THINKING BIG

Sculptor specializes in art people can touch

The Active Age NORTH NEWTON—Sculptor

Conrad Snider doesn’t mean to sound rude, but if people want to hire him to make pieces to their exact specifications, he has a customary response.

“I usually tell them they need to take a ceramics class and make it for themselves,” he said. “I don’t have enough time left in my life to make things that I don’t have a personal connection to.”

Sweet honored by med school

By Joe Stumpe

Dr. Donna Sweet is known for a number of things: training hundreds of physicians as a faculty member at KU School of Medicine-Wichita, pioneering care of AIDS/HIV patients in Kansas and serving at the highest level of national medical organizations.

Then there's the leg wrestling party she hosts for medical residents each winter.

“It’s a traditional Christmas party to help preserve wildlife and leg wrestling,” she explained. “We give trophies. People are very proud of their leg wrestling trophies. There are a lot of physicians around town who have them.”

With contributions from many of those physicians, KU Wichita this year established an honorary award for medical students and residents named

See Sweet, page 20

Part of the North Newton resident’s interest in sculpting is the ideas behind his work and where they come from. It’s not following someone else’s plan.

However, he’s done a lot of public art projects, such as a recent installation for a sculpture tour in Salina, and he’ll work with communities to determine what’s unique about them or a particular building and have a back-and-forth

See Sculptor, page 6