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Farmers, ranchers asked to embrace drones
Spiritual journey has taken many turns
By Peter Hancock phancock@ljworld.com
Richard Gwin/Journal World Photos
MIKE WILSON, 55, a longtime Lawrence resident and former Rastafarian who works at Liberty Hall, has dedicated his life to becoming a Serbian Orthodox deacon. He has a chapel in his home and leads services at a church in Kansas City, Mo.
Seeker finds his way to Orthodox religion
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By Giles Bruce gbruce@ljworld.com
He’s been called Muslim, Jewish, a Zen master, even Osama bin Laden. Oftentimes people are just puzzled: What is that guy? Michael Wilson, who has worked at Lawrence’s Liberty Hall for more than two decades, has a long beard that grays the farther it grows away from his face, and dusted dreadlocks left over from his days as a Rastafarian. Now he keeps the hair and beard to present himself in the image of Jesus Christ. He dons a black cassock and skull cap, an outfit that signifies his ordination as a Serbian Orthodox deacon. When he tells people this, they often ask him, why Orthodoxy? Wouldn’t it just be easier to go to the Lutheran church down the street? “Christ calls people in different ways,” said the 55-year-old janitor. “Each one of us has his path. Your
“CHRIST CALLS PEOPLE IN DIFFERENT WAYS,” Wilson said of his conversion to Orthodoxy. “Each one of us has his path. Your path is the only path to Christ.” path is the only path to Christ.” The leap from Rastafari to Christian Orthodoxy is not as far as one might think. Much of the Rastafarian community is itself deeply spiritual. Its figurehead, former Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, is believed by followers to be a descendent of King Solomon. Even when he was known as “Ras Mike,” Wilson espoused a message of love, of oneness, of God. “There are only two things that Mike dropped: the herb and the beliefs about his majesty (Selassie). Everything else is the same Mike,” said Lynne Anderson, a Kansas City, Mo.,
holistic practitioner who has known Wilson for nearly three decades. “If he came and told me he was leaving his spiritual journey, that would be the only thing that would surprise me.” Wilson has a tendency to dive deep into whatever he’s passionate about. He went all the way as a Rastafarian as well, attending Rasta-revival festivals, hosting a reggae radio show in Kansas City and traveling to Jamaica on several occasions. He actually met the man who Please see ORTHODOX, page 5A
Please see DRONES, page 6A
Girl has super power: attracting positive results
HEIDI BURKE, 9, checks the donation box outside her home in Shawnee on July 8. Heidi, a quadrilateral congenital amputee, used PayPal to raise almost $9,000 to help a friend from England attend a convention with her.
By Jason Kendall jkendall@theworldco.net
Jason Kendall/Special to the Journal-World
Storm chance
When Heidi Burke sets her mind on something, nothing’s going to stand in her way. So when the 9-yearold Shawnee girl recently launched an epic fundraiser — needing almost $9,000 in less than a week — there was no doubt she’d somehow make it happen. Heidi turned to PayPal and the kindness of family, friends and Internet strang-
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ers to help her spring a lifechanging surprise on her friend Ellie May Challis, who lives in Essex, England. Heidi was hoping to pay the way for Ellie May and her family to visit America. Heidi and Ellie May had never met in person. They know each other only through the video chat service Skype and occasional letters and emails. But they share a powerful bond. “We both are 9,” Heidi says. “We both have blond hair, we both have about the
same color of eyes, and we’re both about as tall as each other. “And we both do not have hands or legs.” Heidi is a quadrilateral congenital amputee — she was born that way. Ellie May, meanwhile, lost her hands and lower legs to bacterial meningitis when she was a toddler. They’re part of an extremely rare group of children who have overcome unusual physical circumstances to live complete, amazing lives.
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On a clear, sunny day earlier this month, researchers from Kansas State University stood in an open field near Salina and demonstrated a flying object that could easily have been mistaken for a simple model airplane. The V-shaped orange aircraft with about a five-foot wingspan soared at low altitudes over the field, making simple turns and maneuvers, circling around and then returning back to the controller. At first glance, it didn’t look much different from the sort of model airplanes that have been popular with hobbyists for years. But K-State researchers, as As a global leader well as industry in aviation and aeroexperts and a space, Kansas is a growing number of elected offi- pioneer in the Uncials, say this ve- manned Aircraft Syshicle represents the cutting edge tems market, which of agricultural holds great promise technology. for boosting the econThat’s because this plane omy and creating jobs carried some of in our state.” the same surveillance tech- — U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan. nology that the U.S. military has been employing in its Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), or “drones,” in Afghanistan and Iraq. The plane was equipped with GPS navigational software and specialized miniature infrared cameras that can take high-resolution images of the ground below, enabling farmers to monitor plant health, locate trouble spots in their fields that can’t be seen from the ground and even help make more accurate predictions of their eventual crop yields. Drone advocates say the technology could provide a huge boost to the Kansas economy, spawning thousands of new high-paying jobs in the aviation industry and producing billions of dollars’ worth of new economic activity. “As a global leader in aviation and aerospace, Kansas is a pioneer in the Unmanned Aircraft Systems market, which holds great
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I-CAN experience And that’s why it’s so important for them to be able to be together in person, says Dawn Burke, Heidi’s mom, who recalls the first time she entered the International Child Amputee Network convention carrying Heidi, who then was just 3 months old. “We walked in holding this little girl, and we didn’t know what we were going to encounter,” Dawn explains. “We walked into the
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Vol.155/No.202 28 pages