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K-State Football

Posted on by Pat Melgares

It’s the Big 12 championship football game in Arlington, Texas. The offensive starters take the field. The big offensive linemen get in position for the first snap. A look at the roster reveals that this is homegrown talent: Three of K-State’s five starting offensive linemen come from the state of Kansas.

K-State football coach on awards stand holding the Big 12 championship trophy
Big 12 football championship trophy presentation

Cooper Beebe, Hadley Panzer, and Hayden Gillum are the Sunflower State starting linemen who help anchor Kansas State’s offensive line. Beebe is from Kansas City, Kansas and attended Piper High School. Panzer is from the rural community of Lakin, population 2,205, and Gillum is from the rural community of Plainville, population 1,746 people. Now, that’s rural.

Cooper Beebe became a starter at K-State in 2020 – the same year he first earned All-Big 12 Academic honors. In 2021, he earned First Team All-Big 12 honors from both the league’s coaches and Associated Press — the youngest offensive lineman to be named to the first team by either organization.

Beebe also was the first Wildcat freshman or sophomore offensive lineman to be named a First Team All-Big 12 performer since Dalton Risner in 2016. Beebe entered the 2022 season with lots of accolades: Pre-season All Big 12, pre-season All-American, and named to the Outland Trophy watch list.

At 6-foot-4 and 322 pounds, Beebe’s 2022 season has been outstanding. He was named a First Team All-Big 12 performer by the Associated Press for a second-consecutive season and First Team All-American by The Sporting News.

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Stan Weber

Posted on by Pat Melgares

What can we learn from sports? Sports can teach us the excitement of competition, the value of hard work and preparation, the sting of defeat and the thrill of hard-fought victory.

Portrait, Stan Weber
Stan Weber

Stan Weber has experienced all of this: As a player, a commentator and as a dad.

As his last child reaches the end of his collegiate athletic career, Weber recently reflected on the value of athletics – not just the lessons for sports, but lessons for life.

Weber is a lifelong sports fan. “No one I’ve met yet loved sports as much as I do,” he said.

He couldn’t get enough: “When I was four years old, I’d be watching games on TV. My friends wanted me to come out and play, but I’d tell them to wait until halftime.”

Weber grew up playing multiple sports, living in the suburbs of west Wichita. He attended school in the nearby rural community of Goddard, population 5,084 people. Now, that’s rural.

Weber was an outstanding athlete, named MVP of the Shrine Bowl his senior season. He was even named by the Wichita Eagle as the state’s Male Athlete of the Year. He was recruited elsewhere by future superstar coaches such as Jimmy Johnson and Pat Dye, but chose Kansas State. He appreciated the whole package of K-State’s sports, academics…and especially the people.

“I came to K-State because of the people,” Weber said. “These are true Kansans with a love for each other.”

He overcame an injury to win the starting quarterback job in his junior year, became a team captain and led the team in rushing while earning Academic All-American honors his senior season. He also met his future wife, K-State cheerleader Nancy Freshnock of Manhattan.

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Kansas Profile – Now That’s Rural: Lyndsi Oestman, Loma Vista Nursery

Posted on by Jason Hackett

By Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University.

From pitches to plants. From hardballs to hibiscus. From the strike zone to the root zone. Those phrases are a way of describing the transition made by a Major League Baseball player who, with his daughter, has developed one of the leading plant nurseries in the nation.

Lyndsi Oestman is vice president of Loma Vista Nursery in Ottawa, Kansas. She shared this remarkable story.

Lyndsi’s dad, Mark Clear, grew up in California where he worked at his best friend’s family’s avocado ranch. Mark enjoyed tree pruning and avocado picking. He also enjoyed baseball. In fact, he was such a good player that he was drafted into Major League Baseball as a pitcher.

While being developed in the minor leagues, he was playing in Des Moines when he met the young woman who would become his wife. He went on to a 17-year major-league career, serving as a two-time all-star relief pitcher for the California Angels, Boston Red Sox and Milwaukee Brewers.

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