Topeka Family Magazine | spring/summer 2023

100 Years & Counting

Looking back on a life of family and fun with Doris Didde Foster

A HOME ART PROJECT REPRINT OF AWARDWINNING PHELPS-ROPER PROFILE FAMILY CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Welcome to our third edition of TopekaFamilyMagazine!

This twice-yearly collection of stories is printed with our mission in mind: We share authentic stories to inspire and support all Topeka families and communities.

For this edition, we return to artist and educator Jordan E. Brooks, who brings us another homeart project for all ages. We also catch up on the life story of Doris Didde Foster, bring you a calendar of family-friendly events, and honor one of our award-winning stories about one Topekan’s courageous steps to define family on her own terms.

We hope you enjoy this installment, and we look forward to celebrating our city and the opportunities it provides together with you and your loved ones.

To you and to your families! On

Cover Doris Didde Foster blows best-wishes kisses to celebrate her 100th birthday. Photographby T.H. Peterson.

Editor Nathan Pettengill

Art Director/Designer Alex Tatro

Copy Editor Leslie Clugston Andres

Advertising Representative Angie Taylor ataylor@sunflowerpub.com (785) 832-7236

Photographers Bill Stephens T.H. Peterson

Writers Jordann E. Brooks Marsha Henry Goff Jeffrey Ann Goudie

Topeka Family Magazine is a publication of Sunflower Publishing, a division of Ogden Publications.

Director: Bob Cucciniello

Publisher: Bill Uhler

Ogden Publications 1503 SW 42nd St Topeka, KS 66609

Detail of watercolor-marker art project for young students created by Topeka artist and youth educator Jordan E. Brooks.

Season Sponsor:

Foster’s 101

Topekan Doris Didde Foster looks back on a life of family connections and adventure that defined her century

STORY BY Marsha Henry Goff

Life is good for Doris Didde

Foster, who lives in Topeka with her daughter and son-in-law, Belinda and Tom Flynn. Her story began almost 101 years ago when she was born in Nortonville, in a three-story farmhouse built by her father for a large family. The eighth child of her parents, she was three when her father died and her mother was eight months pregnant with their ninth child. Four older sisters, three of whom were educated at Mount Scholastica to become teachers, had left the home, so little Doris grew up with her brothers who were 9, 7, 5 and the infant born after their father’s death.

Her mother later told Doris it would have been so much easier had her sisters been able to provide more financial help to the family by teaching in Nortonville, but they were not hired because they were Catholic. At the time, the Ku Klux Klan, believed to control local elected officials on the school board as well as in the county and city governments, effectively barred Catholics from teaching in public schools or running for public office. Foster’s mother also remarked that life would have been easier had her husband had life insurance, but she

Doris Didde Foster celebrated 100 years in 2022; this March she will celebrate 101.

raised the five children remaining at home by selling the farm implements and renting out the farmland.

At 17, Doris found a job in Atchison cooking, cleaning, and caring for a young boy for $3 a week. After several months, her sister in Emporia suggested she come live with her, go to beauty school and have her tuition financed by her working siblings. Doris is proud that she paid them back once she found a job at Midway Beauty Shop in Atchison. “They had forgotten about it, didn’t even remember they gave me any money, but I gave it back because that was my agenda,” she recalls.

Until she was 21, Doris also gave much of her income to support her mother, then supported her mother during the last 10 years of her life. Taking care of each other was just something the Didde family did.

World War II brought excitement on the homefront for an attractive young woman who was adventurous and fun-loving. Doris recalls how she and her friends went to movies, and “on Saturday nights we rode in cattle trucks from the Y in Atchison to dances in Fort Leavenworth. Thirty girls sat on planks in the truck and we were strictly supervised. The three girls I lived with in Atchison were like sisters. I was not too interested in boys, but I loved the dances.”

She liked her job in the beauty shop and developed a large clientele, but her mother suggested she move to Topeka to help her sister with a new baby and work at someone else’s shop. “So I did,” Doris says, “but I hated it. When you’re a beauty parlor operator, you’re a person, not a number. I was a number there, and I hated it for a year or two, and then I got used to it.”

She later worked for what was then the Santa Fe Railroad, her first employer to provide benefits. She

“I was not too interested in boys, but I loved the dances.”

Foster lives with her family, who are also hosting two international students who attend Topeka West High School.

How Rare is 100 These Days?

Though the Covid pandemic has affected mortality rates across all ages, including the very oldest, the pre-pandemic trend was definitely toward more Americans living well past 100 years.

A 2016 report from the Centers for Disease Control noted that, “although centenarians are still uncommon, the numbers of Americans aged 100 and over increased 43.6%, from 50,281 in 2000 to 72,197 in 2014.”

According to a 2018 U.S. Census Bureau, the number of Americans living past 100 is expected to rise greatly in the coming decade, from 82,000 in 2016 to 589,000 by 2060.

The latest (2021) census information for Kansas estimates that some 1.9% of Kansans are 85 years or older; it does not release information on the percentage who are over 100.

even became engaged to a soldier named Joe, but she and her fiancé never talked about marriage. They just wanted to enjoy each other’s company, and the engagement gave them more freedom. They corresponded throughout the war while he was abroad, but when he returned, she broke off the engagement. Joe died three years later of an illness contracted overseas.

Doris cared a great deal for Joe because among her keepsakes is a 75-year-old newspaper clipping with a picture of his dog, General, mourning his death. Man and dog had been together since Joe had found him in Oran, and General was with him throughout Africa, Sicily, the Italian mainland (where General landed with Joe on Anzio Beachhead), Northern France, Germany and Austria. General was discharged with Joe and came home with him in September 1945.

Doris met her true love and future husband when Harlan Foster came with her brother to Emporia where she lived after the war. Both men had trained to be pilots, but the war ended before they finished training. Harlan completed college on the G.I. Bill and, although Doris notes she was not in a hurry to get married, they wed in 1950. It did not matter to her that he was not Catholic. “I never pressured him to become Catholic; I think that is a personal decision.”

Their marriage produced six children before Harlan, who worked at Goodyear and farmed, died at 54. But Doris was more fortunate than her mother. She had remembered her mother’s comment about life insurance and made sure she and Harlan each had small insurance policies. With one child still at home and others in college, Doris earned extra money by baking cakes, gardening, and canning. She taught those skills to 4-H members and was honored for her involvement with that organization by serving as grand marshal of both Hoyt and Jackson County parades.

The Flynn household is an active one, and Doris plays a big part in it. The family hosts two exchange students, from Indonesia and Kyrgyzstan respectively, who attend Topeka West. Grandchildren and greatgrandchildren visit (Doris has 50, with another due) and she especially appreciated a week-long visit by a nearly two-year-old great-grandson, who enjoyed watching an Andrea Bocelli concert with her.

Because Belinda is a physical therapist, she knows the importance of keeping her mother moving. They visit the library every week, and Doris accompanies the couple when they play cards with friends. She also likes having her hair done and going to Walmart.

Life for Foster has been good, indeed, at 100 ... and on March 4, 2023, she put on a new outfit and got her hair done to celebrate 101.

Foster visits with one of her greatgrandchildren as they watch an opera concert together.

Cultivate Generosity

Megan

talks about breaking with her Westboro family and starting a new one

STORY BY Jeffrey Ann Goudie

Editor's note: This article was originally published in spring 2020. We are reprinting it now to honor its selection as Sunflower Publishing's Best Department Story of 2020.

Megan PhelpsRoper holds her child, Sølvi, alongside her husband, Chad Fjelland.

Photograph courtesy Megan Phelps-Roper

Phelps-Roper

Anyone who has lived in Topeka since 1991 will be familiar with Westboro Baptist Church’s homophobic pickets. These once-ubiquitous protests garner less publicity now, but their power to intimidate in the early 1990s—long before legalized same-sex marriage and the evolution of public opinion and policy regarding the LGBTQ community—can’t be overstated.

As a newspaper columnist, first for the Topeka Capital-Journal, and later for the Topeka Metro News, I wrote critically about Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) and found myself a target of the church’s venom. Members of the Phelps family—nearly the entire church congregation was part of a single extended family— sent out personalized, graphic and profane faxes.

Over the years, criticism of the WBC grew, and it was officially recognized as a hate group by organizations such as the AntiDefamation League. The WBC’s picketing of military funerals also caused national outrage and prompted multiple municipal and state lawmakers to enact laws protecting mourners from being directly confronted by the WBC demonstrations. There were also defections from within the WBC family, and I was delighted when, in 2015, Megan Phelps-Roper reached out to me and my husband, writer Tom Averill (also a target of WBC faxes), through Eric McHenry, a Washburn University English professor. Over pizza at a local restaurant, Megan and her younger sister Grace asked how the faxes and pickets affected us. I understood that they were seeking to understand people once considered enemies.

Later, I learned from Eric that Megan had written a powerful memoir about leaving the church; she was in negotiations with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, a New York house that also has published former Topekans Ling Ma, Ben Lerner, and Cyrus Console. A possible movie deal was also in the works.

The movie has yet to emerge, but the book Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church, was released in 2019 and tells—in clear, thoughtful and candid prose—the story of PhelpsRoper’s loving but harsh childhood and adolescence in the fundamentalist church. She writes of her awakening to the hurt the church’s hatemongering messages inflicted, especially as the group began to picket the soldiers’ funerals. Twitter served as an eye-opener when PhelpsRoper jousted with outsiders, most notably a Jewish blogger, and later, with a lawyer who became her husband.

Phelps-Roper now lives in a small South Dakota town with her husband and their daughter. She graciously agreed to answer a dozen questions about Unfollow on the heels of a whirlwind tour of the book.

Jeffrey Ann Goudie (JAG): As a Topekan who witnessed the pickets of the Westboro Baptist Church, and who was the subject of faxes as a newspaper columnist who wrote critically about the church, I found the first part of Unfollow hard to read. This is another way of saying that the writing is quite authentic. When you begin to flirt with the outside world, I breathed easier as a reader. Was the first part of the book harder to write than later parts?

Megan Phelps-Roper (MPR): It was definitely harder. I still experience an intense “split-screen” effect when I think about my years growing up: I remember what it felt like as I lived it, when I understood Westboro to be righteous and essentially unquestionable—but I am also often appalled and flabbergasted to reconsider our actions now as an “outsider.” It’s disorienting to feel both a sense of complete normalcy and horrifying regret about the same set of actions.

JAG: Your mother, Shirley Phelps-Roper, and your aunt, Margie Phelps, certainly did not conform to the Old Testament model of the submissive wife. At one point you refer to your mom and “her power-walking sisters.” How was it growing up with these strong women?

MPR: In spite of all the hurtful things I learned at Westboro, I am profoundly grateful to have been surrounded by so many strong, capable women. A huge part of the strength it took for me to leave the church was derived from the example of those women. They knew what they were about; they were passionate and dedicated; they played to their strengths, and they were—for many years—the loudest voices at Westboro. It was empowering and inspirational for me.

Photograph courtesy Megan Phelps-Roper

JAG: You and your eleven siblings attended Topeka Public Schools rather than being home-schooled. Likewise, you were not shielded from access to movies, books, television, music and other popular media. How did this pop culture exposure affect your development?

MPR: For a long time, I thought it didn’t affect me much at all, because I had viewed everything and everyone through the lens that Westboro had given me (which is to say, it never made me consciously question the church). I recognize now, though, that that exposure was important—because it showed me what was possible. It wasn’t until I started questioning the church’s doctrines that I started to re-think my view of outsiders and their ideas. But if I’d never had that exposure in the first place, I wouldn’t have had viable alternatives readily available to help me find a different perspective.

JAG: You became the social media voice for WBC at an early age. You seemed to enjoy swimming in the snark-infested waters of Twitter. What is your current thinking about Twitter?

MPR: I was 23 when I joined Twitter, and I did love it. I still believe that we can choose to engage on the platform with more empathy and consideration—that it can still be a place for genuine connection with strangers—but because of the way outrage and cancel culture function on the internet now, it’s much harder to have public conversations on any sort of difficult topic. We have to find a way to cultivate generosity with respect to how we interpret the words of people with whom we disagree.

JAG: You made a brave decision to leave the confines of WBC because of the unfair treatment of your mother and your sister, Grace. A former high school teacher served as a friendly sounding board and guardrail during this period. Could you describe his influence?

MPR: I could not be more grateful for Keith Newbery. I had him for one class at Topeka West High School, but because of the way he treated me— fairly, kindly, generously, unafraid to openly discuss Westboro—I understood that he had good intentions. His openness bred trust, and when I left the church, his friendship was so much more than I could have hoped for. He directed me to books and ideas to broaden my perspective, helped me see where Westboro’s thinking was tripping me up, and gave me a safe place to express myself without judgment. Friend, mentor, therapist, and very funny—Newbery filled a lot of roles.

JAG: Who are your other mentors?

MPR: There are several—people I met while at Westboro and new friends I’ve made since leaving—but another essential mentor is Eric McHenry, a professor at Washburn University. He’s an incredibly thoughtful person who has a deep understanding of Westboro

and its history in Topeka. That knowledge and experience give him a unique perspective that has helped me in many ways, and Unfollow wouldn’t exist without his encouragement and assistance in writing about all of it.

JAG: Has there been any reaction to Unfollow from your family members, or other members of WBC?

MPR: There has been some reaction from WBC, all negative of course. I’ve even been the subject of a Westboro fax myself recently. I expected the negative words, of course, but I’m heartened by a brief conversation I had with my uncle (a Westboro elder) on Twitter, which included a small admission that they may have done some things wrong. It may seem small, but that acknowledgment gives me hope.

JAG: What is it like to return to Topeka now that you are no longer allowed to visit your family at the WBC compound?

MPR: It used to be almost exclusively painful and awkward. It’s still both of those things, but to a much lesser

Photograph courtesy Farrar, Straus and Giroux

“We have to find a way to cultivate generosity with respect to how we interpret the words of people with whom we disagree.”

degree—and those feelings sit alongside a much deeper appreciation of Topeka than I ever had while I was at WBC. I miss life there sometimes, not just my life at Westboro but the city itself, and many people who live there. I just found myself typing, “I enjoy coming home now.” I think I’ll always think of Topeka as home.

JAG: Your future husband seemed to take a very cautious approach when you started expressing to him your desire to leave the church. How was this helpful to you?

MPR: It was important that I come to my conclusions on my own— that I be intentional and deliberate and learn to stand on my own two feet. I had never had any real independence at Westboro, never really had to do my own thinking, and it was a skill I desperately needed to learn.

JAG: When you first fled the church, you and your sister immersed yourselves in books. How did books help you in the aftermath of leaving the church?

MPR: Books helped me in all the ways that they help everyone: They give us a broader sense of other people’s experiences and help us see ourselves in them. They help us to feel like we’re not alone.

They give us language to articulate things we’ve felt but didn’t have words for—and may not have even been totally conscious of. They offer us different ways of understanding and interpreting the world. Books are everything.

JAG: Have you been surprised by the attention your book has received, with reviews in the New York Times Book Review and on NPR, among others, and an interview on Terry Gross’ “Fresh Air”?

MPR: I have been floored by the responses I’ve been getting. I never expected anyone to care much, and it has been so gratifying to think anyone would take the time to read and think about my book—let alone give it space in these incredible outlets.

JAG: What is life like for you now as mother of a toddler in a tiny town in South Dakota?

MPR: It’s still hard to believe my life is what it is now. I spent a long time thinking that I’d never get married or have children, and I think that’s made me appreciate my husband and daughter to an utterly overwhelming degree. It also amazes me that I have any real control over my life at all; I always joke that I still get excited to go to the grocery store without permission, and it’s still true!

Home Art Projects: Painting with Markers

Topeka artist Jordan E. Brooks teaches children to use ordinary markers in a painterly fashion with this home art project

STORY BY Jordan E. Brooks PHOTOGRAPHY BY Bill Stephens

reminders & TIPS

Be sure to distinguish the different types of markers: water-soluble and permanent. Each of them plays a different role in this project. You use the permanent markers for your outline marks, and you blend colors in the interior design with the washable markers.

One of the skills of a great artist is the ability to blend and bleed colors in a composition to create interesting tones and shading. That’s a hard skill to come by, but an enjoyable one to learn. Young artists can discover or experiment with this technique in an affordable and non-messy way by using ordinary school markers in a painterly fashion to create watercolor-like impressions. As a bonus, this technique is also a fun way to recycle markers that are being little used or have almost run out of color. It’s a technique for all skill levels, young to old, and is perfect for a fun family activity.

Once you gather your materials, set up your area and open your creativity. Draw a composition on a blank piece of thick paper—it should be a single composition with plenty of room to fill in space between the lines.

Once you have outlined your composition, take a permanent marker and outline it. Then let it dry.

Now, use the washable markers for the interior parts of the composition. I like to think of these markers as representing our paint tubes because their colors can wash off easily and will blend with one another.

Use the washable markers to color in—or saturate—the interior of the thick lines you have drawn. Use a few colors near one another.

Experiment with value scale. This means being aware of how the amount of water affects the blending and intensity of colors. Using water to blend your colors also dilutes your marker drawings changes the saturation of the color—the more diluted, the less intense the color.

Experiment with color mixing. Use different types of washable markers, with different felt sizes and with different colors, to experiment how colors run and blend (or clash) when mixed together.

Artist and educator Jordan E. Brooks displays an example of the watercolor marker project idea.

You might want to color in a few areas at a time, because before the markers can fully dry, you will use a paintbrush to brush the washable marker area with the damp brush tip.

Ideally, you will use a different brush for every section of color. Work your wet brush across the saturated areas of your compositions/design, being mindful that the wetter your brush, the more the colors will blend. By controlling your water, you control the intensity of the coloring and the blending. Remember to let the surface dry and to stop before your paper gets too soggy.

Mistakes will be made! Sometimes colors won’t blend well or the paper will tear from water saturation That’s fine. The only way to get better is to try again.

Challenge yourself by making a few very runny wet marks, pushing the saturation to the limit. You might get a bit messy, but the work area should be fairly easy to contain.

As with many art projects, no result is necessarily more correct than others, but you will find what pleases your eye most. The best result is one where the process of painting it allows you to learn, laugh, and create.

Enjoy. Have fun. Stay creative, friends!

The Process

Step by Step

STEP 1: SETUP

Place all your materials on a flat working surface

STEP 2: LAYOUT/DESIGN

Use a pencil to draw a picture or to design a pattern on your paper.

STEP 3: OUTLINE

Use permanent markers to trace the outline of your design (the areas that will not be blended with other colors).

STEP 4: DRYING

Allow the outline to dry for 10–15 minutes.

STEP 4: SATURATION

Start coloring in areas you want to blend with washable markers.

STEP 5: PAINTING

Lightly dampen a paintbrush in water. Work the damp brush over the saturated areas into areas of the composition less saturated with color. Blend by using the paint brush to bleed color over little by little. Be careful not to use too much water on the paintbrush. Allow a section to dry before moving to a different color or section of your composition.

MARCH

FEATURED EVENT

Topeka IrishFest

March 18

A day full of food, music, and entertainment. Access to the Evergy Plaza in Downtown Topeka is free for the concerts and performances. The Driscoll School of Irish Dance performs at 11 a.m., and headline act Carswell and Hope take center stage at 2 p.m. topekairishfest.com

March 3–April 1

Something Rotten!

Nick and Nigel Bottom attempt to write the world’s first musical stage production in the London theater scene of the late 1500s, but they’re overshadowed by a playwright named Shakespeare whose productions are the talk of the town.

topekacivictheatre.com

March 3–April 29

Seasons

The Morris Art Gallery of the NOTO Arts & Entertainment District holds its annual juried exhibition of fiber work. explorenoto.org

March 13–17

Spring Spirits

Ghost Tours of Kansas and the Shawnee County Parks & Recreation Department team up to offer a spring-break program that allows children ages 10–15 to safely explore the lore and locations of haunted stories and places around Topeka. ghosttoursofkansas.org

March 13–17

Kansas Children’s Discovery Center

For the week of spring break, Kansas Children’s Discovery Center features some special events such as a daily 10 a.m. bubble dance party and 1 p.m. activities such as building the tallest tower and playing with slime. kansasdiscovery.org

March 18–May 7

Shades of Greatness

The Alice C. Sabatini Gallery at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library hosts a traveling art exhibit from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City that features works created by artists inspired by Negro Leagues Baseball history. tscpl.org

March 19

Before Bach’s Birthday Bash

Grace Cathedral organist Donald Livingston presents a concert of the music by J.S. Bach. Part of Grace Episcopal’s “Great Spaces” concert series. Free. greatspaces.org/schedule

March 21

Team Trivia

Norsemen Brewing Company hosts weekly Tuesday trivia competitions 6–9 p.m. Free. norsemenbrewingco.com

March 22

Sound Factory—Teens Make Music

Teen musicians are invited into the sound rooms of the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library’s Recording Studio to learn how to produce their own music and recordings. tscpl.org

March 23

Kids and ADHD

Family Service & Guidance Center of Topeka holds its monthly online seminar for parents, guardians and caregivers. Each month features a different theme presented by experts selected by the center. Free fsgctopeka.com

March 24

Senior Players

Topeka Civic Theatre’s troupe of senior-age improvisation actors presents an evening of comedy sketches. topekacivictheatre.com

March 25

Capital City Crushers

Topeka’s Roller Derby team opens their 2022 season with a bout against the Salina Sirens at their home rink of Sk8Away. facebook.com/CapitalCityCrushers

March 26

Harlem Globetrotters

Famous across the world for their wit, style and athletic prowess, the Harlem Globetrotters bring their interactive performance to Topeka. stormontvaileventscenter.com

APRIL FEATURED EVENT

First Friday

April 7 (and the first Friday of every month)

Galleries, studios and other venues open to the public for an evening of entertainment and art showings. artstopeka.org

April 1

Love Triangle

Topeka Symphony Orchestra presents an evening of music featuring the works of Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms—three powerhouse 19th-century musicians with a complicated relationship. topekasymphony.org

April 1

Concealed Revealed Art Auction

A collection of artwork goes up for sale with the proceeds benefiting the YWCA’s Center for Safety and Empowerment. jayhawktheatre.org and ywcaneks. org/what-we-do/cse

April 1–29

Redbud Festival

NOTO Arts Center holds a monthlong spring arts festival with outdoor concerts and events at the art district’s Redbud Park. explorenoto.org

April 7 and 8

Laugh Lines

Topeka’s improvisation comedy troupe performs at the Topeka Civic Theatre. topekacivictheatre.com/laugh-splash

April 7–23

Jerod Binkley Tulip Time

Thousands of tulips should be in bloom around Topeka during the annual tulip festival now named after the volunteer who helped begin the festival 30 years ago. A special Tulips at Twilight will be held at Old Prairie Town and will feature tulips illuminated by candlelight and lighted displays. parks.snco.us

Photographs: Via Shutterstock and courtesy Topeka & Shawnee County Library and Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

April 20

Dazed and Confused

The Jayhawk Theatre presents the 1993 film classic about a group of high school juniors and seniors marking the last day of school in their rural Texas town. The film is part of the theater’s monthly Throwback Thursday series. jayhawktheatre.org

April 27

Anxiety

Family Service & Guidance Center of Topeka holds its monthly online seminar for parents, guardians and caregivers. Each month features a different theme presented by experts selected by the center. Free. fsgctopeka.com

April 21–May 6

The Crucible Topeka Civic Theatre & Academy presents Arthur Miller’s classic stage dramatization of one incident in the Salem Witch Trials. fsgctopeka.com

April 28–May 7

Artifice

The Helen Hocker Theatre Youth/ Adult Bathhouse Players of Topeka Civic Theatre present a farcical, humorous story about an artist whose work enjoys immense popularity after his death … except he didn’t die. topekacivictheatre.com

April 29

TopCity Half-Marathon & 5k Topeka’s half-marathon starts racers at the Kansas Capitol and brings them through the city to end in Downtown. topcity.run

April 29

Farmers Market

Begin your Saturday morning with either or both of these weekly farmers markets: 1) the Downtown Topeka Farmers Market at 12th and Harrison Streets, in the parking lots just south of the judicial center and 2) the Breadbasket Farmers Market on 1901 SW Wanamaker Road. topekafarmersmarket.com and breadbasketfarmersmarket.com

April 30

The WCTC Players Topeka Civic Theatre’s resident troupe of radio actors and sound effect experts presents an afternoon performance recreating classic shows from the golden age of radio drama.

topekacivictheatre.com

MAY

FEATURED EVENT

People Will Say We’re in Love

May 6

The Topeka Symphony Orchestra, with music director and conductor Kyle Wiley

Picket and the talents of actors and singers from Topeka Civic Theatre, presents the full musical concert of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s American musical Oklahoma! topekasymphony.org

May 3

Foreigner

One of America’s rock legends brings its Greatest Hits Tour to Topeka. stormontvaileventscenter.com

May 5

A Fine Art 6.0

The Morris Gallery of the Noto Arts & Entertainment District presents a showing of work from select regional photographers. explorenoto.org

May 7

Mozart’s Requiem

The Shawnee Choral Society presents its spring concert at Washburn University’s White Concert Hall. The Shawnee Choral Society is composed of experienced vocalists from Topeka and Shawnee County metropolitan region. shawneechoral.com and Shawnee Choral on Facebook

May 13

Laugh Lines

Topeka’s improvisation comedy troupe performs at the Topeka Civic Theatre. topekacivictheatre.com/laugh-splash

May 13

IFO Street Legends

Heartland Motorsports Park hosts a night drag race open to all makes. heartlandmotorsports.us

May 17

Brown v. Board of Education

Anniversary

A visit to the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site is in order on any day or month, but particularly on the 69th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that involved Topeka families helping to end legally sanctioned racially segregated public education in the United States. While there, pick up a physical or digital brochure to tour historic sites in Topeka linked to Bleeding Kansas, the Civil War and the civil rights movement. nps.gov/brvb

May 25

Talking to Kids about Tragic Events

Family Service & Guidance Center of Topeka holds its monthly online seminar for parents, guardians and caregivers. Each month features a different theme presented by experts selected by the center. Free.

fsgctopeka.com

JUNE

June 3–4

Mulvane Art Fair

Annual outdoor art fair featuring work by local and traveling artists to benefit the Mulvane Museum of Art. mulvaneartmuseum.org