Some people minister from the pulpit. Some can minister with a paintbrush. Deborah Hanes-Nelson is a person who can do both.
Deb Hanes-Nelson
Today we’ll meet this talented woman who has been both a preacher and a painter in rural Kansas.
Deb Hanes-Nelson is a watercolorist. She was born in Florence but her family moved around Kansas because her father was a relief foreman for the Santa Fe Railroad. “When you’re out somewhere and you don’t know anybody, you can pick up a pad of paper and draw,” Hanes-Nelson said. “I’ve always enjoyed drawing and painting.”
Her high school didn’t offer art classes, but Hanes-Nelson took lessons from a local woman. After high school, she moved to Topeka, where she felt called to the ministry. She attended Washburn University and then St. Paul Theology School in Kansas City, launching a 35-year career serving as a pastor in the United Methodist Church.
She also met and married her husband, Doug, who is a finish carpenter and custom woodworker. They had one son.
“I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something.” ― Edward Everett Hale.
That quote might describe many volunteers across the nation who seek something specific – large or small – that they can do to benefit their community. Today we’ll meet a volunteer who is doing it with flowers
(l to r) Ruth Shearer, Donna Liddle, Rose Garrison, Pat Otter
in the community of Norton.
Rose Garrison grew up in Beaver City, Nebraska. After graduation, she moved to Norton, Kansas to work for Southwestern Bell Telephone and to marry her future husband, Duaine Garrison, who managed the Harding Glass Company store in Norton.
After their marriage, Rose also went to work for Harding Glass as office manager for the Norton store. They had three daughters and one son.
The Garrisons were very committed to the community. Rose volunteered for the Chamber of Commerce, church, school and various other projects.
One day her boss (who was also her husband) noted she was tying up the business phone line with community service-related calls. Rose then called the telephone company she had worked for and asked if they would install another line to the office.
“That began my volunteer life for Norton and pleased my husband/boss,” Rose said.
One spring, Rose helped several other lady volunteers beautify the community by planting flowers in the downtown business district. This began 40 years of planting flowers, installing window displays, creating new parks, and beautifying parking lots, the swimming pool area, medians and the town. It was appreciated by many people in the community.
“I loved the work,” Rose said. It was giving back to the community that had been good to their family.
Years later, Darla Beasley, director of the Norton Chamber of Commerce, contacted Rose and asked for help in locating space for a bronze statue and bench that were being given by an anonymous donor. Rose was told that the statue and bench were being donated by a family in recognition for a loved one who had supported Norton.
Darla and Rose looked around the community but weren’t sure where the statue should be situated. They asked Warren Bullock, a long time contributor to Norton, where he thought it should be placed. He suggested the Norton Library courtyard. Everyone agreed. The process of designing and installing the statue and bench followed.
A date was set for the statue’s dedication and the public was invited. All of Rose and Duaine’s children came home that weekend from long distances so Rose figured she would stay home from the dedication and visit with them.
“Oh no,” the children said. “We want to find out who the statue is for. You should go, we will go with you.”
The presentation began and speeches were made. Then came the surprise announcement of the person being honored: “Rose, please come forward.”
Her tears flowed with deep appreciation to her community and especially for her family who had made the donation. They dedicated the bronze statue of a little girl watering her flowers, near a bench on which to rest.
“My heart was full,” Rose said. “I only wished that my husband who had passed could have been there.”
In 2022, Rose was given the Chamber Citizen of the Year Award. The tears flowed again. Rose stated, “This award is for all of you and for all that you contribute to our town. What I do is not for credit but in thanks for a community that has given us so much. It’s the least I can do!”
Rose continues to work with other volunteers to help keep Norton a pleasant place to live. “It is home. The people who live here are our friends,” Rose said. “Volunteering gives you a satisfaction that you are doing something for others and for the place you live.”
Volunteers like Rose are especially important for rural communities such as Norton, population 2,841 people. Now, that’s rural.
“I cannot do everything, but I can do something.” Rose Garrison has found a way to make a difference in her community by planting flowers. For her, voluntary service has blossomed.
Life includes all ages and stages. What if there was a place that could integrate facilities in a way that would beneficially serve multiple ages together?
Such a new facility is being created in rural Kansas. Thanks to the Phillips County Review and writer Brennan Engle for much of the following information.
Cy Moyer was a retired banker, outstanding community leader, great gentleman, and a long-time board member of the Huck Boyd Foundation and the Dane G. Hansen Foundation in Phillips County.
He was also a personal friend of mine and a co-founder of the Huck Boyd Institute. Cy passed away on April 7, 2023 at age 88. Sixteen days before his passing, Cy’s last public official act was to participate in the groundbreaking of an innovative new project of which he had been a strong supporter.
The project is called Logan Intergenerational Family and Education Center, or LIFE Center. It’s to be located in the Phillips County community of Logan.
Logan school principal David Kirkendall was living near Greensburg when he saw that community devastated by the 2007 tornado. As he saw public facilities rebuilt – including the hospital, school and nursing home — he wondered if they could have been combined.
“Volunteers do not necessarily have the time; they just have the heart.”
Axtell Community Grocery Store
That quote by author Elizabeth Andrew might be a way to describe the many volunteers who help their communities in rural Kansas. Today we’ll meet a group of volunteers who have completed several community projects, the most recent of which is to bring grocery service back to their hometown.
Sherry Ronnebaum and her husband David are among the volunteers involved with the Axtell Economic Development Corporation, or AEDC. Sherry and Dave were the long-time owners of Axtell’s hardware store from which they recently retired, although Dave continues to do appliance repair.
In 1992, the American Legion building in Axtell burned down. A group of volunteers led the effort to rebuild it as the Legion Community Building.
AEDC was formed as a 501(c)3 organization to implement improvement projects for the community. In 2002, AEDC worked on a new firehouse that also housed emergency services. In 2021, Dave Ronnebaum spearheaded the effort to build an addition to the Legion building.
“Let’s go to the port.” If that calls to mind a big harbor full of ships and seagulls, think again.
There are other kinds of ports such as an airport – or a railport. Today we’ll learn about a rural Kansas county that is using a port authority to support railroad infrastructure so as to benefit the local economy.
During the last two weeks, we met Carolyn Dunn, president of the Stafford County Port Authority and past director of economic development in Stafford County. In the conclusion of this three-part series, we will learn about a port authority.
Stafford County is an agriculturally-based county in the middle of Kansas. One of its assets is a railroad line.
When Dunn first took the job as county economic development director, she was approached by three companies that were interested in establishing a large grain car loading facility along the railroad in the county. In each case, the deals did not pencil out, and the companies went elsewhere.
“We had to figure out how we could make this viable for them,” Dunn said. “Rather than those companies having to absorb all the cost of land and track, we looked for a way to structure this so that it makes it advantageous to attract businesses.”
Net Positive. That’s the name of an innovative architectural studio that is helping create affordable, energy-efficient housing in communities across Kansas.
Last week we learned about Carolyn Dunn, president of the Stafford County Port Authority and past director of economic development in Stafford County. She recognized that lack of housing was a significant obstacle to her county’s economic growth.
“You can’t do anything without housing for people,” Dunn said.
Evidence suggested that local homebuyers needed houses closer to a $100,000 price point, rather than the $300,000 houses being built in some places.
“We’ve got to find a way to build housing less expensively,” Dunn said. “We looked into all sorts of things: Modular homes, kit houses…but couldn’t find just the right thing.”
In spring 2019, Dunn took her sons to a livestock judging event at Kansas State University. While on campus, she visited college departments regarding open Americorp positions. She learned about Michael Gibson, a faculty member who was leading an innovative housing design build project in Kansas City.
“Would you be interested in a rural project?” Dunn asked. The answer was yes.
That quote was cited by K-State sportswriter D. Scott Fritchen in an article about a young ballplayer who used the transfer portal and became an impact player at her new school. The young player posted that quote on her mirror to remind herself that sometimes we have to make a change if we are to better our situation.
Is this true for communities as well? Today we’ll meet another woman who has been a leading force for positive change in her community.
Carolyn Dunn is president of the Stafford County Port Authority and past director of economic development in Stafford County. She has seen change firsthand.
Dunn grew up on a farm near the rural community of Ottawa, population 12,625 people. Now, that’s rural. She studied agricultural economics at K-State and worked in Washington, D.C. before meeting and marrying Brian Dunn and moving back to his farm in Stafford County, Kansas.
By 2011, she was the mother of three boys and serving on the local school board. “We were talking about declining enrollments,” Dunn said. “I commented that we didn’t even have an economic development program in the county and we need one.” Continue reading “Carolyn Dunn, rural grocery”→
A fingerprint. We leave those everywhere, on anything we touch.
One hundred years ago, law enforcement officers learned that fingerprints could be used as a tool in fighting crime. Where was the first case that a single, latent fingerprint was used by the FBI to convict a criminal? Would you believe in rural Kansas?
The Fleagle Gang was a ruthless band of bank robbers and murderers during the 1920s. They would play a major role in the use of fingerprints in law enforcement, in a groundbreaking case in western Kansas.
The Fleagles moved from Iowa to the Garden City area in 1886. The family had two younger sons – Ralph and Jake – who liked to gamble and drink rather than work. They moved to the west coast.
Jake came back to Oklahoma, committed robbery, was arrested, fingerprinted, and jailed. When he got out, he and his older brother Ralph took up a life of crime.
They started robbing card games and then banks. After grabbing the loot, they would return to Kansas. Historians and criminal researchers estimate that they committed 60 percent of the robberies committed in California during that time, plus many robberies in Oregon, Kansas, and Colorado.
The three Rs. When I was a kid, that referred to Readin,’ `Ritin,’ and `Rithmetic.
Karen Everhart, with Vanessa
Today we’ll learn about a different set of Rs that are being applied to the world of horses: Rescue, Rehabilitate, and Re-home. Those are the goals of a remarkable enterprise that is helping to save and benefit horses in rural Kansas.
Karen Everhart is executive director of the non-profit organization Rainbow Meadows Equine Rescue & Retirement, which she co-founded with her husband Dave. Karen and Dave are from the Wichita area originally. Everhart said she was the proverbial “horse-crazy girl” who spent summers with horses on her family’s farm in southeast Kansas.
She met and married Dave who spent 38 years in military service. Everhart became a medical administrator but never forgot her love of horses.
In 1981, she purchased the first horse of her own: A golden Palomino mare named Rainbow. Over time, she added to her horse herd. In 2005, she retired from her health administrator position and purchased a ranch in Chautauqua County.
“People would contact me about some horse that was abandoned or in a kill pen and say, `Could you help this horse?’” Everhart said. Within four months, her horse herd doubled from 10 to 20. It was clear there was a need.
Let’s have a steak dinner at the beautiful Savoy at 21c restaurant in downtown Kansas City. Where did this Black Angus beef come from? It was brought here directly from a farm in the Flint Hills of rural Kansas.
Margot, Sara, Jay and Stella Shivers
Sara and Jay Shivers are the owners and operators of Salt Creek Farm in Greenwood County where Sara grew up. She is the daughter of Don and Jan Stephens who run cattle at Rafter S Ranch.
Sara went to K-State. She earned a master’s degree at the University of North Texas where she met her husband Jay, a country boy who was getting a master’s in urban planning. They lived in the Dallas area and Sara worked in non-profit management.
Sara had always wanted to come back to the ranch to help her father. She shared that desire with her husband.
“We knew we wanted to move to Kansas, but urban planning jobs are few and far between,” Sara said. “On our honeymoon, we day-dreamed about selling beef direct to consumers.”
Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University writes Kansas Profile. The weekly posts highlight individuals or companies in rural Kansas who are making a difference to their community and state.
The Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development is a public / private partnership between Kansas State University and the Huck Boyd Foundation. The mission of the institute is to help rural people help themselves. Learn more at www.huckboydinstitute.org.
