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Vol 41 • No. 1
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www.theactiveage.com d Kansas’ Award-winning Top 55+ News Source
Hot shots
Maize grad, now 100, was pioneer in women's basketball
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By Joe Stumpe Once upon a time, women were considered too fragile to play the game of basketball as we know it. Instead of running up and down the length of the court, they were consigned to one end or the other, lest their supposedly delicate constitutions be upset. Except somebody forgot to tell Ruth Ott Gregory. During World War II, she was one of a number of Wichita-area women who played the game the way it’s played today, entertaining sports-starved crowds and sometimes beating high school boys teams in the process. Gregory, who turned 100 last month, enjoys recalling those days. “Lord yes, I’d still be playing if I could,” she said when asked if she
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Ruth Ott Gregory, above and at right in her playing days, still enjoys watching basketball.
misses basketball. “Nothing like it.” Gregory grew up as Ruth Ott on a farm outside of what’s now Maize. Her father nailed a basket to the barn, which is where Ruth honed her spe-
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cialty, shooting. A member of the first girls’ basketball team at Maize High School, she attended Kansas State University for a year before she was forced to return home when her father died. Her former high school coach, Buddy Reynolds, had started coaching women’s teams sponsored by local companies, and Ruth joined. Over several years she played for Boeing, Thurston (a large clothing store) and Steffen’s (now Highland Dairy). Gregory remembers her old coach as tough but fair. “You had to work hard or you would be dumped,” she said. “That Buddy Reynolds was excellent.” In those days, the rules for women’s basketball called for six-on-six games, rather than five-on-five as boys and men played. Three females from each See Hot shots, page 6
Silent partner
No sugarcoating spouse's descent into Alzheimer's By Leslie Chaffin My husband’s family bears a strong history of cancer. His father, brothers, aunts and uncles died of the disease. We carry cancer insurance as a result. So cancer, I was prepared for. Not Alzheimer’s. Not when my husband was only 54 years old. The signs became clearer just before Christmas 2013, when Jon lost a good job at Sedgwick County, where he’d worked 33 years. Jon blamed it on a new manager wanting to clean house, but it turned out he’d been written up several times for forgetting to do things that had once been second nature to him. Our son and I had noticed similar behavior over the
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previous year. I could tell that it was difficult for him to fill out applications for a new job. He finally got a job in 2015 with a company that reset merchandise in Dillons supermarkets, but the company told him there was no more work available after three months. I suspect he had trouble following directions. Jon continued to drive through 2016. But he clearly wasn’t processSee Partner, page 7
Central Plains Area Agency on Aging or call your county Department on Aging: 1-855-200-2372
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Jon Chaffin was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2017, but his wife believes the signs were visible years earlier.
Butler County: (316) 775-0500 or 1-800- 279-3655 Harvey County: (316) 284-6880 or 1-800-279-3655