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Vol 45 No. 11
Kansas’ Largest Newspaper
November 2024
Printed at Valley Center, KS
When one room schooled all
As one-room schools return, the originals spark memories
ACTIVE AGING PUBLISHING, INC 125 S West St., Suite 105 Wichita, Ks 67213
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By Joe Stumpe Nancy Wooten Blanchat was the youngest student attending a oneroom schoolhouse near Stafford, Kan., when her teacher sent her outside while older pupils worked on their cursive handwriting. As Blanchat recalls, she was supposed to study shadows as some kind of science project. Instead, the unsupervised 5-year-old found herself being stared down by a giant bull near the merry-go-round. She froze briefly, then ran back to tell her teacher. “She had to call the neighbors to tell them their bull was out,” Blanchat, now a resident of Augusta, said. Blanchat is one of thousands of Kansans who share memories of rural one-room schoolhouses in which students of all ages studied together. While such schoolhouses bring to
Photo by Jim Blanchat
Nancy Blanchat, seen here visiting the one-room schoolhouse in Latham, Kan., attended a similar one near Stafford growing up. mind scenes from “Little House on operating in Kansas in the 1950s and the Prairie,” set in the late 1800s, there early '60s. were still several hundred such schools Today, the one-room schoolhouse See School, page 6
Self-care leads her to fitness turnaround
By Joe Stumpe With parents and grandparents who lived into their 90s, Roz Hutchinson should have a leg up on longevity. Roz Hutchinson As she neared 70, her physical condition told a different story. “I had the genetics, but I didn’t have the lifestyle to do the same,” Hutchinson said. She does now. Since the beginning of 2023, Hutchinson has shed 55 pounds, built muscle mass and cardiovascular capacity and generally transformed her body. She’s done it through exercise, eating better and paying careful attention to her health. See Fitness, page 8
Volunteers honor sacrifice of WWI hero
By Amy Geiszler-Jones In a garage space in Old Town, about a dozen volunteers are rebuilding a rare World War I-era aircraft to memorialize Wichita’s only aviator to win a Medal of Honor. They range from childhood model plane builders and military history buffs to veterans of U.S. conflicts going back to the Korean War. Most were already familiar with the story of the man they are honoring when they started restoring the plane, but they feel too many Wichitans are not. Second Lt. Erwin Bleckley was a
Photo by Amy Geiszler-Jones
Jerry Carpenter, left, and Floyd Moody are helping rebuild a World War-I era plane to honor Medal of Honor recipient Erwin Bleckley.
See Hero, page 7
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