Arland Wallace's first stint at Wichita State didn't go well. He enrolled in 1970 and bailed after one semester.
“I quickly realized I was in over my head,” he said.
Fifty-five years later, he's about to graduate. Wallace is finishing his degree despite undergoing surgery for
See Degree, page 9
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'Sweet Water Man'
Kansans bring clean water to rural Tanzania schools
By Beth Bower
Turn on a spigot. Open a bottle of water. Brush your teeth with the water running.
For Wichitans, there’s water even in a drought.
For the people of rural Tanzania, there are no water assurances. They have streams and wells, but they are full of contaminants such as toxins, bacteria and human waste. And yet, they drink it because that is what they have.
But a Midwest-based effort called The Outreach Program is changing that with the help of volunteers like Ed Frey and organizations such as Rotary.
Frey, president of the Rotary Club of West Wichita, traveled to Tanzania in January to help install water purification systems in Singida,
a region in central Tanzania.
“My typical day started at 8 a.m. with a slow ride to a school to install a system,” Frey said.
Over the course of 15 days, Frey’s
group typically installed the systems in two or three schools each day. “It was a grueling schedule,”
Friendship Meals lead to love at senior center
The Active Age
GODDARD — Carolyn Weeks made the first move in the romance that set the Goddard Senior Center buzzing. She suggested that she and Gary Herrman go someplace where they could talk alone.
Then again, it was Gary who started carrying Carolyn’s tray and walking her to her car after lunch.
The two octogenarians wed last month before a crowd that included many friends from the center.
“We kind of watched the whole thing develop during Friendship Meals,” Amanda Treadwell, the center’s volunteer director, said of the pair’s relationship.
Weeks and Herrman both say they weren’t looking to start a serious relationship. Weeks lost her husband three years ago, while Herrman had been a widower for 14 years.
“No, when I met Carolyn, I wasn’t looking for a woman,” Herrman said. “I’d been single 14 years and thought that’s the way my life was going to be.”
“It was just not expected,” Weeks agreed. “I met other men there and they were really nice, but this guy was more my type, so I needed to know more about him.”
See Wedding, page 6
Ed Frey visits with students at a school in Tanzania where he helped install a water purification system.
Gary Herrman and Carolyn Weeks wed six months after meeting at a senior center.
Arland Wallace discovered a passion for anthropology after re-enrolling at WSU.
Win Picklepalooza tickets
The Active Age is giving away tickets for a two-person team to play in Picklepalooza. The annual fundraiser for Senior Services, Inc., is Friday, June 6, at Chicken N Pickle, 1240 N. Greenwich Road. Tickets include tournament play, lunch, two
complimentary drinks and admission to the after party.
To enter The Active Age’s drawing for the tickets, fill out the entry form on theactiveage.com by May 10. The Active Age thanks Dave Gear of Gear Connexion for donating the tickets.
The Active Age nabs Press Association honors
The Active Age won several awards in the 2025 Kansas Press Association contest, including first and second place in the column writing category for publications in the largest circulation category.
Ted Blankenship won first place in column writing for his “It’s Not Serious” column, while Diana Breit Wolfe won second place for her “Dear Reader” columns. Columnists were judged on three samples of their work during 2024.
Amy Geiszler-Jones won first place in the military story category for her article about volunteers restoring an airplane to honor the sacrifice of World War I pilot Erwin Bleckley.
The Active Age’s advertising director, Teresa Schmied, won first place in the advertising special section category for the Grandparents Guide.
The Active Age competes in Division VII, for newspapers with circulations of more than 5,000.
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Wedding
From Page 1
Weeks had been a regular at the center since its opening last year and a volunteer helping serve Friendship Meals there. Herrman said he accompanied some friends to one of the meals, saw Weeks and didn’t think anything about it. But on his next visit, Weeks saw him sitting alone and joined him. They started talking, and “next thing I know, we’re good friends,” Herrman said.
“I could see that he was pretty nice, and I thought he was somebody I could get acquainted with, so I kind of looked for him later one day,” Weeks said.
One day, Weeks told Herrman that she thought they needed to talk alone to get better acquainted. They crossed the street to a restaurant and talked over coffee. Another day, Weeks had a doctor’s appointment, and Herrman offered to take her.
Then there was the time Herrman walked up to the table where Weeks and a group of other center members regularly sat. “I said, ‘Are any of you available?’ They all held their hand up. Carolyn held both her hands up. I was just joking, you know.”
Still, it’s a long way from friendship and affection to marriage, or at least it can be. In this case, the courtship lasted six months. The more they talked, the more sense marriage seemed to make. They dined out regularly at favorite restaurants, including IHOP, Cracker Barrel, McAlister’s Deli and Olive Garden.
“We had similar backgrounds, and I felt comfortable with him,” Weeks said. “He was just a good friend, always a gentleman.”
And like her late husband, Herrman enjoyed the outdoors.
As he recalls, “I said I was going to go fishing one day, and she said, ‘No, you’re not. I’m going with you.’”
Weeks called the news that they planned to wed “kind of a shock to my kids. They said it’s not long enough, you’ve got to get acquainted.”
The couple was having none of it. “We’re older, you know, and time is of the essence,” Weeks said. “It was just six months, but we both had been through this before, and we were pretty sure what we wanted.”
The two did make sure that their new legal status wouldn’t affect their financial condition. “I think that’s probably the reason most people don’t get married in their 80s,” Weeks said.
The two got married at The
Goddard Church on April 6. Initially planned for family, the ceremony and reception drew more than 100 people.
“I got scared all the tables were full, and we had put more tables out,” Herrman said. “We didn’t even get to have a piece of wedding cake because I was worried we were going to run out.”
“It’s amazing how people have responded,” Weeks said. “They’re all happy for us. I said we need to form a single’s club and try to get them all married off.”
Last month, Herrman was in the process of moving his things into Weeks' home. They’re planning a honeymoon trip to the Ark — a re-creation of Noah’s Ark — in Cincinnati and will probably travel more in the future.
“We’re just doing our own thing, enjoying each other’s company,” Weeks said.
And they’re still regulars at
the senior center, where a chance encounter changed their lives.
“Nobody deserves being lonely, but that’s the way I thought life was going to end up for me, but it got changed,” Herrman said. “It shows you that no matter what your age is, you can still fall in love.”
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Doug Stark happy to embrace ‘uncommon’ label
As a freshman at the University of Kansas, Doug Stark was elected social chairman of his fraternity, then reelected twice more.
“Everybody who knows me knows I love to entertain,” he said. “I put on really good parties.”
That hasn’t changed, although Stark now leads a group called the Grumpy Old Men, who raise money for good causes while having a good time doing it.
That and a long list of other civic-minded activities got him named Wichita’s “Uncommon Citizen” by the Wichita Regional Chamber of Commerce last month.
Stark was surprised when chamber representatives “barged into” his office to break the news.
“This thing totally came out of the blue. I didn’t know I was apparently checking the boxes to be even in the running for this award.”
Stark returned to Wichita after KU and became a Big Brother at age 22. “I’m really proud to say that my ‘little brother’ is known as Mr. Ashbrook at Collegiate and has been for many years,” Stark said, referring to Christopher Ashbrook, the school’s dean of middle school students.
Through a church, Stark and the late Carolyn Grier of Eby
Construction tutored students at Colvin Elementary in Plainview. “I absolutely loved it.”
He became one of the Rotary Club’s youngest members in his mid20s, served as president and is still active in it 40 years later. The club’s Reading is Fundamental program is one of his favorites.
“We go to read to kids and give them books. That is good for my heart.”
The Grumpy Old Men were started in 2007 by Stark’s father, Charles, who died eight years ago.
Shepherding the group today “was just something I had to keep doing because it was so cool and it was my way of honoring my dad.”
The group collects dues from about 85 members each year. Stark produces two events each year — typically concerts — and a member dinner, and leftover proceeds are given to a charitable organization each spring.
“We are just at giving $2.75 million over the years to charity in Wichita,” he said. “The money all stays here.”
Most recently, the group brought KC and the Sunshine Band to town for a packed show at the Orpheum.
In the business world, Stark is known for — along with his outgoing nature and untucked shirts — leading
ComfortCare Homes, which provide care in a group home setting for people with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. He actually started out in the pizza business as a Little Caesar’s franchisee, opening seven stores here in 2 1/2 years (a move he calls “nutty” with Pizza Hut being headquartered here at the time).
In 1995 he sold those stores and joined his father in ComfortCare, which was started as a result of his family’s personal experience.
“We all cared as a family for my dad’s parents, both of whom had dementia in the '80s,” he said.
The ComfortCare concept was so new that the state didn’t have regulations for it. Stark credits state officials with being open to the idea. At the time, skilled nursing facilities were about the only other option.
“They thought the idea was stupendous and said go for it. They said, ‘We’re going to watch you real hard over the next few years.’”
In 1998, the Kansas Legislature created the Home Plus category for ComfortCare and similar providers, who are regulated by the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services. There are now almost 200 Home Plus homes across the state.
ComfortCare operates nine homes in Wichita and Newton, serving just over 90 people. Stark said part of its success is in creating a homey
“Many times, the families we’re whoever, they’ll say grandma’s got
Stark and his wife, Kathi, have four children and four grandchildren. One daughter, Kasey, works with him at ComfortCare. Kathi, Kasey and ComfortCare CEO Micala GingrichGaylord knew of the Uncommon Citizen award before Doug, and Kathi wasted little time in kidding him about it.
“Kathi immediately said, ‘Uncommon citizen? That certainly is an accurate description,’” Stark said. “That has been played back to me by a number of folks. Apparently, there’s a lot of folks who think uncommon is a good name for me.”
Courtesy photo
Doug Stark was named Wichita's "Uncommon Citizen" last month.
Water
From Page 1 said.
said Isaac McNary, vice president of international development for The Outreach Program. “Ed kept up with us.”
Why schools when potable water can be scarce anywhere in that region?
Frey said that in this area of Tanzania, more than 10,500 children are enrolled in rural schools with no electricity, books or potable drinking water.
The schools work around the lack of power and books. But contaminated water often causes illnesses such as cholera and dysentery, leading children to miss school and a chance at secondary education as they fall behind on schoolwork. The result is wasted chances at better jobs.
“These are very smart people,” Frey
The Outreach Program is a nonprofit organization founded 20 years by an Iowa couple, Floyd and Kathy Hammer, who’d traveled to Tanzania to help remodel a hospital. It’s based in Union, Iowa, although its WaterPoint purification systems are made in El Dorado, where McNary lives. The Outreach Program also addresses hunger, medical care and education needs. Numana, an antihunger organization based in El Dorado, recently became part of The Outreach Program.
According to The Outreach Program website, the solar-powered WaterPoint systems can be mobile or stationary and installed in a few hours to produce potable water.
The $5,000 cost of each system is paid for by groups such as Rotary of West Wichita, which has donated two systems and is raising money for a third.
“This (purified water) tastes better than Wichita water,” Frey said. He served as the guinea pig trying the water purified by the first system he helped install. “I’m a believer.”
At one school, a student called the water “sweet water” and Frey the “sweet water man.”
Frey is managing partner at Credit Review Group of Wichita but plans
on taking it easier soon to spend more time with his wife, B.J., their three children and various passions — including Rotary, his church and Kansas State University.
Soon to be on the K-State Alumni Board, Frey is known around town for his purple Jeep. Never a day goes by, he said, that he doesn’t have some purple on.
“Ed brought gifts for the headmasters of the schools we installed systems in. All K-State stuff,” McNary recalled with a laugh.
The Outreach Program plans
To donate or find more information about The Outreach Program,visit outreachprogram.com.
to install purification systems in 90 schools, hoping the Tanzanian government will step in and complete the job across the East African nation. But for now, McNary and volunteers like Frey take the systems to Tanzania.
“McNary is so passionate,” Frey said, “it just oozes out.”
McNary recently started the $2 Heart Club, referring to the cost of safe water for a child in Tanzania for one year. It was suggested by a friend who gave him a $2 bill folded into a heart shape as a donation.
The Outreach Program’s plan for the future, Frey said, is to eventually “get to the point where the people themselves can build (WaterPoint systems) in Tanzania.”
As for himself, he’ll keep driving his purple Jeep around and look for food pantry or other local project to get involved in.
“I would go back (to Tanzania),” Frey said. “But it opened my eyes to the needs in our own backyard.”
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Members of the Rotary Club of West Wichita signed a water purification system sent to Tanzania.
Issac McNary received a heart-shaped donation for The Outreach Program.
Degree
From Page 1
a cancerous brain tumor last fall, and he plans to pursue a master's degree even though his prognosis is terminal.
“I just made the decision that cancer was not going to define me,” he said.
After dropping out of WSU the first time, Wallace studied to be an X-ray technician at St. Joseph Hospital and spent 10 years in the medical field. He then spent 40 years working for his brother’s printing company, which merged with Printing, Inc., in the 1990s.
Despite his first experience at WSU, he’d always enjoyed learning. While still employed, he earned a theological degree and became an ordained deacon in the Episcopal church. But his departure from WSU all those years earlier nagged at him.
“I just wanted that undergraduate degree,” Wallace said. “I thought, well, I’m retired, I have nothing but time, so why not?”
In the summer of 2019, he met with an advisor at WSU, who asked him how many courses he wanted to take. “I said I haven’t been for 50 years and I’m just going to take one. If it doesn’t work, no harm, no foul.”
He had no particular class in mind. As they started looking through courses, he spotted one near the top of the list — Introduction to Archaeology — and said “stop right there.”
The class had a new instructor, Crystal Dozier, whom Wallace found inspiring. “She just has a passion for the subject matter. She is a teacher’s teacher.”
Wallace had found his major — anthropology, with an emphasis on archaeology. Taking several classes per semester, Wallace completed the necessary prerequisites for his major, then set about tackling the required general education courses.
“I kind of did it backwards,” he said. “I couldn’t get enough of those anthropology classes.”
In 2021, for instance, he took a class from Dozier called Archaeology of Food in which they replicated pumpkin leather mats called “cucurbita” that were used by Native Americans of the Great Plains. The mats, made of dried pumpkin strips, offered a method of preservation and were used to flavor soups and other foods.
“It had a consistency like beef jerky, but you could add it during the boiling process, and it would add flavor to it,” he said.
Wallace’s fascination with the subject was evident as he went on to relate how the women in Native American tribes with diets high in protein would trade for such mats to get more carbohydrates into their diets during pregnancy. “It was funny how they knew what kinds of foods they needed to have successful birthing rates,” he said.
Under Dozier’s supervision, Wallace and other students used bone and stone tools to cut the pumpkin intro strips, wove the strips into mats and hung them up to dry. The mats were tested after a year and found to be edible.
Dozier invited Wallace to make a presentation about their research to a conference in Oklahoma, which went over so well that they compiled their
data into a research paper published in the Society for Experimental Archaeology’s journal last November (available online at exarc.net/journal). More recently, Wallace had the online article printed in book form. He’s an undergraduate research assistant the Archaeology of Food Laboratory.
Wallace found school had changed since the pencil-and-paper era.
“The computerization of school was quite challenging for me, but slowly and sure I got accustomed to it."
To get through a statistics class, he hired a fellow student to tutor him. He said he met the student’s parents and told them what a wonderful teacher their daughter is.
But the biggest challenge came on Oct. 5, when he suffered 10 to 15 events in which he seemed to lose touch with reality. He went to the hospital, had a MRI performed and was told he had a brain tumor. He underwent surgery five days later. The tumor tested malignant, and Wallace was told his cancer was terminal. He began radiation therapy and chemotherapy and returned to school as soon as possible.
“I was bound and determined to continue with my studies,” he said. “I ended up getting all As last semester.”
He’s on the Dean’s list and last month was named the university’s Adult Learner of the Year.
"Arland is a superstar on so many different levels," Dozier said. "One of the things that is most remarkable is how welcoming he is to everyone. It's been amazing to not only watch him grow as a student, but to watch the other students absolutely adopt him."
Wallace said he’s maintained a 4.0 grade point average since 2019, but
the grades he earned in 1970 drag that number down some. Wallace attributes his success this time around to working ahead and giving himself plenty of time to complete assignments.
He studies in a home office that in some respects resembles a dorm room from 1970, complete with WSU paraphernalia, a record player and albums. His filing system consists of papers neatly piled on the floor. A small forest of pill bottles sitting on a kitchen counter attests to the precarious state of his health. He’s suffered a minor stroke and made several trips to the emergency room since his surgery. Getting aross campus has not always been easy.
But he has been accepted into graduate school and hopes to start in August with the intent of teaching one day. “The one class that started me — Intro to Archaeology — I’d like teach so it would go full circle.”
Asked if Wallace's undergraduate career is the longest on record at WSU, the school pointed to a student who first enrolled in 1934 and received his degree 69 years later. However, that student was given credit toward his degree for "life experiences."
In addition to Dozier, Wallace praises his advisor and fellow students, whom he says have shown no ageism towards him. “This is what was really amazing. When I work in the lab with grad students, they do not see age as age.”
Wallace will have his sixth round of chemotherapy this month. He’s been told he has about 17 months to live, or maybe a little longer. He says he’ll keep pursuing his studies for however much time that turns out to be.
Kansas storm season insurance claims totaled $612 million in 2024
TOPEKA – Insurance companies paid $612,069,643.50 for Kansas storm damage claims in 2024, according to a news release from Kansas Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt.
There were 56,778 storm claims reported. Sedgwick County had the third most claims after Johnson and Wyandotte counties. A county-bycounty breakdown of the data can be found on the Department’s website at https://insurance.ks.gov/documents/ department/publications/StormClaim-Losses-by-County.pdf
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The Department collected data from companies writing property and casualty insurance in Kansas. This data includes the number of total claims as well as the amount paid for those claims across several types of storm losses including hail, wind, water damage, and other weatherrelated claim losses for homeowner and automobile policies.
“These numbers serve as a
reminder that catastrophic weather events do not just happen on the coasts,” said Schmidt. “Check in with your insurance agent and make sure you are ready for this storm season.” Schmidt urged people having trouble with an insurance claim to contact the Kansas Department of Insurance’s Consumer Assistance Division at 785-296-3071, by email at KDOI.complaints@ks.gov or online at insurance.kansas.gov for any claimsrelated questions or concerns.
WILLS ~ TRUSTS ~ PROBATE
Cathleen A. Gulledge
Applying Monopoly’s lessons to real life, and real estate
By Diana Breit Wolfe
Dear Reader
I had lunch with two dear friends at Jason’s Deli recently. For some reason, our conversation turned to real estate and housing back in the day. My friend Susie married in 1958 at age 16, and my friend Joann married in 1961 at age 18. Their first homes were rentals, either an apartment or a small house. My situation was different. I married in 1966 at age 22. We moved into a small home my husband, Bob, had owned for three years. He had decided to invest in real estate because of the game Monopoly.
Huh? Well, while he and his friends spent hours playing the game, he learned the winner was the one who bought the most real estate, collected the most rent, stayed out of jail, didn’t go bankrupt and that you gotta have money to make money so collect $200 for passing “Go.” He saw it could easily apply to real life.
So at age 21, he bought a twobedroom, one-bath house for $3,500 (about what many Wichitans now pay yearly in property taxes). It sat on a slab of concrete on a half-acre of bare
land near the southwest corner of Harry and Webb Road. He had the down payment of $350 in savings, and his credit was good; he made the monthly payments on his 1962 Volkswagen right on time.
City limits ended at Woodlawn back then, so the property had no city water and sewer system. Water was hauled in by truck and poured into a holding tank. No sewer system meant that I learned what a cistern and sewer laterals were used for. If you’re old enough to remember when land was being cleared for construction of the Canal Route (I-135), you know that many homes were sold and moved elsewhere, and this was one of them.
Bob had the water and sewer thing all figured out by the time I moved in. And in true Monopoly style, he had been renting the home’s second bedroom to a buddy from work, which helped cover his house payment of around $75 a month.
This was a real no-frills house: no water/dryer hook ups, no storage shed (not that we owned a lawnmower or anything else to put in it). No garage, just a circular dirt driveway that connected to the dirt road that was East Osie Street. Our nearest
Wichitans picked for Sports Hall of Fame
Three Wichitans are among the 2025 inductees into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame.
Bob Lutz is a former longtime Wichita Eagle sports columnist and reporter who established the League 42 urban youth baseball organization in Wichita.
Kendric Maple won a state wrestling title at Wichita Heights High School before becoming a three-time All-American at the University of Oklahoma.
Laverne Smith was a track and football standout at Wichita Southeast High School and the
neighbors were all about a block away.
We’d been living there about a year and half when we got a knock on our door late one evening. It was a real estate agent who wanted to know if we would sell our house because he had a client who had offered $7,000 for it. A 100-percent profit in just the four years Bob had owned it! This Monopoly thing was paying off.
We took the deal and started looking for another home. We settled on an 80-year-old, two-story house on South Wichita Street that came with a small rental home in the backyard. The asking price was $10,000, and the real estate agent sighed and looked
University of Kansas before playing in the NFL for the Pittsburg Steelers.
The trio and other inductees will be honored in an Aug. 2 ceremony in Topeka.
The Hall of Fame is located in the Wichita Boathouse, 515 S. Wichita St.
annoyed when we offered $7,500, but the seller accepted it. That home is another story.
I don’t know if you learned anything from playing Monopoly but having plenty of the play money was one thing that didn’t apply to real life. The Active Age, too, needs real money to pay the bills and continue mailing you a free issue every month. The cost of postage and printing is currently about $26,000 per month. If you enjoy reading this paper and can help us continue publishing it, your donation will be very much appreciated.
Diana Wolfe is a former board member of The Active Age.
Diana Breit Wolfe
The writer's first house after marriage had a block in East Wichita all to itself. Purchased for $3,500, it sold for twice that four years later.
Kendric Maple
Bob Lutz Lsverne Smith
The Mothership Has Landed lands at CityArts
If you’ve lived in Wichita for any length of time, you’ve probably seen artist Greg Johnson’s work without realizing it. He created the pink car that appears to have flown into the side of the Auto Body Complex building, easily visible from I-135.
Johnson, who’s owned the body shop for 46 years, now spends more time creating art than he does on his old day job. He and 11 other artists are staging a large and eclectic exhibit called The Mothership Has Landed at CityArts through June 1.
More than 160 pieces of sculpture, painting and photography make up the exhibit, which takes up the main gallery and upstairs Board Room Gallery.
The show grew out of a meeting in a Commerce Street gallery some 20 years ago between Greg Turner and Mark Walker, two of the artists
with works in Mothership. Turner recalls Walker introducing himself “even though artists are real funny about coming up to a new artist.” They exhibited together, then invited others to join a group that calls itself “ID… ology.”
“I started seeing other artists and said, ‘Let’s have some fun,’” Turner recalled.
The group’s name was inspired by Freud’s theories about the subconscious, although those theories play no role in their art (at least not consciously).
The current show is the group’s sixteenth and first at CityArts. “The thing I like about (ID…ology) is we look for people who come from different directions — academic, selftaught, realist, surrealist,” Johnson said. “That’s why it’s not a repetitive show.”
The group also keeps things fresh
by inviting a couple of guest artists to each show. Sculptor and painter Beth “Piglet” Vannatta of Halstead is one of them for the current show.
“There’s so much difference here,” she said of the works in the “Mothership” show.
That’s no exaggeration. One artist, Ed Lang, makes sculptures and mobiles featuring flying saucers. Anne Krone paints 6-inch-square landscapes. Then there are the large metal sculptures created by Johnson from wrecked car bodies. His body shop gives him all the tools needed to twist them into fantastic shapes, weld on additions and then paint them. “Doing collision work is actually commercial art,” Johnson said.
One piece, called Cousin Shoebox Tiki, is made out of parts of a 1950s Ford Shoebox he found in a hedgerow.
It resembles a totem from the South
Seas and, thanks to a recording trigged by a motion detector located under its belly, chants “ooga-ooga” when people near it.
Johnson estimates that the average age of artists in the show is 75, although he might need to recalculate after Vannatta clarified her age for him, saying, “I’m not 87 ‘til the 22nd.”
If you go
Admission is free to CityArts gallery, located at 334 N. Mead in Old Town Square. Hours of operation are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Most of the works in Mothership exhibit are for sale.
“I started seeing other artists and said, ‘Let’s have some fun" - Greg Turner
Photos by Joe Stumpe
Artists featured in a new CityArts exhibit include, from left, Beth Vannatta with "Teenager Persona," Greg Johnson with "Backpack" and Greg Turner with "Alpha and Omega."
"Suppertime at the Old Folks' Home," "Cousin Shoebox Tiki" and several paintings by Mark Walker are part of a new ID...ology show.
Cottage industry
Suddenly trendy, cottage cheese finds way into more dishes
By Joe Stumpe
Anything can go viral these days. Take cottage cheese. Often associated with dieting and salad bars, cottage cheese was rediscovered a couple years ago by internet influencers who claimed it could be used for all sorts of fabulous things.
Gluten-free pizza crust? There’s a cottage cheese recipe for it. Ice cream and Alfredo sauce? Ditto.
Daisy, the nation’s biggest producer, even found a reality TV star named Daisy Kent to help promote the stuff, while the U.S. Dairy trade group touted it as the “new ramen” on college campuses. It’s fairly inexpensive, after all.
2 eggs
1 cup cottage cheese
So recently, armed with about $10 in ingredients and a couple hours to spare, I decided to investigate.
But first, a little background. Cottage cheese is a fresh cheese, meaning it’s not aged, which is what makes cheeses firm as they lose moisture. It’s probably called cottage cheese because it was easy for people to make at home.
Cottage cheese’s nutritional profile makes it attractive to the health conscious. A half-cup of Daisy’s regular version contains 110 calories, 5 grams of fat and 13 grams of protein. Pushed as an alternative to meat for civilians during World War I, cottage cheese peaked in popularity during the 1970s,
Flatbread/Pizza Crust
¼ up flour (optional)
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
¾ teaspoon garlic powder
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients in a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth. Line a baking sheet with nonstick parchment paper. Pour mixture onto baking sheet. Bake about 30 minutes or until golden brown (can take less or more time depending on thickness).
Remove from oven and use as wrap or pizza crust. Source: daisybrand.com
2 eggs
High Protein Scrambled Eggs
¼ cup cottage cheese, blended if desired
Kosher salt and cracked pepper, to taste
Directions:
Whisk together eggs and seasoning. Fold in cottage cheese. Coat a nonstick pan with olive oil or cooking spray.
Cook mixture over medium-low heat, stirring frequently, about 2 minutes or until just set. Serve immediately.
Source: daisybrand.com
Easy Egg Bites
9 eggs
¾ cup cottage cheese
½ teaspoon salt
Black pepper, to taste
Optional add-ins: ½ cup shredded cheddar or parmesan, 1 cup chopped spinach, 1/3 cup fresh basil, or ½ cup cooked veggies
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin tin with paper liners and spray with cooking spray.
Place eggs, cottage cheese, salt and pepper in blender. Blend about 20 seconds or until smooth. Pour mixture evenly into muffin tin. Add optional add-ins if desired, pushing down into mixture.
Bake about 22 minutes or until tester comes out clean.
Source: hummusapien.com
then took a back seat to yogurt before its recent resurgence.
I grew up eating it the way my mom did, with sliced fruit from a can (this was the 1960s, remember). Once I started cooking, I used it in innumerable casseroles as the cheese layer, usually mixed with an egg and herbs.
When it comes to new recipes featuring it, I’ll start with the bad news. It does not make very good ice cream, unless you like your ice cream slightly sour and salty. The “Alfredo” sauce I made with it came out more like gravy. And baked cottage cheese “crisps” were a disaster.
But it makes a tasty gluten-free
“flatbread” that can be eaten as is or used as a wrap. Add just ¼ cup flour to the same recipe and you get a thicker bread that could stand in for a pizza crust.
Spooned onto toast with a drizzle of honey, cottage cheese makes a great quick breakfast; a more elaborate recipe for Rustic Avocado Toast is below. It adds creaminess and a shot of protein to scrambled eggs and egg bites, the latter of which can be made in batches and reheated as necessary.
And while it won’t make an authentic Pasta Alfredo, it’s featured prominently in a savory Hungarian dish called Turos Csusza (Cheese Curd Pasta).
Turos Csuza (Cheese Curd Noodles)
4 slices bacon, optional
9 oz. lasagna noodles, broken into irregular bite-size pieces (can substitute egg noodles)
1 to 1½ cups cottage cheese
½ to ¾ cup sour cream
Salt and pepper, to taste
Pinch of paprika
Sliced green onions or chives or fresh dill
Directions:
In a large skillet, cook bacon (if using) until crisps. Drain on paper towels, leaving rendered fat in skillet, and crumble bacon when cool.
Meantime, cook noodles in boiling salted water until al dente. With skillet set over low heat, drain noodles and add to fat in skillet. Stir in cottage cheese and sour cream until noodles are coated. Add seasonings, top with green onions, chives or fresh dill, and top with crumbled bacon, if using. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Source: kitchenfrau.com
2 slices whole wheat bread
1 avocado, mashed
½ cup cottage cheese
8 grape tomatoes, halved
2 teaspoons sunflower seeds
Kosher salt and cracked pepper, to taste
Directions:
Toast bread. Layer with cottage cheese, avocado and sunflower seeds. Sprinkle with seasonings and serve.
Source: daisybrand.com
Homemade Cottage Cheese
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon vinegar 1 pinch salt, or to taste
Directions:
Pour milk into a small pot; bring to a boil. Add vinegar and remove from heat. Stir mixture slowly until curds form, 1 to 2 minues.
Pour mixture into a colander lined with cheesecloth. Allow liquid whey to drain off as curds cool, about 15 minutes. Season curds with salt.
Source: allrecipes.com
Rustic Avocado Toast
Real ID requirement goes into effect May 7
By Holly Edgell KCUR
After May 7, people age 18 and older who want to travel domestically by air and enter certain federal buildings will need to present a Real ID or a valid passport. It will not be required for driving, voting or buying alcohol or cigarettes.
The cards include anticounterfeiting technology and additional documentary evidence and record checks to ensure people are who
they claim to be. In mid-April, Kansas reported a Real ID adoption rate of about 86%. According to the state’s Department of Revenue:
“At this point, almost all Kansans have had the chance to obtain a Real ID compliant credential. Those who do not have one at this point likely don’t want one. We do not expect any increase in wait times at DMV offices due to Real ID applications since a majority of Kansans already have them.”
In fact, according to the Kansas DOR, more than 300,000 people in that state have opted to obtain traditional driver’s licenses and ID cards instead of the Real ID. Kansas began issuing the new cards in 2017.
The Real ID Act was passed by Congress about four years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The 9/11 Commission concluded that it was too easy for people to obtain driver’s licenses.
Come see why we were voted Best of Wichita .
• Independent Living • Assisted Living • Skilled Nursing Facility • Memory Care
Expansion Lunch & Learn: Your Future at Larksfield Landing
Tuesday, May 13, 11:30 a.m
Larksfield Place • 7373 E 29th St N, Wichita, KS 67226
Larksfield Place is nearly full, but Larksfield Landing is just beginning! Join us for lunch, meet our team, and discover how Larksfield Landing offers the perfect opportunity to plan ahead. Learn about exclusive Charter Member benefits and limited-time pre-construction price breaks.
Savor Spring
Friday, May 16, 10:00 a.m.
Bring a friend and enjoy a sumptuous, chef-prepared brunch, followed by an exclusive tour of our most popular floor plans, offering a sneak peek at the future residences of Larksfield Landing.
To RSVP, scan the QR code or call 316-202-4074 . Stay informed about upcoming events and expansion updates.
Did you know?
The Active Age publishes more than just once a month. Check out our website, theactiveage.com, and facebook page for news, features and events throughout the month.
A day at the Zoo is more than just a visit—it’s an adventure filled with wonder, laughter, and unforgettable moments. Come grow with us at the Sedgwick County Zoo. Plan your adventure today!
Upcoming events
Quilt artist to show work ANDOVER — Quilt artist
Dottie Evans will be featured artist at Midtown Gallery in Hutchinson through the end of May. A mix of her art quilts, modern quilts and traditional quilts ranging in size from wall hangings to bed-size quilts are on display. Most are for sale.
Evans, the owner of White Crane Designs, says she has made “well over” 200 quilts in 25 years as a quilter, but only began quilting for hire in 2023. She offers a full line of quilting but her “greatest passion is to instill an appreciation for the artistry of quilting in everyone she meets.”
Midtown Gallery is located inside The Clayworks at 1125 N. Main St. in Hutchinson. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday. A meet-the-artist reception will be held from 5-8 p.m. Thursday, May 15. Free 55+ fitness class
BEL AIRE — The city of Bel Aire will begin offering a free fitness class for people 55 and older this month. The Enhance Fitness class is being taught by Joe Samaniego, diabetes
education and wellness coordinator for Central Plains Area Agency on Aging. Focusing on exercises related to balance, strength, flexibility and endurance, the class can be done sitting or standing.
The classes will be held at 2 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday and will run for four months starting May 5. To sign up, contact Sarah Christenson at (316) 744-2700 or schristenson@belaireks.gov
Dottie Evans
Council
Grove Day Trip:
The tales told by trees
By Joe Norris
People who live in more wooded parts of the nation enjoy making jokes about our tree-challenged prairie landscape. But because Kansas has fewer trees, a higher percentage of them have interesting stories. The small town of Council Grove has more than its share of historic trees, so my wife and I took a day trip up there to see the town’s three most famous ones.
First, there’s the Post Office Oak, a huge bur oak that died in 1990 at the age of 270. It’s just a stump now. But between 1825 and 1847, that tree was the primary source of news about the Santa Fe Trail. Travelers left messages in a cache at the base of the old oak, including updates about trail conditions and warnings about hostile Cheyenne tribes that travelers might encounter as they headed west. Some people also left personal mail, asking strangers who were heading east if they would please deliver a sealed envelope to the family back home.
The impressive stump of the Post Office Oak stands under a protective canopy in front of a stone building that was built as a family home in 1864. It now houses a museum of early medical equipment and railroad memorabilia, and is just one of many museums in town.
Council Grove’s second famous tree was an elm that was massive enough in 1867 for General George Custer and part of the 7th Cavalry to camp beneath it. Custer and his men were assigned to patrol the Santa Fe Trail. But Custer liked the Council Grove area so well that he came back two years later and purchased 120 acres of land just south of the tree.
By 1869, the Post Office Oak was no longer the most reliable method of mail delivery.
The third historic tree in Council Grove is sadly in the worst shape. Like the other two, the Council Oak is now just a gnarly stump under a wooden canopy. The old tree was knocked down by a wind storm in 1958. But back in 1825, it was standing tall, marking the spot where the Santa Fe Trail was born. Beneath the shade of the big oak on a hot summer day, U.S. Commissioners and chiefs of the Osage tribes signed a treaty to allow white settlers and merchants to follow the trail from the big oak to Santa Fe, and to pass peacefully through Indian territory. There was no town here at the time, just a mile-wide grove of trees along the banks of the Neosho River. But Commissioner George Sibley thought the agreement wouldn’t be official if the document didn’t identify the location of the signing. Since the council of leaders was being held in a grove of hardwoods, Sibley wrote “Council Grove” as the official treaty signing location. The name stuck.
One of the witnesses who signed the document in 1825 was Seth Hays, great grandson of Daniel Boone. Twenty-two years later, the mighty Council Oak had become part of a Kaw Reservation where Boone & Hamilton, two Santa Fe traders, had received approval to establish a trading post. Seth Hays was placed in charge of building the store and trading with the Kanza tribe. Hays constructed a log cabin that served both as his residence and the trading post, becoming the first white settler to live in what became the town of Council Grove.
Wagons began gathering at Council Grove so they could travel in groups for greater safety. More and more of them bought their supplies at the trading post. Business boomed. So after five years as an employee of Boone & Hamilton, Hays bought them out and began expanding. In addition to supplies, he also offered hot meals and rooms to travelers who were beginning the eight-week journey to Santa Fe. Notorious outlaw Jesse James was among the overnight guests. The place still stands facing the old Santa Fe Trail. The Trail is now Main Street and the business is now called Hays House. It no longer sells supplies or rents rooms, but it lays claim to being the oldest restaurant west of the Mississippi. It wasn’t mealtime when we stopped there, but we fortified ourselves for our journey westward with a shared blueberry cobbler.
A few blocks west of the Hays House is the Last Chance Store. Built in 1857, it’s the oldest remaining commercial building in Council Grove. As the name suggests, it was the last opportunity for Santa Fe Trail travelers to stock up on essentials. They wouldn’t see another store that sold salt or kerosene until they reached Santa Fe.
“We have no proof of what items were actually sold there,” Mark Brooks tells us. “But we know Indians traded there because we found some of their trading beads on the site.”
Brooks is the historic site administrator at the Last Chance Store and the Kaw Mission Historic Site. The Last Chance Store was gifted to the Kansas Historical Society in 2015 and restoration of the historic store began the following year. Construction crews carefully pulled up the old floorboards and numbered them. But before the historic boards were placed back in their original positions, an archaeological team conducted a dig on the site.
“We found more than 26,000 artifacts,” Brooks says. “But before you get too excited, each nail and each piece of glass is considered an artifact.”
But there were some fascinating pieces of history beneath the old
joists. Musket balls and percussion caps. Civil War-era horseshoes. An old pair of eyeglasses, a Masonic pin, a metal cup and a whiskey bottle. And in addition to those Indian trading beads were other forms of currency, including an 1844 quarter and an 1851 three-cent piece. Many of the items are now on display in the Kaw Mission Museum. Others are still being
See next page
floor
Photos by Joe Norris
The Farmers & Drovers Bank is one of Kansas' oldest. It was robbed by the infamous Fleagle brothers in 1926, precipitating a shootout.
Ken McClintock is Council Grove's unofficial historian.
What's left today of the Post Office Oak, once a kind of bulletin board for the Sante Fe Trail.
Council Grove
From previous page
analyzed and cataloged.
The Last Chance Store was the last commercial building that the wagon trains rumbled past. But the last house they saw was the RawlinsonTerwilliger Home, a couple blocks west. The two-story stone home was built in 1861 by Abraham and Mary Rawlinson.
The couple had barely finished sweeping up the last pile of construction dust when their son James enlisted in the 8th Kansas Volunteer Infantry in 1861. A year later, James and ten of his Council Grove friends were on the front lines of bloody Civil War battles all across the South.
“James Rawlinson was at the battle of Chickamauga, where the North lost 60 percent of their men,” Ken McClintock tells us. “The Union got routed there. They made up for it later at the Battle of Missionary Ridge. But in between those major battles was a lesser-known one where the Southern army was defeated by 200 of its own mules.”
McClintock is the chief cook, historian and story teller at Trail Days Cafe & Museum, which now occupies the Rawlinson-Terwilliger Home. He
Third
in a
series about day trips around Kansas
and his wife spent years restoring the old building and populating it with antiques from the 1800s. The cafe is operated by the Historic Preservation Corporation, and profits go toward further restorations. Their menu is authentic to the 1800s, too. They offer Indian entrees like bison pot roast, Early American favorites and Old World selections like schnitzel, using recipes brought to Council Grove by immigrants. Desserts include the Joe Frogger, a molasses and rum-flavored cookie invented over 200 years ago.
Other Council Grove citizens described McClintock as “an encyclopedia of knowledge” and as “our unofficial town historian.” They were not wrong. The Council Grove daily newspaper publishes History Shorts on the front page most days, offering snippets of local history. Ken has written 438 of them so far. “And I’m not even close to running out of good stories,” he says.
One of them is about the day in 1926 when the notorious Fleagle Brothers held up the Farmers & Drovers Bank on Main Street. “They locked everybody in the vault,” Ken tells us. “But they didn’t realize there
was a telephone in the vault. So the call for help went out immediately.”
Two Council Grove men were waiting outside with shotguns as Ralph and Jake Fleagle jumped into their stolen getaway car. Shotgun blasts rattled the windows of downtown businesses. The bank robbers managed to escape, but the car they’d driven was discovered later, riddled with buckshot holes and with bloodstains inside. Both outlaw brothers were killed in 1930.
There’s more history in Council Grove than can be discovered in a single day. But this year is a perfect time to visit the town because August 10, 2025, will mark 200 years since the treaty was signed under the Council Oak. A 200th birthday celebration will be held at Council Grove Park that day. And on September 19 and 20, The Voices of the Wind People pageant will tell the historically accurate story of the culture clash between Native Americans and Euro-Americans in Council Grove at the beginning of the Santa Fe Trail. Tickets will be available for both nights.
“Council Grove was the preeminent place for wagons to gather before hitting the Trail,” McClintock tells us. “It had plenty of water and campgrounds, but it also had something else - a whole bunch of
Shaara’s latest a thriller based on real events
“The Shadow of War” by Jeff Shaara (St. Martin’s Press, 2024, 349 pages, $30.00)
By Ted Ayres
Jeff Shaara is one of the most prolific authors of our times, with 15 New York Times bestselling novels to his credit. They include “To Wake The Giant,” “The Eagle’s Claw” and “The Old Lion.” He also wrote “Gods And Generals” and “The Last Full Measure” which are the prequel and sequel, respectively, to his father Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, “The Killer Angels.”
Shaara’s newest book is “The Shadow of War.” Subtitled “A Novel of
the Cuban Missile Crisis,” it’stold from the perspectives of Robert F. Kennedy, brother of the President and his Attorney General; Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party and Premier of the Soviet Union; and Joseph Russo, a professor of English at Florida State University, whose family absorbs the realities of crisis on their evening newscasts.
As Shaara writes, “As with every story I do, this story is told in a personal way, the dialogue and thoughts coming from the characters themselves. My research, always, calls on the words of those characters, their memoirs, diaries...or those of people around them, the people who
were there. In this case, I had one advantage I’ve not experienced before. One of those witnesses was me.”
Like Shaara, I grew up in the shadow of the Cold War. I remember my parents talking about atomic bomb tests in 1954, when I was 7 years old. I was also part of the generation that was told that getting beneath my school desk offered protection from a nuclear attack. I was 15 (by the way, Shaara would have
May quiz: Name these famous animal songs
By Nancy Wheeler
Use the clues below to identify popular songs featuring animals, real and imaginary. The answers appear on page 29.
1. Tom Jones had a huge hit in 1965 with what feline song used in a Peter Sellers’ movie by the same name?
2. What popular nursery rhyme and fingerplay song describes the adventures of an arachnid as it ascends and descends a waterspout?
3. What song about a semi-aquatic reptile was a smash hit for Elton John
May Quiz
in 1973?
4. What Elvis Presley recording was a huge hit for him in 1956, although it brought a huge outcry over his hip gyrations?
5. What American folk song about a magical creature that “lived in Honalee” was recorded by Peter, Paul, and Mary?
6. What song about an animal with a “waggly tail” was made famous
hardwood trees. Wagon breakdowns were common along the Trail, but hardwood trees were not. You couldn’t find any good hardwood between here and Santa Fe, and you couldn’t build a wagon wheel spoke out of cottonwood. So before they left Council Grove, travelers cut down some of our oak and walnut and loaded the timbers into their wagons to make any repairs they might need as they headed west.”
Not all trees in Kansas have great stories to tell. But the historic trees in Council Grove do. And some of the area’s hardwoods ended up carrying their stories all the way to New Mexico.
been 10) in October of 1962 when the Cuban Missile Crisis was taking place. Was the Soviet Union really putting atomic warheads 90 miles away from the USA? Was the Kennedy Administration willing to go to war? I can tell you that this was a trying time for a young kid from a small town in northwest Missouri.
This book is a page-turner and thriller in the vein of Tom Clancy or Robert Ludlum — but perhaps more compelling because it’s based on real events. At the end of the book, I again breathed a sigh of relief, as did the world in 1962, when Premier Khrushchev packed up his missiles and took them home.
Contact Ted Ayres at tdamsa76@ yahoo.com
Rocky III?
by Patti Page in
1953?
7. What Korean children’s song with hand movements was released by Pinkfong in 2016 and became the first YouTube video to reach 10 billion views?
8. What Christmas novelty song was performed by 10-year-old Gayla Peevey in 1953 when she desired an unusual animal for Christmas instead of a doll or Tinkertoy?
9. What 1982 hard rock song by Survivor was requested by Sylvester Stallone for his boxing drama movie
10. What song “in the jungle, the mighty jungle” was first released in the 1930s before becoming a centerpiece of Disney’s animated classic "The Lion King?"
11. What bird goes “tweet,” “tweet,” “tweet” in the well-known song first recorded by Bobby Day in 1958 but later covered by Michael Jackson?
12. What Harry Chapin song uses an old string game to describe the cycle of parenting in which a father doesn’t have time for his son?
The Hays House was started by the great grandson of Daniel Boone.
How seniors can save on auto insurance
Dear Savvy Senior,
Can you offer any tips to help seniors save on their auto insurance? I recently turned 70 and got hit with a 25 percent premium increase on my car insurance and am looking for ways to save.
Older Driver
Dear Driver,
As auto insurance rates across the country continue to rise for all drivers, seniors can face an even bigger price hike, once they reach their 70s and their driving skills begin to decline. Fortunately, there are ways you can reduce your premiums. To find out what discounts may be available to you, contact your auto insurer and inquire about these options.
Increase your deductible: Paying a higher deductible could save you big on premiums. For example, raising your deductible from $500 to $1,000 can bring your annual premiums down by 15 to 20 percent, on average.
Adjust your coverage: If you’re driving an older vehicle, you may want to consider dropping collision and/or comprehensive coverage if your premium is more than 10 percent of the car’s value. Collision insurance covers damage to your car if you’re involved in a crash (or if
you’re the victim of a hit-and-run) and comprehensive covers damage caused by acts of nature (such as storm damage), vandalism, theft or fire. But if you’re scaling back to liability coverage, make sure you have enough to pay for damages out of pocket if you’re in an accident or your car sustains damage due to weather, theft or another noncollision event.
Take a defensive driving course:
Some insurance companies offer defensive driving discounts — between 5 and 15 percent — to drivers who take a refresher course to brush up on their safety skills. Organizations such as AARP (aarpdriversafety.org), AAA (aaa.com/stop) and The National Safety Council (nsc.org) provide these classes, for around $20 to $30 and they can be taken online.
Report your milage: Most insurers offer discounts to customers who drive limited miles each year, which is usually beneficial to retirees who drive less because they don’t commute to work every day. These discounts usually
kick in when your annual milage drops below 7,500 or 10,000 depending on your provider.
Bundle policies: If your auto insurance policy is issued by a different company from the one insuring your home, call each insurer and ask if bundling the policies would be cheaper.
Sign up for driver monitoring: Some insurers offer discounts based on how and when you use your car. They will monitor things like your acceleration, braking habits, driving speeds and phone use, via smartphone app or a device that plugs into your car’s diagnostic port. Drivers can be rewarded anywhere from 10 to 30 percent for safe driving.
In addition, many insurance providers also offer discounts to drivers who do not have any violations or accidents for three or more years.
Ask about membership discounts: Many insurers offer discounts through professional associations, workers’ unions, large employers or membership organizations such as AAA, NARFE, AARP, etc. You could even qualify for savings based on the college you
attended or the fraternity or sorority you belonged to decades ago. Improve your credit: You may be able to lower your car insurance premium by paying your bills on time and reducing the amount of debt you carry. Insurers look at how their customers manage credit to get an idea of risk and to price policies. Better rates are given to those with good credit scores, typically 700 or above. Comparison shop: To find out if your current premium is competitive with other insurers, shop around through insurance marketplace websites like TheZebra.com, Insurify. com, Lemonade.com or Policygenius. com. Or use an independent agent (see trustedchoice.com/agent) to help you compare.
Get More Savvy
For more Savvy Senior tips, visit theactiveage.com. Topics for March include:
• How to Protect Yourself from Identity Theft Scams
• Where Solo Agers Can Find Help
• How to Choose a Volunteer Vacation
Both parties blast Legislature for not meaningfully lowering property taxes
Tim Carpenter Kansas Reflector
Kansas voters were assured by sloganeering candidates during last year’s August primary and November general elections that nothing would stand in the way of meaningful property tax reform in 2025. Voters made it clear they thought property taxes were too high, valuations were rising faster than paychecks and, incredibly, some people on fixed incomes who worked all their lives to were being forced out of their homes.
But when the Legislature adjourned last month, it had barely scratched the surface on rolling back state property taxes. Lawmakers delivered a $25.88 property tax break for the owner of a $150,000 home.
“We came here with a mandate,” said Sen. Mike Thompson, a Shawnee Republican. “I’m just
disappointed that we end up at the end of this session with no real relief for those homeowners who are facing selling their home or paying their property tax. That’s where we are.”
“When it came time to lead, both the governor and leadership came up short,” said Secretary of State Scott Schwab, a Republican candidate for governor.
The lone property tax break came from Senate Bill 35, which used general state tax dollars to replace a 1.5-mill state property tax dedicated to government building projects.
But the Legislature passed a bill renewing the state’s 20-mill property tax, valued at about $875 million annually, to provide financial support to K-12 public schools. The Legislature could have earmarked state income or sales tax dollars to public schools and trimmed state property tax dedicated
to that purpose.
Instead, the Republican-controlled House and Senate placed emphasis on income tax reform by voting to override Kelly’s veto of Senate Bill 269. This so-called income-tax-trigger bill was designed to methodically drop individual and corporate income tax rates to 4%.
In January, the conservative Kansas Policy Institute highlighted for legislators an opinion poll conducted by SurveyUSA on behalf of the Wichita think tank. 70% of conservatives in the poll were supportive of steps to hold down property taxes, while 67% of moderates and 52% of liberals were on board.
Rep. Tom Sawyer, a Wichita Democrat, said it was folly to ignore will of the people.
“Our constituents are asking for property tax relief,” said Sawyer, who
contended the income tax-trigger law would prove to be an obstacle to property tax reform.
“I’m very disappointed we did not do more for our constituents on property tax and I hope that we seriously are able to do something next session,” Wichita GOP Sen. Renee Erickson said.
Photo by Grace Hills/Kansas Reflector Republican Sen. Mike Thompson, right, and Democratic Sen. Oletha FaustGoudeau confer on the floor of the Kansas Senate during the 2025 legislative session.
Flip the script on aging for Older Americans Month
By Jennifer Lasley
Each year, the Central Plains Area Agency on Aging (CPAAA) celebrates Older Americans Month in May. Led by the Administration for Community Living (ACL), this year’s theme, “Flip the Script on Aging,” encourages a transformation in how individuals perceive, talk about and approach aging.
“When I think of ‘flipping the script,’ I consider my own personal feelings about aging — my own words, self-talk, and thoughts,” said Monica Cissell, Deputy Director for CPAAA. “This also leads me to think about how important it is to promote awareness of ageism and promote positive aging.”
Encouraging individuals to challenge stereotypes and eliminate misconceptions about older adults
helps break down barriers and promote engagement and purpose as we age. Exploring opportunities to stay active and involved encourages positive perspectives on aging.
“I think it helps for the community to remember to respect our elders,” said Lori Treece, RSVP Volunteer Coordinator for the Sedgwick County Department of Aging and Disabilities.
“Much can be learned by someone who has an open mind to listen and respectfully acknowledge the value of older adults — their priceless experience and words of wisdom. Endless opportunities exist when a community taps into this existing resource.”
We can all do our part to flip the script. Take some time to reflect on the words and phrases commonly
used to refer to older adults. Ask yourself whether those terms might be perceived as negative, judgmental, or misinformed. Then, consider replacing them with positive, complimentary, inspiring, or encouraging language. Avoid placing older adults into a stereotypical box. Instead, embrace and acknowledge that aging looks different for everyone. No two individuals age in the same way.
Celebrate at Wellness in the Park
In honor of Older Americans Month, CPAAA will host its fourth annual Wellness in the Park event on May 20 from 1 to 4 p.m. at Sedgwick County Park, Sunflower Shelter. This free event is open to the public. Attendees will have the opportunity to participate in wellness activities, learn about local programs, resources and
services,and leave with a few fun items to take home. Wellness demonstrations will run throughout the afternoon, and staff will be available to answer questions about caregiver support, volunteer opportunities, and more.
The event will conclude with the annual Irene Hart Award presentation and a reception. The award honors a person who has impacted the lives of older adults in Butler, Harvey or Sedgwick counties.
Follow the Central Plains Area Agency on Aging Facebook page for more details about Wellness in the Park, or call 316-660-5120 for information on services offered by CPAAA.
Jennifer Lasley is Director of Information and Community Services for CPAAA.
Caregiver strain: Understanding the silent struggle
By Angie King
Caring for a cherished person is an act of love —one that many people willingly take on for aging parents, disabled partners, or chronically ill family members. However, behind this selfless act is a serious challenge, caregiver strain. This term refers to the mental, physical and emotional exhaustion that can result from caring for someone with significant health needs.
Caregiver strain is especially common among family members who find themselves suddenly taking on medical or daily-living responsibilities without formal training or adequate support. They may juggle full-time jobs, personal responsibilities, and caregiving duties simultaneously often sacrificing their own well-being in the process.
The strain associated with the physical, emotional and financial demands that are often experienced with caregiving manifest in various ways. Physically, caregivers may suffer from fatigue, sleep deprivation, and chronic health problems due to the taxing nature of their tasks. Emotionally, many people report feelings of guilt, frustration, isolation, or depression. Financial stress is also a common factor, particularly when
caregivers cut back on work hours or use personal funds to cover care-related expenses.
An often-overlooked aspecs of caregiver strain is isolation. Caregivers often put the needs of their loved ones ahead of their own, leading them to neglect social connections, hobbies and self-care. Over time, this can erode identity and well-being.
If left unaddressed, caregiver strain can escalate into burnout — a state of total exhaustion that compromises not only the caregiver’s health but also the quality of care provided to the person in need.
Fortunately, there are ways to identify, manage and reduce caregiver strain. Recognizing early signs of strain allows for timely intervention, preventing burnout and preserving both the caregiver and the loved one’s wellbeing. Signs of caregiver strain include emotional changes, changes in sleep or appetite, loss of interest in previously enjoyed interests, feelings of isolation, physical exhaustion or fatigue, and health problems.
Seeking help — through friends, family, church or professional services — is a crucial first step. Respite
care, support groups and counseling offer emotional relief, strategies and resources. Simple self-care practices like regular exercise, rest, and a wellbalanced diet are also greatly impactful.
It’s equally important for caregivers to set realistic expectations and boundaries. No one person can do everything, and asking for help is not
a sign of weakness — it’s a necessity. Community programs, non-profits, and local health services often offer resources to ease the burden.
Angie King is chief clinical officer for Corterra Health.
Guest Column
seDgwick county senior centers
BEL AIRE
7651 E Central Park Ave 744-2700, ext 304 www.belaireks.org
BENTLEY/EAGLE 504 W Sterling, 796-0027
CHENEY 516 Main, 542-3721
CLEARWATER 921 E Janet, 584-2332
DERBY 611 N Mulberry Rd, 788-0223 www.derbyks.com
DOWNTOWN 200 S Walnut, 267-0197 www.seniorservicesofwichita.org
EDGEMOOR 5815 E 9th, 688-9392
ANDOVER
GARDEN PLAIN 1006 N Main, 535-1155
GODDARD 122 N Main, 785-398-1255
HAYSVILLE 160 E Karla, 529-5903
KECHI Kechi City Building, 744-0217, 744-1271
LA FAMILIA 841 W 21st, 267-1700
LINWOOD 1901 S Kansas, 263-3703
MCADAMS GOLDEN AGE 1329 E 16th, 337-9222
MT HOPE 105 S Ohio, 667-8956
MULVANE 632 E Mulvane, 777-4813
NORTHEAST 2121 E 21st, 269-4444
OAKLAWN 2937 Oaklawn Dr, 524-7545
ORCHARD PARK 4808 W 9th, 942-2293
PARK CITY 6100 N Hydraulic, 744-1199
VALLY CENTER COMMUNITY CENTER 314 E Clay, 755-7350
Butler county senior centers
410 Lioba Dr, 733-4441 www.andoverks.com
AUGUSTA 640 Osage, 775-1189
BENTON Lion’s Community Bldg, S Main St CASSODAY Cassoday Senior Center 133 S. Washington, 620-735-4538
DOUGLASS 124 W 4th, 746-3227
EL DORADO 210 E 2nd, 321-0142 LEON 112 S Main, 745-9200 or 742-9905
ROSE HILL 207 E Silknitter, 776-0170
senior weDnesDays
May 7
10:30 am Wichita Art Museum 1400 W. Museum Blvd., $2 admission. Info not available. 1:30 pm Museum of World Treasures 835 E. 1st St. Info not available.
May 14
10 am Sedgwick County Zoo, 5555 Zoo Blvd. (316) 266-8213, $4 Reaching New Heights 1:30 pm Advanced Learning Library, 711 W, 2nd, (316) 261-8500, Free. "The Rhino Keeper" with Jillian Forsberg.
Derby Sr Center, 611 Mulberry. 3rd Tuesday 7pm-9:30 pm. El Dorado Jam & Dance, Senior Center, 210 E. 2nd.
May 21
10 am Ulrich Museum of Art, 1845 Photo Critique with Jennifer Ray. 1:30 pm Great Plains Nature Center, 6232 E 29th St N. Info not available
May 28
10 am Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum, 204 S. Main. The Wizard Behind Oz. 1:30 pm Mid American All-Indian museum. 650 N Seneca (316) 3503340, $2 + tax admission; free for MAAIM members. Info not available.
Linwood Golden Age, 1901 S Kansas. Every Saturday 7pm-9:30pm. Call Jim 316-945-9451
Minisa Golden Age, 704 W 13th. Info 617-2560. Every Thursday 7pm9:30pm. Call Rita 316-364-1702 Oaklawn Activity Center, 4904 S. Clifton. Contra Dance1st Saturday of each month. 7pm-9pm. Call Amanda at 316-361-6863. Orchard Park Golden Age, 4808 W 9th. Every Friday 7pm-9:30pm. Call Casey 316-706-7464
Village Steppers Square Dance, Oaklawn Activity Center, 4904 S Clifton. 2nd and 4th Saturday of each month September through May 7:30 - 10:00 pm. Info: Mike Huddleson 316-650-2469
Westside Steppers Square Dance, 1st and 3rd Sunday of each month, 6-8:30 p.m., West Heights United Methodist (entrance "D"), 745 N. Westlink Ave. Info: Sheldon Lawrence (316) 648-7590.
Butler County Transit
Weekday transportation in El Dorado, Augusta and Andover. Rides to Wichita on Wed, Thu. Information: Augusta, 775-0500; El Dorado, 322-4321; toll free, 1-800-2793655. 48-hr notice required.
Harvey County
Transportation reservations or information: 316-284-6802 or 1-866-6806802. Round-trip: $8 Newton (wheelchair only), $12 Harvey County, $20 outside Harvey County. AVI to Newton: Tue, 12:304:30 pm from Burrton, Sedgwick, Halstead, Hesston, Walton.
NOTE: AGING PROJECTS, INC. PLANNED TO MAKE FRIENDSHIP MEALS AVAILABLE THROUGH PICKUP AND DELIVERY IF NECESSARY. FOR INFORMATION, CONTACT YOUR LOCAL MEAL SITE OR CALL 316-686-0074
Friendship Meals
Aging Projects serves a hot, nutritious meal weekdays for persons 60 and older in Sedgwick, Harvey and Butler counties. Reservations are necessary. For locations and reservations, call 316-686-0074
* Milk or grape juice is served with all meals. Meals fall within the following ranges: Calories 650-750; protein 25 grams or higher; fat 20 to 30 percent of calories; calcium 400 mg or higher; sodium 1,000 grams or less; fiber 9 grams or higher.
FUNDING MADE POSSIBLE THROUGH THE OLDER
Classified advertising
Two plots at Resthaven, Garden of the Cross, valued at $11,000 asking $8,000 for both.Seller pays transfer fee. 316-993-6105
6 plots and 4 vaults at White Chapel Memorial Gardens. Two plots and 2 vaults in Valor Lot 23A space 3&4, granite base, VA bronze Headstone & bronze vase. Value $10,500,Sell $5,000 OBO. Four Plots in Sermon on the Mount. Lot 326A spaces 1,2,3,4 with 2 Vaults, 1 Headstone. Value $13,490,Sell $7,500 OBO. 316-208-3248 Larry Harmon
HEAVENLY RESTING PLACE at Lakeview Gardens Everlasting Life. Lot 53 Spaces 3&4. Retail $3,695 each, Selling both for $3,500 OBO. Seller pays transfer fee. Call 316-393-6054
Resthaven Garden of Prayer. Lot 11A, Plots 1&2. $5,000 plus transfer fee buys both plots. 316-978-0743
2 plots Resthaven Gardens, Garden of Love, Section 20, lot 106-D, 1 and 2. Retails $20,975. Includes 2 underground vaults, 1 bronze headstone. Sell for $9,975. Buyer pays transfer fee. 316-680-6350.
Resthaven, 2 side by side plots Located in Garden of the Cross. $4000 each seller pays transfer fee. 316-734-3292
2 lots at Resthaven & Gardens of Memory, Sermon on the Mount, lot 123d, spaces 3&4. $10,900 for both. 817-905-2277- Pete Thomas
Resthaven Garden of Freedom, Military section, double lawn vault, two openings/closings, granite base/installation, make best offer, 209-
1 plot Lakeview Cemetary in Garden of the Cross Lot 45 Space 11 $2,400.00
Contact me with any questions at 316 516-7681 or SLLooney@Gmail.com
Lakeview Everlasting Life Lot 102 Spaces 3&4 Sell both for $4500 OBO Seller pays transfer fees. Cash, cashiers check or certified check only. Call 316 259-4446 please leave a message
White chaple memorial gardens. Sermon on the mount. 2 lots w/ 2 top seal vaults. Asking $8,000 OBO. Seller pays transfer fee. 913-515-5688.
Lakeview, Everlasting Life, double depth crypt with vaults and markers. Value $10,500, sell $5,000. Wanda, 316-619-8525.
Burial plot and two vaults at Walnut Valley Cemetery, El Dorado, Ks. Good Shepherd, Block No. C, Lot 100, Spaces 7-8. Retail price $2,100, asking $1,000. (316)322-0492.
Old mission cemetery at Hillside and 21st. One crypt in Mausoleum. Opening/closing negotiable. Call 316-253-9905.
Residential/ Commercial MOWING • LANDSCAPING BUSH TRIMMING & MORE Family owned and operated FULLY INSURED with over 35 yrs experience 316-737-4890 www.impactlawncareks.com
WEST SIDE LAWN SERVICE
* Mowing * Leaf & Gutter Cleaning
* Shrub Trimming * Flower Beds Free
Clean Cut Lawncare and Fencing
Single owner with over 9 years’ experience
Residential/Commercial Mowing
Spring Cleanup
Mulching/Rototilling
Serving west Wichita, Goddard and Cheney 316-821-6341
Landscaping, Scalping Tree & Shrub Trimming Fence building and repair
Insured
Dedicated Senior Medical Centers to open three Wichita clinics
By Carrie Rengers
The Wichita Eagle
A Louisville, Ky., health care company has entered the Wichita market with plans to serve the senior community with four or five clinics.
CenterWell Senior Primary Care is picking up where Miami-based ChenMed left off with its Dedicated Senior Medical Centers. ChenMed had planned at least three of the clinics in Wichita and opened its first one at 13th and Grove in early 2023. CenterWell has purchased that clinic and renamed it.
There will be what the company called “a grand reopening” from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on May 2. There will be tours and complimentary food and drinks.
“It’s kind of unveiling CenterWell,” said David Wurth, CenterWell’s associate operations director for Kansas and Missouri.
CenterWell, along with Conviva Senior Primary Care in Florida and Texas, is part of Humana. Humana bills itself at the largest and fastestgrowing provider for senior primary care in the United States, with more than 340 centers in 15 states serving almost 400,000 people. Wichita is one of its newest markets.
Several CenterWell Senior Primary Care clinics similar to this one will be opening in Wichita over the
next three to five years.
“Right now CenterWell has seven centers up in Kansas City, and so it’s really an extension of that footprint here in the Kansas-Missouri area,” Wurth said. “It’s a market that is severely underserved for senior care — especially the approach that we use.”
He said CenterWell isn’t focused solely on physical care but on social and emotional needs as well. “COVID took an extremely hard hit on this population,” Wurth said.
He said CenterWell can help combat feelings of isolation that still exist in the senior population.
“That’s kind of the type of care we look at as being more holistic.”
Even simply coming into the clinics feels different when seniors see other people their age. Wurth said it can be a more comfortable environment.
“It resonates well,” he said. “I think people just feel more relaxed.”
A traditional primary care clinic can treat seniors well, Wurth said. However, just as young patients can benefit from pediatric care, so too can seniors benefit from a more focused approach.
“They’re a very unique group of individuals that require, I think, a more specialized care,” Wurth said. “All we see are seniors that are 65 and over.”
Unlike some primary care clinics
that see thousands of patients a year, Wurth said, “Our providers see somewhere between 400 and 500 patients, so we can spend more time.”
He said ChenMed was focused on seeing more patients and seeing them more frequently.
“We think that spending more time with them on each visit . . . is more beneficial,” he said. “We just don’t see as many patients every day because we’re spending more time with them.”
Appointments typically last 40 minutes. For up to 30 of those minutes, the provider meets with the patient.
“In most other clinics in town, you’re lucky to get 5 to 8 minutes,” Wurth said. “That’s probably the biggest difference.”
There is a dispensary on site to fill about 200 of the most common medications. Another hallmark of CenterWell is locating in care deserts and where patients particularly are in need.
“Part of the CenterWell care model is really focusing on those in disadvantaged economic locations or minorities because they tend to have more chronic conditions that need more attention,” said Lisa Ferguson, corporate communications lead for Humana and CenterWell.
She said 64% the company’s clinics are purposely place in disadvantaged areas. CenterWell plans its second
5 Things Funeral Directors Wish Everyone Knew
Family Features
Most people don’t want to think about death – let alone talk about it. When the time comes, families often find themselves overwhelmed, not only by grief but by the many decisions that need to be made quickly.
Funeral directors witness this every day. They see the stress and confusion that can come when there is no plan in place and the peace of mind that comes with thoughtful preparation.
After consulting funeral directors nationwide, the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) uncovered five things they wish families knew before a death occurs.
• It’s Never Too Early to Start Planning
While everyone knows death and taxes are inevitable, conversations about death are often avoided.
Simply documenting your wishes and discussing your preferences with your family can alleviate the difficult decisions your loved ones will have to make in the future. Speak with a funeral director to explore the many options for planning a meaningful funeral.
• Legal and Financial Details Can
Cause Unexpected Issues
Families often don’t realize power of attorney ends at death, meaning a designated person can no longer make decisions or access bank accounts once an individual dies.
To avoid complications, consider adding a trusted loved one to your bank account and ensure life insurance beneficiaries are up to date. Too often, deceased individuals leave minor children, deceased spouses or former partners as beneficiaries, leading to legal and financial challenges.
• Final Wishes Shouldn’t Be In Your Will
Many people believe the best place to document their final wishes is in their will. However, wills are often not read until after funeral services take place, making them an unreliable way to communicate last requests. Instead, discuss and document your wishes with family members or a trusted funeral professional who can keep your wishes on file until there is a need.
• There Are a Variety of Memorialization Options
End-of-life planning offers more choices than many realize. While burial remains a common preference,
CenterWell clinics are part of Humana, the nation's largest provider of senior primary care.
clinic at the Parklane shopping center, at Lincoln and Oliver. The facility is ready to go, but the clinic is still hiring staff. It should be open by late fall. The company plans four or five clinics over the next three to five years.
“We think there is a need to serve close to we think 10,000 patients,” Wurth said.
So what if you’re already seeing a primary care physician? Wurth said to ask yourself a couple of questions.
“Are you getting the full attention that you need and the care that you deserve?” He said there’s no need for people to change “if they are happy and they are getting the care they need.”
“If not,” Wurth said, “here’s our team.”
Reprinted with permission of The Wichita Eagle.
cremation is an increasingly popular choice and can even include a viewing and funeral service. Additionally, eco-friendly options, such as alkaline hydrolysis, natural burial and natural organic reduction are becoming more widely available for those seeking green memorialization. In fact, according to NFDA’s 2024 Consumer Awareness and Preferences Study, 68% of respondents expressed interest in green funeral options.
Exploring these possibilities with a funeral professional can help ensure your final arrangements reflect your values, traditions and personal wishes.
• Funeral Directors Don’t Just Manage Funerals — They’re Trusted Guides In Honoring Life
Funeral directors play a vital role in helping families create meaningful services that reflect their loved one’s life, values and traditions. Whether planning ahead or facing a recent loss, funeral professionals provide expertise, compassionate care and personalized guidance during one of life’s most difficult moments.
Choosing the right funeral director is an important decision and finding someone who understands your needs
can make all the difference in honoring your loved one in a personal and meaningful way.
Start the conversation today by talking about end-of-life planning. It isn’t easy, but it’s one of the most important conversations you can have with your loved ones. A little planning can make a world of difference.
Use comprehensive resources like RememberingALife.com, which is designed to guide families through every stage of the journey, including planning, funeral options and grief resources. The site offers valuable tools and support, such as the “Find a Funeral Home” tool to connect families with compassionate, local funeral directors and much more.
Courtesy photo
the best foot care in
Dr. Weaver looks forward to serving his patients from all across our region for many more years to come.
Well played!
Quartet of veteran symphonic performers retire
Four musicians with a combined 162 years of service to the Wichita Symphony were recognized during the final concert of the symphony’s 80th season last month. Each received an engraved plaque and lifetime season tickets to the symphony, which is the largest professional symphony in the state.
Violinist Chelley Graves (37
years), tubist Phillip Black (39 years), violist Cynthia Cook (42 years) and trumpeter Gray Bishop (44 years) were praised by Conductor Daniel Hege, who said the symphony “will miss them.”
“These musicians have brought not only extraordinary talent to the stage, but also a deep commitment to our community.”
Quiz Answers from page 22
1. "What’s New Pussycat?"
2. "Itsy Bitsy Spider"
3. "Crocodile Rock"
4. "Hound Dog"
5. "Puff the Magic Dragon"
6. "How Much is that Doggie in the Window"
7. "Baby Shark"
8. "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas"
9. "Eye of the Tiger"
10. "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"
11. "Rockin’ Robin"
12. "Cat’s in the Cradle"
May Theatre
By Diana Morton Forum Theatre, at the Wilke Center, 1st United Methodist Church, 330 N. Broadway. Escape to Margaritaville, music and lyrics by Jimmy Buffett. Tully, part-time singer and full-time charmer, thinks he’s got life all figured out until a beautiful tourist steals his heart and makes him question
everything. Now – May 11. 8pm;
Tickets $34 – $44 each; 10% military discount and 1/2 price student tickets with a valid student ID. 316-618-0444
Sing Us a Song the Piano Man – The Words & Music of Billy Joel. May 24-25. Call 316-618-0444 for information and tickets.
Guild Hall Players, St. James Episcopal Church, 3750 E. Douglas. The Cover of Life by R T Robison. A regional hit, this dramedy portrays a
Servicing Wichita & Surrounding Areas
family of women in a rural community when all the men are away in WWII. Their story is filled with charm, fun, and is deeply affecting.8 pm May 22-24 and 7 pm May 25. Tickets $12; Students $10. 316-683-5686 Mosley Street Melodrama, 234 N. Mosley. Hot Topic Time Machine by Scott Noah, followed by a new Musical Comedy Revue. Now – May 17. Tickets, dinner, and show $36-40; show only $26-30. 316-263-0222 Roxy’s Downtown, 412 E. Douglas, cabaret-style theatre. Cafe Puttanesca. A colorful cast of characters navigate the spicy tangles of life, love and linguine in this romantic comedy set to music.
Doors open at 6:30pm; Show begins at 7:00 pm Wed-Th and 8:00 pm Fri-Sat. May 1-17. Tickets $40. 316-265-4400 Wichita Community Theatre, 258 N. Fountain. Into the Breeches! by George Brant. While a playhouse’s director and leading men are off at war, the director’s wife sets out to produce an all-female version of Shakespeare, with comic results Now – May 4, 8 pm with Sat and Sun matinees, 2 pm. Tickets $18 for adults, $16 for military/senior/ students. 316-686-1282
Contact Diana Morton at dianamorton12@sbcglobal.net
