common theme – a pearl – that the community is saying to the city about police reform.”

One of Randolph’s family members spoke at the meeting, questioning why every police shooting in Wichita had been ruled justified. She, her family and friends of the dead veteran demonstrated outside the school before the meeting.

Despite the emotions in the room, the atmosphere remained productive. A Wichita Eagle reporter summarized the meeting by writing that “concerns and questions about relations between police and the community received a thorough and peaceful airing.”

“Participants questioned police procedures on officer-involved shootings, urged the education and mentoring of young black men about how to respond to officers, questioned hiring practices within the department and called for the community to be as accountable as the police for improving relations,” wrote reporter Fred Mann.

Some participants talked about the need for Wichita police officers to wear cameras, with some in the audience holding up signs saying, “No camera, no gun.” Brewer drew applause when he declared that he would return to the City Council and work with the city manager to outfit every officer with a camera.

When the meeting concluded, Harding, Dotson and other organizers were pleased. They had expected some anger, but they were optimistic about the ideas that emerged. “Wichita is going to be one of those cities that’s going to be an example,” Dotson said of his thoughts that evening.

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W

BECOMING A LIGHTNING ROD

•

•

•

•

hen the organizers met again, they categorized the responses from the #NoFergusonHere forum and came up with four priorities:

Acquire body cameras for the police force and require all officers to wear them.

Implement crisis intervention training for all officers.

Create an independent review board for officer-involved shootings and allegations of misconduct.

Increase the culture of community policing, which promotes trusting partnerships with residents to be proactive when it comes to public safety and reducing crime.

As organizers widely promoted their action plan, they buckled down to make progress on all those points and announced a follow-up meeting. This was not going to be another one-day-and-done event. They were checking all the boxes, they thought, for achieving civic progress.

47

And that progress was happening at lightning speed: The city of Wichita committed to equipping every patrol officer with a body camera, locating funding for the purchase and developing policies to regulate the cameras’ use. When that happened – with the goal of full implementation

by Dec. 31, 2015 – Wichita was in line to be one of the first cities of its size to require all its officers to wear body cameras.

Harding, Dotson and the other organizers wanted to report back to the community on the progress they had made. So the follow-up #NoFergusonHere meeting was scheduled for Dec. 10, 2014, at Wichita’s Century II Convention Hall.

Harding and Dotson had expected anger at the first meeting, where people aired their grievances.

But as they prepared for the follow-up meeting, there was a sense of satisfaction that not only were they actually reconvening the group but they also had some accomplishments to report.

However, in areas outside Kansas, the national storm was far from dissipating. In November, a grand jury decided not to indict Wilson in the shooting death of Brown, sparking another round of protests – both peaceful and riotous.

FROM LEFT Tia Butler, whose cousin Icarus Randolph was fatally shot by Wichita police in 2014, asks a question about what the protocol is when an officer is confronted by a mentally ill person.

Family members of Randolph spoke during the emotionally charged first #NoFergusonHere community meeting at Wichita East High School in August 2014.

Interim police chief Nelson Mosley talks with the audience during the first #NoFergusonHere community meeting aimed at improving police and community relations. Mosley retired in January, shortly before new Wichita Police Chief Gordon Ramsay, formerly of Duluth, Minnesota, started work.

Ida Allen, sister of Icarus Randolph, expresses emotion to the #NoFergusonHere panel. Despite high emotions, the atmosphere at the community meeting remained productive.

Photos by Fernando Salazar, courtesy of The Wichita Eagle

48 THE JOURNAL

Kansas and the Ferguson Issue The national conversation over racial justice and the use of force by police that has arisen in the aftermath of Ferguson has often been polarizing and emotional. And it’s an issue that more and more communities are grappling with.

In Kansas, African-Americans are nearly three times more likely to be killed by police than the overall population (per 100,000), according to data compiled by Mapping Police Violence, a website that seeks to raise awareness about the issue. That’s about the same difference as it is nationally.

The ability of police to use deadly force in the line of duty is important for protecting the public’s safety. But protecting the legitimacy of that use of force by ensuring that the public can have confidence that it’s being justly and justifiably applied is also crucial.

The map below shows where at least 33 people, including six blacks (one of which was reportedly unarmed), three Hispanics and three people of unknown race, have been killed during the use of force by police in Kansas since 2013 (deaths from vehicle crashes are not included).

The vast majority of those killed (more than 80 percent) were allegedly armed.

How would our state and national conversation change if we explored tougher, more systemic interpretations of this situation? What interpretations might we need to explore that go beyond assigning blame at the individual or group level?

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PEOPLE KILLED DURING USE OF FORCE BY POLICE IN KANSAS, 2013-2015

33 T O TA L

21 WHITE

6

BLACK

3

H I S PA N I C

3

UNKNOWN

49

50 THE JOURNAL

Protests also followed the decision of a grand jury in New York to not indict a police officer in the case of Eric Garner, an African-American who died in police custody after being placed in a chokehold during his arrest.

About 200 people showed up for Wichita’s second #NoFergusonHere meeting. The agenda consisted of a progress report and then smallgroup discussions. But participants didn’t want to talk in small groups. They wanted to vent to the whole group.

Dotson and Harding were caught off guard by the level of anger. From the moderators’ perspective, several months had passed since Brown’s death, and they were there to talk about all their progress.

“It was hard to shut it down,” Dotson said. “You’re up there, and you’re kind of the lightning rod.”

Harding put it bluntly: “I felt attacked – we’d done all this work. We’re very transparent.”

But many in the audience just weren’t ready to move on.

Djuan Wash, communications director at Sunflower Community Action, a grassroots social justice organization, understood some of the anger in the room. Some longtime activists wanted to know where the pastors had been before Ferguson, he said.

“I consider both of them (Dotson and Harding) to be allies,” Wash said. “However, the ministers in this town have not been consistent in their support.”

Wash said one point of contention was that Brewer, then the mayor, had once promised body cameras by the end of 2014 before realizing it would take more time to get funding and policies in place.

“People were angry because they hadn’t seen anything happen,” Wash said.

EPILOGUE: ‘THIS IS ALL OF OUR PROBLEM’

H

arding and Dotson managed

their own emotions as

best they could and carried

on with the second

#NoFergusonHere meeting, even though things weren’t going as planned.

“Even in progress, the reality is there is still a fester of anger,” Harding said, reflecting on the meeting.

Harding used the analogy of Moses and the Red Sea from the Bible. The Israelites managed to get released from Egypt, but they were still wandering in the desert and still complaining.

“It was a reminder that with progress, you’re going to continue to have agitators’ complaints and frustration,” he said. “Working with the city, you’re getting things done. … You have these folks angry because you’re collaborating. They want you to riot.”

Harding was able to take a breath and ignore the feeling of being attacked. “Police work helped me understand – don’t take stuff personal,” he said. “You’re not going to please everybody. You need to be able to understand that internally or it can really mess you up, because most people want to be liked.”

It turned out to be a matter of managing expectations for the second meeting. Dotson and Harding had not anticipated that emotions would still be as high. They had used the comments and discussion from the first meeting as marching orders and had gone out and done the work. They were unprepared for an audience that still wanted to express frustrations instead of focusing on solutions.

The pastors did their best to handle the comments deftly and steer the group back to the agenda and the small-group discussions. And at the end of the evening, they felt good about their

THE THEJOURNAL JOURNAL 37 51

progress – they thought the open dialogue and the concrete action items would help Wichita avoid what had erupted in Ferguson.

end of 2015. But the money for the remainder of the cameras was expected to arrive as early as January.

But there was still anger in the room because none of the officer-involved shootings in Wichita had come before a grand jury. And concerns lingered about how quickly police were learning to respond to calls involving people with mental illness. A legislator and others called for more diversity on the police force.

However, the first test of the cameras came well before full implementation.

A year and a half after the first meeting, Harding and Dotson view the #NoFergusonHere efforts as a success. They and fellow organizers have taken each of the four priorities identified in the initial meeting and have gone to work on them, in some cases making significant progress.

Harding and Dotson were pleased with the involvement of community representatives in the process of hiring a new police chief in Wichita, which took place over the fall and winter of 2015.

Because of a delay in receiving federal funding, only about half of the department’s 400 officers were fully outfitted with body cameras by the

In December 2015, recordings from the cameras came into play when a police officer shot a teen after a traffic stop outside a Wichita high school.

Police said the teen ran toward the school with a gun and released a still photo from an officer’s body camera of the suspect apparently holding a weapon. Authorities, however, declined to release the full video that month because it was part of an ongoing investigation.

Wash is among those who disagree with the decision, saying that releasing the footage would reassure community members that police are giving an accurate account of that night’s events.

“The body cameras are meant to be a check on police brutality,” he said.

The two pastors believe that there’s no way the body cameras would have been implemented so quickly were it not for the catalyzing events of Ferguson and the momentum created by

Discussion Guide 1. How would you rate the efforts of the two pastors to diagnose this situation? Were they effective?

What could they have done better?

2. How would you assess the ability of the two pastors to manage themselves throughout this challenge?

Where do you see them managing themselves effectively in this story?

3. The #NoFergusonHere effort is an example of a leadership intervention by Harding, Dotson and others to bridge the divides between law enforcement and members of the community. To what extent do you believe this effort was successful?

4. What further leadership interventions might be needed in this situation?

Dhanraj Fralin expresses his concerns about a lack of economic power in the black community during the first #NoFergusonHere meeting.

Photo by Fernando Salazar, courtesy of The Wichita Eagle

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“ N O N E O F T H E S E N AT I O N A L I N C I D E N T S H A P P E N E D I N A VAC U U M . T H O S E R E L AT I O N S H I P S W E R E N O T T E N D E D T O .”

Rev. Junius Dotson

the #NoFergusonHere movement. Sunflower Community Action’s Wash agreed, noting that his organization had been advocating for the issue for years.

As for the other items on the list – crisis intervention training, independent review of officer-involved shootings and an increased culture of community policing – activists say progress is steady.

What’s less clear is how much the relationship between police and members of Wichita’s communities of color has improved.

Local concerns about policing surfaced again during public interviews with Wichita police chief candidates in 2015. Meanwhile, racially charged events continued to capture the nation’s attention, fanning heated rhetoric as the year progressed.

In April, the death of Freddie Gray, an AfricanAmerican who was in police custody, spurred violent protests in Baltimore. As the year ended, a jury was unable to reach a verdict in the case of the first officer to go to trial in Gray’s death.

In July, South Carolina removed the Confederate battle flag from the statehouse grounds in Columbia.

The move had been fueled by outrage over the shooting deaths of nine African-Americans attending Bible study at a Charleston church. After the killings, it emerged that the white man arrested for the shooting had proudly posed with the flag in a photo posted on the web.

In December, a white Chicago police officer was charged with murder in the 2014 death of Laquan McDonald, after a dash cam video of the black teenager being shot 16 times was released to the public.

The ongoing strife that surrounds race and justice in the country is a sobering dynamic to

contemplate. “None of these national incidents happened in a vacuum,” Dotson said. “Those relationships were not tended to.”

That’s why Dotson and Harding are determined to keep plugging away at improving relationships with Wichita’s law enforcement officers while renewing the focus on community policing, which promotes routine interaction between police and residents, not just when there’s an incident.

The racially charged incidents of the past 18 months brought into sharp relief divisions in society around justice and trust in law enforcement. It’s not a black-and-white issue, but it’s certainly not uncommon for perceptions to diverge along racial lines. With each passing month, it seems as if a new flashpoint emerges somewhere in our nation.

Harding and Dotson sought to do something to keep Wichita from being the next Ferguson.

But even their efforts couldn’t cover the breadth of the factors that might be at play. In Ferguson, for instance, rising unemployment and poverty, a lack of black representation in police and government, and the disproportionate number of times African-Americans were stopped or arrested there helped provide fuel for the unrest.

True progress, Harding says, will only come when more people look at the deeper roots of the problem and understand how they might be contributing to a less-than-ideal reality.

“We still have a lot of ‘that’s not my problem’ when it should be ‘this is all of our problem,’” Harding said. “Where there is justice and equality, there is no poverty, period. We wouldn’t have police brutality if everybody had a job.”

Journal managing editor Chris Green contributed to this story.

DEALING WITH COMPETING VALUES TWO PERSPECTIVES ON HOW TO BALANCE TRANSPARENCY WITH PUBLIC SAFETY, COST AND PRIVACY WHEN IT COMES TO POLICE BODY CAMERAS IN WICHITA.

Discussion Guide One of the signs you’re facing an adaptive challenge is that solutions often bring new values conflicts to the surface. Police body cameras will be used in Wichita to provide a way to document interactions between police officers and citizens. But as the following commentaries detail, there are different perspectives about how to balance transparency with privacy, public safety and other important community values.

1. What values resonate most with you in this debate? What do you think influences you to feel that way?

2. What do you think influences someone to value something differently from you in this situation?

How would you articulate an argument that supports their value?

3. What steps might be taken to resolve the values conflict in this situation?

What additional values conflicts might be created by those steps?

WITHOUT SUFFICIENT ACCESS TO FOOTAGE, BODY CAMERAS WILL DO LITTLE TO HELP BUILD TRUST BETWEEN POLICE AND THE PUBLIC.

By: MARK MCCORMICK Contributing Editor

If journalists still report trouble accessing run-of-themill probable-cause affidavits and arrest reports, can the average community member expect access to pertinent video from those same law enforcement agencies?

Not really. That’s why the 600 people happy about Wichita’s plans to outfit police with body cameras following a #NoFergusonHere public meeting will have to continue their fight beyond that August 2014 effort.

It seemed so easy. With City Manager Bob Layton, interim Police Chief Nelson Mosley and then-Mayor Carl Brewer on stage answering often heated questions, Brewer announced plans to outfit officers with body cameras.

Case closed, huh? Not quite. Members of the Legislature later moved to have police video exempted from Kansas open records act requests.

It’s almost like someone selling you a lock but no key, a television with no screen or a door with no doorknob. It’s legislation from the famed Island of Misfit Toys.

For years, the American public has gotten an often shocking, inside view of police engagements with unarmed African-Americans: Cleveland police shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice. New York City police choked Eric Garner to death. A Charleston, South Carolina, officer fatally shot a fleeing Walter Scott in the back.

Concerned residents and police unions agree that having video could help us sort out those often troubling he-said, she-said incidents. But at least 15 states, including Kansas, have proposed measures restricting public access to police body camera footage, according to USNews.com.

There are very real cost concerns as well as questions about how to store the video and how long to store it. For smaller municipalities, it could amount to an unfunded mandate. There also are valid concerns about risking a defendant’s right to a fair trial with the release of video.

The privacy argument, however, seems like less of a concern. Arrest reports and probable-cause affidavits are public records and are dispensed to residents within parameters. Law enforcement agencies can regulate video using similar standards.

Instead, in an example of breathtaking overreach, some legislators want to severely restrict public access.

Law enforcement will have to explain, however, why it can release stills and video corroborating their narratives but needs to exercise restraint when video may show police misconduct.

In April 2015, State Sen. Gail Finney, a Wichita Democrat, proposed Senate Bill 18, which would have required on-duty officers to wear body cameras.

Finney told KSN-TV that legislators had altered the bill to exempt police video from requests under the Kansas open records act.

“This amounts to less accountability for law enforcement to the public,” Finney said. “With all the policeinvolved shootings recently across the country, we should be having more transparency, not less.”

Law enforcement groups from municipal police to county sheriffs have lauded the idea of cameras as a way to exonerate police from unfounded complaints.

The public and police simply behave better if they know they’re being watched. We already have a sense for what some of them do when they think no one is looking.

I think they’re selling wheelless skateboards in Topeka, too.

So those 600 folks who packed the Wichita East High School gym and the many others who share their views on body cameras had better dig in.

I’m joking. A little.

Someone’s trying to sell them cameras with no lenses.

TRANSPARENCY MUST BE BALANCED WITH OTHER IMPORTANT INTERESTS TO PROTECT FAIRNESS AND PRIVACY

By: MARC BENNETT Sedgwick County District Attorney

The ability of body cameras to objectively memorialize interactions between police and citizens promises to provide many enhancements to the justice system.

Public policy discussions regarding access to the video recordings must balance issues of cost, privacy and one’s right to a fair trial.

Maintaining hours of video will be expensive, although as more departments add cameras, vendor competition should reduce cost. Cost analysis must also account for staff hours spent redacting video to protect privacy interests of children, sexual assault victims and others. Given the 400-plus Kansas law enforcement departments statewide – from two- to three-man offices to the 400-plus certified police working for the Wichita Police Department – a one-size-fits-all, unfunded mandate will be difficult.

Similarly, while privacy concerns should not derail camera use, if the goal of this effort is to memorialize encounters that are later contested in some fashion, we should weigh the consequences of giving open records-type access to videos of all police/citizen encounters. Police see people at their worst: intoxicated, depressed, suicidal, unconscious, disheveled or beaten. Do we enhance or demean our communities by allowing unfettered/open records access to all situations simply because law enforcement responded to a scene?

Rising above all concerns, though, is the absolute right of an accused to receive a fair trial. Supreme Court Rule 3.6 unequivocally states that a lawyer “shall not” disseminate information that “will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding.” Rule 3.8, Special Responsibilities of a Prosecutor, states that “except for statements that are necessary to inform the public of the nature and extent of

the prosecutor’s action and that serve a legitimate law enforcement purpose, (the prosecutor shall) refrain from making extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused and (shall) exercise reasonable care to prevent investigators, law enforcement personnel, employees or other persons assisting or associated with the prosecutor in a criminal case from making an extra judicial statement that the prosecutor would be prohibited from making under Rule 3.6 or this rule.”

A video, like a DNA report, is evidence. Public trials are where an accused, with counsel, confronts and challenges evidence – including video – he or she has previously been provided in discovery per Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963) and Kansas Statutes Annotated 22-3212.

If a carefully restrained release of a still photo or short video clip can ease community tension and add transparency without impacting the right to a fair trial, then “a legitimate law enforcement purpose” may be served (Rule 3.8). When appropriate, this approach can balance legitimate calls for transparency against the litany of constitutional due process rights uniquely granted to criminal defendants: right to silence, double jeopardy, right to counsel, speedy trial, the presumption of innocence, etc.

As policy makers wrestle with how to set access, law enforcement professionals must continue to follow the ethical rules and constraints long present in our law. Appellate courts will ultimately judge whether transparency can be achieved without sacrifice to fairness.

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THE PATH TO

RECONCILIATION

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By: MARK MCCORMICK

It had flown alongside other flags at a Wichita veterans memorial since 1976. But last July, after a racially motivated church shooting in South Carolina, a Confederate battle flag was temporarily removed from the site. Journal columnist Mark McCormick takes us inside the contentious meeting that decided the flag’s fate and explains how what happened after the drama was over might have been the most important development of all.

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As speakers insisted at a Wichita Park Board meeting that the embattled Confederate battle flag had a noble history, opponents groaned and supporters cheered at the discussion about the flag’s removal from a veterans memorial.

As others noted that Confederate state secession statements articulated a desire to maintain the social oppression of the “negro” and that Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens said as much, flag opponents cheered. Confederates lowered the American flag. Why raise theirs?

When speakers sought more time, opponents shouted them down. The factions exchanged glares and expletives. They spoke loudly about how the other side was ruining America.

Still, the discussion – which unfolded over a few hours this past November – offered the penicillin our society needs for its nearly septic infection of racial division.

Nowhere in our civic and social discourse do we run so fearfully from tough interpretations than in racial discussions, and nowhere else are our intentional distance and benign interpretations more damaging. Proximity and candor in this discussion aren’t risk free, but they are virtues nonetheless.

of violence in Wichita. He’d earlier urged city officials to remove it.

Indeed, after last year’s deadly South Carolina church shooting by a suspect who was later shown in photos with the Confederate battle flag, states and municipalities across the South removed the flag.

In Wichita, Mayor Jeff Longwell ordered it temporarily lowered. Our committee then began convening about removing the flag permanently and erecting a reconciliation memorial.

The panel’s majority thought the flag should stay down. Cale called its presence particularly galling given Kansas’ free state origins. I said I didn’t understand the impulse to celebrate a legacy of violence and terrorism but that people who disagreed deserved a seat at the table.

Houtman met with flag proponents about why they believed the flag should remain. They said that the memorial honors soldiers. Confederates fought. That’s what matters. That meeting was held apart from other discussions because Houtman thought progress would be slowed with flag proponents present.

He was right, but that only delayed the inevitable conflict at last November’s park board meeting.

In 20 years of covering public meetings as a journalist, I can’t remember so much tension being present in so small a room.

That raucous meeting marked the culmination of committee work I’d invested in with City Manager Robert Layton; Parks and Recreation Director Troy Houtman; Eric Cale, executive director of the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum; and Bryson Allen, a member of a veterans group that cares for John S. Stevens Veterans Memorial Park, where the battle flag had flown for decades.

After explosive pro and con comments and a vote to permanently remove the flag, most of the crowd left the room. Media followed. They missed the second and perhaps more important vote: the establishment of a reconciliation memorial.

Interestingly, John Stevens, the son of the memorial’s namesake, said the battle flag had grown so socially toxic that he feared an eruption

With tensions still smoldering from the previous heated discussion, Houtman asked me to discuss the memorial and talk about Phil Blake,

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a man whose dying wish was to see such a memorial erected.

I restated my position and most of the room sat stone-faced. I added, however, that I also valued the idea of reconciliation put forth by Blake. As I talked about him, the veterans’ faces softened.

They loved Phil, too.

Phil was a proud veteran who’d raised money for many veterans memorials and helped establish one for African-Americans. He’d conceived the idea of a reconciliation memorial.

As I sat down, one of the vets who’d argued for the flag stood, shook my hand and pulled me in for a hug, saying, “For a North High grad, that wasn’t a bad speech.”

Everyone laughed.

I grinned and shot back, “Well, do you know how to get an East High grad off your porch?”

Everyone blinked and half-smiled, eager for the punch line.

“Pay him for the pizza.”

“We’ve forgiven every enemy,” he’d say, “except ourselves.” He thought it would be the nation’s first Civil War Reconciliation Monument. A fitting symbol for our free state.

I said I favored reconciliation because it provides for a “reckoning,” an examination of the era’s repercussions that Americans endure yet today.

I then spoke about how our literal and figurative racial distance defines our conflicts and how our goal should be to close that emotional distance.

There was a time, I said, when most Americans considered civil rights someone else’s problem.

But when segregationists murdered four little girls in their Sunday school class and when segregationists murdered a white minister from Wichita in Selma, Alabama, those incidents closed that emotional distance.

Proximity is transformative, I said.

“Those of you who’ve served in the military understand why fraternization is dealt with so harshly – because it’s harder to shoot a guy after he’s shown you a picture of his kids.”

By now, a few of the flag proponents were nodding.

“As shocked and offended as I was by some of the things said here today, I’m glad those things were said. We have those ideas on the table now.

Those ideas brought us together today. Maybe if we’d dealt more candidly with this issue in the past, we wouldn’t still be dealing with it today.”

More laughter ensued. One of the veterans told the park board secretary, still laughing, “Make sure that’s on the record!”

After the meeting, more vets complimented me on my remarks. They shook my hand. We started talking about their travels, where they were raised, people they’d known.

We felt better, but I’d convinced them of nothing.

There was still a sense that removing the flag amounted to rampant political correctness: a capitulation to whining, entitled people.

But I detected a desire for something beyond the mere spasms of conscience that repeatedly return us to the conflict – for a bright line between political correctness and simple civility. They seemed open to further discussion.

Transformation begins here – after the shouting, after acknowledging other perceptions, after moving closer and speaking candidly about how we feel.

It’s not enough that we stop fighting. We have to begin talking.

Mark E. McCormick is the executive director of The Kansas African American Museum in Wichita.

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Children line up for the summer lunch program being offered by the school district in Galena.

The district’s superintendent, Brian Smith, has set his sights on making the community’s schools a leader in promoting health.

The Starting Line

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A L R E A D Y AT T H E C E N T E R O F CO M M U N I T Y L I F E , K A N S A S S C H O O LS C A N A LS O P L A Y A K E Y R O L E I N I M P R O V I N G LO C A L H E A LT H . I N P L A C E S S U C H A S G A L E N A , A N E F F O RT TO F O S T E R H E A LT H I E R S C H O O L E N V I R O N M E N T S IS BENEFITING NOT JUST STUDENTS BUT ALSO LOCAL RESIDENTS. BUT MAKING THE PUSH REQUIRES LEADERSHIP AND THE ABILITY TO N A V I G AT E CO M P E T I N G V A LU E S A N D P E R S P E C T I V E S .

By: ERIN PERRY O’DONNELL

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It’s Friday night in a small town. Where do you go for fun? In many Kansas towns, it’s the school.

From football games to plays, schools are the social hub for residents, particularly in towns that no longer have a movie theater or a dance hall.

“In a small town, schools are the heart of the community,” says Brian Smith, superintendent of schools for Galena, which hugs the state line in far southeast Kansas, a few miles from Joplin, Missouri.

Increasingly those same schools are taking steps to become the center for something else – health.

By taking the lead on policies and practices to create healthier school environments, districts are providing benefits not only to their students but to the community at large.

The shift toward better health, though, doesn’t come without building trust within a community.

In some cases, it also involves working through tough leadership challenges and taking on risks.

After all, the value of promoting good health can sometimes come into conflict with other values, such as autonomy and independence.

For instance, when Cheryl Johnson, the director of the Child Nutrition and Wellness Team at the state Department of Education, began working to implement new federal guidelines released in 2012 for school meal menus – known as “meal patterns” – and “smart snacks,” she found herself in the midst of a challenge.

The update required that schoolchildren be served more fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and fewer sugary snacks such as doughnuts and pop. Not everyone was happy about the changes.

Students from Wallace County High School in the western Kansas town of Sharon Springs released a parody music video on YouTube, “We Are Hungry,” complaining that they weren’t getting as much food in their lunches. Other critics said local schools, not the federal government, should decide what kids can eat.

“School meal patterns became political, and I had not even considered that,” Johnson says.

‘IT JUST MAKES SENSE’

In Galena, the school district plays an especially vital role because it’s already home to a store of crucial community resources.

All four of Galena’s schools share a modest campus in the middle of town on the historic route of U.S. 66 (at 11 miles, Kansas has the shortest segment of the Mother Road of any state). About 820 students attend Galena schools, and the town’s population hovers just below 3,000. With a median household income of less than $40,000, about two out of every three kids qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.

Poverty is entrenched in the region’s culture, Smith says. Like most educators, he knows that hungry kids don’t learn as well as healthy kids. And he knows that poverty is one of the biggest risks to health.

Keylie Archie, age 5, eats lunch THE JOURNAL 63 in the high school as part of Galena’s summer lunch program. The district sends buses 13 square miles to pick up kids for meals during the summer.

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Cheryl Johnson, director of the Child Nutrition and Wellness Team at the state Department of Education, eats lunch with students at Topeka’s Logan Elementary School; Zachary Miller, 6, drinks his milk at a summer lunch in Galena; Raileigh Anderson, 5, goes through the lunch line in Galena. Johnson says that offering school meals on site at schools create healthier environments for students to learn in.

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Inspired in part by a fellowship in 2012 and 2013 with the Kansas Health Foundation, Smith set his sights beyond the classroom door to improve the health not just of his students but of the entire community. And he’s leveraging the resources of the schools to do it.

“It just makes sense that the schools are the leader on the issue,” Smith says. “I realized we can do so much more here. We have these facilities we use for students – we might as well find ways to enhance our community with those things.”

It’s an approach that Smith has built upon over time. For several years, Smith – a member of the Oral Health Kansas board of directors – has brought the organization’s mobile dental clinics to campus for families who weren’t getting regular dental care.

In 2013, local voters approved a $7.5 million bond issue to upgrade the fitness facilities at Galena High School. A year later, the school opened its new gymnasium and community fitness center, plus locker rooms, a concession area and new lighting for the walking track so it could stay open 24 hours a day.

Local residents can use the fitness center before and after school hours and on Saturdays. Smith also launched a running and walking group that meets every week at the track.

‘LEADING THE WAY’

Smith’s approach is in line with the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model promoted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which holds that learning and health are interrelated: “The focus of the WSCC model is … directed at the whole school, with the school in turn drawing its resources and influences from the whole community and serving to address the needs of the whole child.”

Closer to home, the Healthy Kansas Schools initiative also promotes school health policies and programs that improve health behaviors, such as getting regular exercise and not smoking. Its

philosophy is that “better students help create healthy communities.”

Healthy Kansas Schools is the major project of Johnson’s child nutrition and wellness team at the state education department. She and Smith were members of the same Kansas Health Foundation fellows class, which focused on leadership and improving access to and consumption of healthful food in local communities. As part of the fellowship, they learned the Kansas Leadership Center’s principles and competencies and are, in addition to being Kansas Health Foundation fellows, Kansas Leadership Center alumni.

Johnson says she is seeing an increased focus on the dividends of promoting health in schools.

“What has started in the schools is starting to become more prevalent out in the community,” Johnson says.

“I do feel like schools are kind of leading the way right now,” Johnson says. “It’s helpful when the rest of the community comes on board. Even in restaurants, we’re seeing things like more whole grain bread items, sweet potato fries or romaine lettuce instead of iceberg. People are starting to want that.”

In Galena, the meal program expanded to include breakfast prior to Smith becoming superintendent in 2004, when he was principal. Later, it began serving both breakfast and lunch year-round. Now, the district even sends buses around the town’s 13 square miles to pick up kids for meals during the summer.

Smith says the high level of trust that the school district has built up with the community has allowed it to be proactive, and he is always looking to do more. But in other districts, some efforts to benefit the health of children and the community can prompt questions about what the schools should be doing and what should be the responsibility of parents.

Yet increasing participation in the school breakfast program is a goal of Johnson’s team, in large part because providing the meal can contribute to a better environment for learning. To foster that,

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Cars pass through downtown Galena, which includes a stretch of the famed Route 66 highway. In Galena, the school district plays an important role in helping address childhood poverty.

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“People want to belong. It’s just our nature.

When we make groups and teams, they feel as though they belong to something. If you’re on your own, it’s difficult to be successful.”

BRIAN SMITH

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schools are even experimenting with providing multiple opportunities for kids to get breakfast, such as allowing them to eat in the classroom or offering grab-and-go items for a “second chance” breakfast after first period for kids who don’t feel like eating when they get up.

school officials were included in that conversation.

This time, Johnson’s team went to people in the food and beverage industry, child care providers, fundraisers, health-based nonprofits and everyday residents for their input, culminating in a wellness policy summit.

“We know that kids who eat breakfast do better academically,” Johnson says. “They miss less school, and they have fewer referrals to the office for behavior.”

“Hearing all those different voices was important,” she says, “so that when we did end up with the final draft and took it to the State Board of Education, we had no dissent, no public outcry.

The board just made a motion and passed it.”

HEARING DIFFERENT VOICES

Other schools are embracing the new nutrition model as well. In the past few years several Kansas schools have earned cash awards of $500 and up through the HealthierUS School Challenge, a U.S. Department of Agriculture program that aims at ensuring that students have access to healthier food in school and are engaged in regular physical activity.

Because the pursuit of healthier schools can sometimes come into conflict with other values, it’s important that school officials have the leadership skills that allow them to effectively navigate those situations.

When school-menu changes became a political issue in the fall of 2012, Johnson said, she was grateful to be involved in her health foundation fellowship at the time. Several of the leadership concepts she learned during the fellowship helped her to weather the controversy she faced.

Johnson realized that her team could have done a better job of engaging unusual voices by collaborating with other stakeholders – from county extension agents to teachers. She also found that her message was better received when she spoke from the heart about how child nutrition is essential to the common good of all Kansans.

And she was encouraged by the concept that she had to do what was necessary, not just what was comfortable, to accomplish the task.

“There were times I really needed to have that – the support of the other people in the leadership program back there, encouraging me to stay the course, saying, ‘You know it’s not easy.’”

When the team recently revised the state’s wellness policies for schools, Johnson says, the process was more collaborative. As a result, they had much more buy-in. In the past, only

FOCUS ON FITNESS

Because school nutrition is largely handled at the federal level, there’s not much room to innovate locally. With physical fitness, it’s a different story.

This is where Smith focused his efforts to improve the health and wellness of people in Cherokee County.

Smith is a runner. Running a marathon was one of his bucket list goals when he was diagnosed with lymphoma about 14 years ago. After successful treatment, he finished his first half-marathon in 2004. He completed his first marathon in 2010.

Now his races of choice are 50- to 100-mile endurance events.

As a beginner, Smith said, he took his encouragement from a community of runners. Now, he hopes to pay that benefit forward through the Galena Fitness Club. The group started meeting last spring on Tuesday evenings at the high school track (or in the new gym when the weather is bad).

About 20 people showed up for the first meeting, more than Smith had hoped for.

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“People want to belong. It’s just our nature,” he says. “When we make groups and teams, they feel as though they belong to something. If you’re on your own, it’s difficult to be successful.”

Smith has been leading the runners in the group, while his wife, Marcia, has worked with the walkers.

Everyone’s goals are different. Some members just want to get into better shape. Others want to run a 5K. Ultimately, he wants the charter members to become leaders for the next round of newcomers and continue to expand the group through that mentorship.

It’s no accident that the group meets on Tuesdays.

Another group from Joplin had been meeting to run at the Galena track on the same night. Smith wanted their schedules to overlap. “I like to take people that I get into the movement and connect them to the Joplin groups. Then from that point I’ll recycle a new group, and those people will go out on their own.”

Inside the school, locals are taking advantage of the community fitness center. Caleb Williamson, the center’s director, says about 200 people set up free memberships, including school staff members and local residents. One older man started coming soon after the opening in October 2014 to walk on the treadmill. Williamson says by April, the man had logged more than 180 miles.

“We had another walker who pulled a board member aside to say, ‘Don’t take this away. I really like it,’” Williamson says. “I think they realize it’s an opportunity not every town has.”

There are two private gyms in the county, Williamson says – including the one he used to work at in nearby Riverton. But they’re not free. Smith says people who have access to other facilities aren’t the people he’s trying to reach.

“People with resources always find some way to exercise,” Smith says.

In her home district, Johnson says community health nights have become a popular event staged at Topeka Seaman High School. The event

started 20 years ago as a fitness night. Students lead exercise classes, and instructors from other programs, such as yoga and Zumba, are invited to showcase what they do. People can walk the track or the gym perimeter. And there are booths with information about nutrition, school nurses, smoking cessation and more. Sometimes the sheriff’s department brings its DUI simulator.

“It’s kind of a mini-health fair each month, and it’s an opportunity to exercise as a community for two hours,” Johnson says.

The state’s nutrition team also offers $250 subgrants to schools and child care centers that want to host their own Family Fun, Food and Fitness events.

‘THEY DESERVE MORE’

In Galena, Smith wants to see more than people just exercising. He sees the schools as a beacon to lead the community out of its depression – the economic kind that has plagued the region at the macro level, and the individual kind that results from living in poverty. He doesn’t want people to feel left behind any longer.

“We want to help people understand that they deserve more,” Smith says. “When we opened the fitness center, they didn’t think they deserved something that nice. They were really moved by it.”

Smith has also opened school facilities to outside organizations that help bring visitors to Galena, such as sports tournaments. He’s encouraged by other signs of economic growth, such as a medical group that relocated to Galena from Joplin, improving his community’s access to health care.

And others are starting to follow Galena’s lead. The school district in nearby Riverton passed a bond issue in 2015. One of its features was a fitness room at the high school.

“When you start things in your area, people start asking, ‘Why not us, too?’” Smith says. “All you have to do is throw the first rock out there, and it will make ripples.”

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Galena Superintendent Brian Smith jogs at the high school as a member of the Galena Fitness Club; Smith and his son, J.D., run together at the club. Smith took up running as one of his bucket list goals after being diagnosed with lymphoma about 14 years ago; J.D. Smith, Jamie Fidler, Addysin Scarrow and Marcia Smith stretch before a Galena Fitness Club workout. The group meets on Tuesday evenings in hopes of building a local community of runners and walkers.

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Menu for Success Lessons for Building Healthy School Environments

1.

Think Systemically.

Why might schools take responsibility for serving breakfasts to kids? Because that one intervention can have positive effects throughout the school day. As Cheryl Johnson points out, kids who eat breakfast do better academically, miss less school and behave better. That creates a better school environment for all students to learn in.

2.

Create Trust.

The trust that the Galena district has built with the community allows it to be a more proactive force.

School officials offer breakfast and lunch to students year-round and send buses around town to pick up kids for meals during the summer. They’ve also opened up the school’s fitness center to local residents before and after school hours and on Saturdays. When the community can visibly see how you’re working for the common good, it builds bonds of trust that can expand your ability to create positive change.

3.

Build Bridges.

Working on creating healthier school environments will often invite conflict. Rather than avoiding it, it’s important to be willing to engage with voices who have concerns about changes. Initially caught off guard by opponents, Johnson responded by working harder to engage unusual voices and ensure that her division made revising the state’s wellness policies for schools a more collaborative process.

4.

Hold to Purpose.

As much as has been accomplished in Galena, Brian Smith knows he wants to be able to do more.

His goal isn’t just to be able to offer services, but have the school be a beacon to lead his community out of economic hard times and keep individuals from being left behind. If you want to truly lead, you have to keep your eye on the bigger picture.

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Making Waves: R ECA P P IN G THE KA N S AS FFLAG LAG D E B AT E – S O FAR

By:

Rally Round the Flag?

G R EAT FL AG S SH O U L D G R EAT FL AG S SH O U L D BE SO SIMP L E EV EN A BE SO SIMP L E EV EN A CH IL D CO U L D D RA W TH EM. CH IL D CO U L D D RA W TH EM. H OW D O ES TH E KA N SA S H OW D O ES TH E KA N SA S FL AG STACK U P ?

FL AG STACK U P ?

CHRIS GREEN

My story in last summer’s Journal asking Kansans to consider a redesign of the state flag was the most widely read – and perhaps the most divisive – article the magazine has ever run.

Respondents were split, with a majority – but not a substantial one – seeming to come down on the side of keeping the existing state flag.

Those who love the flag see it as beautiful and representative of our state’s history.

Critics find it dated and ugly. A third group thinks we should spend our time worrying about more significant issues.

One Kansas newspaper editor strongly endorsed the endoresed theidea ideaofofmaking makingaachange. change.

“Maybe a new state flag would re-energize Kansas, not to mention project a more powerful and memorable image to those who would gaze upon our flag.”

D . MONTGOMERY JOHN D. Editor Editor and and publisher publisher of of The The Hutchinson Hutchinson News, News, in in an an editorial editorial endorsing endorsing aa new new flag. flag.

56%

“Good enough as it is”

44%

“Let’s make it simpler and more distinctive.”

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Those who love the flag see it as beautiful and like the sun with 34 stars radiating from it.” The representative ofOthers, our state’s history.

Critics find number ofand stars reflect that Kansas was the 34th on social media, in survey comments in letters it dated and ugly. A third group thinks we should state admitted to the U.S. to the editor, defended the beauty of the existing flag. spend our time worrying about more significant -issues. “When I look at our flag to me it speaks Others reaching back into our state to thethought strong work ethic

history might give us a better flag. of Kansans and our pioneering spirit. Those characteristics are part One Kansas newspaper editor strongly enBob Schremmer suggested adopting a version of our heritage and will help our state as we look tostate the future.” dorsed the idea of making a change. of the Kansas banner, which represented Kansas in lieu of a flag from 1925 until 1927.

NO LA N DE A LY, W IC HITA “Maybe a new state flag would re-energize KanFacebook comment sans, not to mention project a more powerful This version of the Kansas state banner was and memorable image to those who would gaze designed by former Adjutant General Joe upon our flag.”

Nickell, according to the Kansas State Histor– John D. Montgomery, editor and publisher of ical Society.

Some reacted strongly against SomeThe reacted strongly against Others thought reaching back into our Hutchinson News, in an editorial endorsing state history give us a better flag. a new the idea of changin the It has hung in themight governor’s and lieutenant the idea of flag changing theflag. flag. governor’s offices since 1955.

“WhyOthers, are we so to destroy Bob Schremmer Schremmer suggested adopting of Ford County suggested onfast social media,something in survey comments Interesting.

This banner is deeply rooted in the that has always been a symbol of our state a version of the Kansas state banner, adopting a version of the Kansas and in letters to the editor, defended the history of Kansas. But it’s also a simplestate design just because from some Kansas and in lieu of flag banner, whichvexillologists represented Kansas beautysomeone of the existing flag.other place that which might represented please other tells us our flag is not a good flag design?” ainflag 1925from until1925 1927. lieufrom of a flag until 1927. lovers like me.

“When I look at our flag to me it speaks to the D OR IS BL E W, STA F FO R D strong work ethic of Kansans and our pioneerIt makes me wonder. Has a really good state flag in a letter to the editor ing spirit. Those characteristics are part of our been hiding under our noses all along? heritage and will help our state as we look to the future.”

– NolanofDealy, in a Facebook comment A handful peopleWichita, were inspired to reimagine what the Kansas flag could look like.

Some reacted strongly against the idea of changing the flag.

“Why are we so fast to destroy something that ROBERT SCHRAG has always been a symbol of ofNewton our state just bere-envisioned cause someone from sometheother place tells us state flag “featuring our flag is not a good flag design?” a stylized sunflower the sun with – Doris Blew, Stafford, in ashining letter like to the editor 34 stars radiating from

The number of stars A handful of people wereit.” inspired to reimagKansas was ine what the Kansas flag reflect couldthat look like. the 34th state admitted Amy Delamaide of Wichitatodrew this abstracted the U.S. version of the sunset from the state seal -A M Y D ELA MA I DSchrag E of Wichita drew there-envisioned following Robert of Newton the versions of versions the sunset theastate seal. abstracted of from the sunset from thesunflower state seal. shining state flag “featuring stylized

This version of the Kansas state banner was designed by former Adjutant General Joe Nickell, according to the Kansas State Historical Society.

Interesting. This banner is deeply rooted in the history of Kansas.

But it’s also a simple design that might please vexillologists and other flag lovers like me.

It makes me wonder. Has a really good state flag been hiding under our noses all along?

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FEATURED POET

Tallgrass By: LINDA RODRIGUEZ

Linda Rodriguez lives in Kansas City, Missouri. She is the author of the Skeet Bannion mystery novels – “Every Hidden Fear,” “Every Broken Trust,” “Every Last Secret” – and books of poetry, which have received numerous awards. She was the 2015 chairwoman of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Indigenous/ Aboriginal American Writers Caucus.

She’s a founding board member of the Latino Writers Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of the Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers and the Kansas City Cherokee Community.

Find her on Twitter as @rodriguez_linda, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ LindaRodriguezWrites, and on her blog lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com.

The prairie is a tough place.

Formed when the Rocky Mountain rainshadow killed off the trees, millions of buffalo grazed its big bluestem, turkeyfoot, sideoats, switchgrass, grama, Indiangrass, sweetgrass, prairie dropseed, buffalograss, for millennia, but, big as a nightmare when you encounter one up close, the buffalo never defeated the prairie.

Summer in tallgrass lands is harsh— blazing hot sun, only occasional rain in torrents.

Summer turns the plains into grassy desert, But those grass roots plunge deep, deep into the earth, some twelve or more feet under the surface.

The soil under a prairie is a dense mat of tangled rootstock, rhizomes, tubers, and bulbs.

Those roots hold out against drought and preserve the soil against thundering gullywashers and toadswampers.

Summer never defeated the prairie.

Sometimes lightning strikes, and fire races across the landscape like water poured out on concrete, spreading out with amazing speed and inevitability.

The prairie compensated by making seeds that need to pass through flame to germinate.

Fireproof seeds, what an invention!

The tribes learned to set controlled fires to bring back gayfeather, blazing star, prairie clover.

Now, ranchers burn the prairie each spring.

Fire never defeated the prairie.

As for winter, the waist- and shoulder-high grasses triumph over the snow, spreading large swathes of sun-colored grasses across the scene, only occasionally punctuated by a spray of snow along the meandering paths where animal and human feet have trodden.

The prairie just absorbs the snow, swallowing it down to build stronger, deeper roots to withstand summer’s hot, dry onslaught.

Winter never defeated the prairie.

Buffalo, white-tailed deer, antelope, pronghorns, gray wolves, coyotes, bobcats, cougars, red foxes, black-footed ferrets, badgers, shrews, skunks, raccoons, possums, black-tailed prairie dogs, jack rabbits, prairie chickens, bull snakes, and the occasional human for centuries made trails and paths through the grasses by trampling them down or cutting their stems.

If paths are not continually maintained by a great deal of manual labor, they disappear like smoke.

The prairie will always take them back.

The only thing that ever defeated prairie was a man with a steel plow.

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78 THE JOURNAL

THE JOURNAL

FEATURED ARTIST

Aquifer By: BILL MCBRIDE

I make sculpture from common objects discovered around me in Matfield Green, Kansas – tallgrass prairie, railroad, village of 68 people. As I work on our 40 acres of prairie and manage the studio, I muse about the objects I encounter – branch, stone, wire fence, bone, wooden post, metal remnants, old map.

Each has a story to tell about the land and our journey in an evolving universe.

I harvest, process, store and live with these materials. In the studio I explore relationships between different objects (visual resonance, structural character, evocative power) and my own story (perceptions, feelings, memories).

Form and metaphor emerge through dialogue between creative forces – living materials and sculptor.

Connecting dissimilar things is a challenge resolved by simple attachments rendered with hand tools. The discipline of handcrafting local materials gives me a deep sense of humanness and kinship with the artists who encountered the earth and made sculpture over the past 30,000 years.

My work is earth art. It is of and about the Earth – humans and nature.

I work in the prairie (burning, making paths, removing invasive species) and make sculptures on the land inviting people to connect both to the earth and to each other. This work includes stone fire rings, enclosures of interwoven branches, transformation of ruined cattle pens and a stone bridge.

I work in the studio making smaller sculptures for interior spaces and more individual contemplation.

I view this work as poetic and metaphorical sketches expressing a dimension of our existence as one with nature.

Working on the land and making sculpture connects me physically and spiritually to the earth and people around me. I found my way to Matfield Green, work on the land and make sculpture for my own salvation in a time of environmental decline.

But more important, I work to create new awareness of the relation between humans and nature – a perception essential for a more sustainable future.

Bill McBride is a sculptor and naturalist living in Matfield Green, in the heart of the Flint Hills of Kansas. He works with natural and manmade materials found in the tallgrass prairie. His sculpture expresses his cosmological view that humans, nature and everyday objects evolve as equals from the creative energy of an ever-changing universe. A Harvard graduate, he established an architectural firm in Chicago and for 25 years enjoyed designing churches, commercial buildings, schools, private homes, and urban design and historic renovation projects. In those years sculpture was an avocation. In 2005 he and his wife, Julia Fabris McBride, left Chicago for a new life in Matfield Green. He became a full-time sculptor in 2010. His work has been shown at First Fridays in Wichita, the Strecker Nelson Gallery in Manhattan, and in Matfield Green galleries at Pioneer Bluffs and The Bank. Upcoming shows include the Symphony in the Flint Hills in Chase County and at the Cultivator space in Chicago.

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80 THE JOURNAL THE BACK PAGE

The Next Frontier By: MIKE MATSON

The Kansas Leadership Center was borne from this notion that building the capacity of people doing important civic work will make things better. It’s the bedrock principle of our work, embedded within our system DNA. We have a mission and vision (check the inside front cover). We also employ a logic model, a tool used by a lot of philanthropically derived systems. Its underlying purpose is to assess the “if-then” relationships between elements of system work.

Inputs lead to strategies, which beget outcomes which create impact.

Of the seven strategies in our logic model, four relate to developing and delivering a set of transformational leadership development ideas.

A fifth addresses the generation of additional financial resources to expand our reach.

We’ll always tweak, nuance and experiment and by no means are we declaring victory and departing the field on those strategies, but as we enter our ninth year, we feel comfortable and confident those efforts are fully built out.

That leaves two remaining strategies in the logic model, that relate specifically to civic engagement.

Key KLC stakeholders have helped us think about what a build out of these two might look like, and so far, we’ve identified two buckets of work: KLC as a convener and KLC as a matchmaker.

Our convenings would be infused with the spirit of David Chrislip’s collaborative premise (one of KLC’s founders and namesake of the Chrislip Library, in the second

floor open space of the Kansas Leadership Center & Kansas Health Foundation Conference Center in downtown Wichita):

to encourage and support alumni taking on new roles and positions in civic life. We could create affinity networks among KLC alumni.

Bring the right people together, with good information, in a healthy process, and the outcome will be authentic with relevant, positive results.

Why even bother? At the risk of sounding arrogant, it’s because no one else can do this. There are no system players in today’s civic world in Kansas who bring what we do: relationships, resources, experience, reputation, objectivity, credibility, event space and knowledge about facilitation.

Implied in that premise is a very important truth. We do not care about the outcome. We have no public policy agenda. The Kansas Leadership Center does not advocate, we build capacity.

We care deeply about the process and structure used to reach the outcome.

We care deeply about bringing diverse factions together and building relationships. We want to help all stakeholders understand the adaptive challenges within the pressing issues facing our civic life.

We have the ability to call attention to what productive work in the civic realm looks like (don’t look now, but you’re holding a pretty powerful communications vehicle).

When some good-hearted Wichita Methodists gathered a century ago and asked what they can do for their community, the consensus was build a hospital. When that hospital was sold, creating a philanthropy to improve the health of Kansans, their forebears decided building the capacity of those involved in civic work was a good idea.

To those whom much is given, much is expected. We just had to look at where we came from to see where we’re going.

We have the ability to engage more Kansans – the unusual voices – in the discussion and process.

Our matchmaking could pivot the way we approach alumni engagement. Until now, it has revolved strictly around opportunities to extend learning. What if it helped alumni move the civic engagement needle?

We could engage KLC alumni in the aforementioned convenings, offering a healthy mixture of Kansans with deep exposure to our ideas and others with little or none. We could develop a system

Mike Matson is Vice President, Innovative & Strategic Communication, at the Kansas Leadership Center.

“It’s true you can’t live here by chance, you have to do and be, not simply watch or even describe. This is the city of action, the world headquarters of the verb –” FROM LAURIS EDMOND’S “THE ACTIVE VOICE”

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