Vol 37 • No. 11
WOW!
ACTIVE AGING PUBLISHING, INC 125 S West St., Suite 105 Wichita, Ks 67213
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By Elma Broadfoot Holy Silver Campaign, readers! August was a record month for donations; they doubled from last year. We can stand a couple more months like that. Goal: Actually, we only $75,000 have three months left in this calendar year to make our $75,000 goal. As of this writing, we’re sitting at $54,000 in donations. We need another $21,000 to make our goal. That’s at least $7,000 a month. Or, we could set another record and go beyond the goal. Holy Silver Campaign, readers. That would be awesome! Contact Elma Broadfoot at ebroadfoot@aol.com To read the names of the newest supporters who have donated $75 and more, and to learn the four easy ways you can make a donation, see page 21.
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October 2016
Tallgrass festival past, future By Bob Curtright The fifth year was the turning point for the Tallgrass Film Festival, says co-founder Lela Meadow-Conner. That’s when she knew that Wichita’s “stubbornly independent” annual gathering of filmmakers and film lovers, now gearing up for its 14th year, would make it. That wasn’t always the case. Everybody thought the idea of Wichita hosting a world-class regional film festival was a pie-in-the-sky fantasy when Timothy Gruver proposed it in 2002. He grew up in Wichita, studied filmmaking at Brigham Young University and began his career in the animation wing of DreamWorks Studios. When he came home after a 12-year absence, he was cheered by a burgeoning Old Town, restoration of the Orpheum Theatre, construction of the architecturally adventurous Exploration Place and the luxurious Warren Theatres. Gruver decided the city needed
Courtesy photo
Festival's Lela Meadow-Conner.
a film festival. “If Wichita can host Pavarotti, Domingo and Cher in the same year, there’s no reason it can’t do a great film festival. Film, as an art form, is so accessible... the audience is here.” Then, as now, his idea was a festival by and for filmmakers and film lovers rather than dealmakers. He envisioned
the exchange of ideas through Q&As with visiting filmmakers, workshops and labs. He got the attention of then-mayor Bob Knight, gathered an 11-member board of business, civic and philanthropic leaders to pursue funding and grants, and enlisted help from fellow independent film producer Lela Meadow-Connor. Gruver moved back to Wichita to oversee festival preparations while she worked long distance and came to Wichita during the festival. That first year in 2003, they attracted a couple thousand people for a weekend headquartered at the Old Town Warren Theatre. Two years later tragedy struck. Just weeks before the third festival, Gruver collapsed while walking through Old Town and died of a grand mal seizure. He was 33. Meadow-Connor and the volunteers were faced with cancelling, but they couldn’t do that to “Tim’s baby.” They cut the festival to a manageable See Tallgrass, page 22
Hospice eased patient, family through death Editor’s note: This is the second of three articles dealing with the end of life and grieving. By Elma Broadfoot “I looked forward to Sue coming on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays.” She helped Dean Britting care for his wife, Debbie, before her death last March. Sue is a hospice aide who bathed Debbie and supported Dean as he fed, clothed and tended to his wife of 49 years. “Death is never a pleasant experience but (Harry Hynes Hospice) made it possible for our family to anticipate and understand how to make Debbie as comfortable as possible as her life slipped away. This very kind assuring help was tremendously com-
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forting...at a most difficult time.” Dean and his four grown children were with Debbie when she passed in her bedroom. “The love she bestowed on our kids came back to her 10-fold” during the three months she was bed ridden, Dean said. “The kids traveled to see her as often as they could.” Debbie was familiar with hospice. Her father was at Harry Hynes. And she was familiar with brain tumors as her grandmother and an aunt died of them. She did not mention brain tumors during a month-long battle with a continuous, severe headache. In fact, Debbie went to Atlanta to help a daughter settle into a new home.
Central Plains Area Agency on Aging or call your county Department on Aging: 1-855-200-2372
When she returned home with no relief from her headache, the family agreed that she should take a doctor's appointment originally scheduled for Dean. In May 2013, an MRI showed a golf-ball size, Stage 4 glioblastoma, a fast growing and aggressive cancer. Surgery occurred a week after the initial diagnosis and was followed up with six weeks of proton/chemotherapy treatments at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. There were trips every three to four weeks back to Houston; then to The City of Hope in Duarte, CA; Texas Oncology in Austin; and finally to the UCSF Medical Center in San FranSee Hospice, page 3
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