On Saturday, March 9, the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism (KDWPT) will host a free entrance day and open houses at all state parks.  Visitors also will have the opportunity to enjoy a variety of events at most parks.

During the open houses, park users can take advantage of low off-season camping permit prices.  March 31 is the last day annual camping permits are priced at off-season discounts.  On April 1, the prices increase to their regular prime-season levels.

Visitors can purchase annual camping permits and make cabin or campsite reservations during the open houses, as well. For pricing information and to purchase permits online, go to the KDWPT website, ksoutdoors.com.

Kansas motor vehicle owners can now buy an annual park vehicle permit as part of their vehicle registration process.  The permit – called a Kansas State Parks Passport – will cost $15.00 (county treasurers can elect to add a $0.50 service fee). This lower-price, non-transferable permit will be available only during the vehicle registration process at a motor vehicle registration office, through the online vehicle registration site (www.kswebtags.org), or when registering by mail.  The Kansas State Parks Passport will expire when the vehicle registration expires a year later.

 

Kansans have made some creative (CRE8VE) attempts over the years to buck the state’s list of banned personalized license plates.

Drivers in the Sunflower (SUNFLWR) State have been able to get personalized (VANITY) plates since 1975. The Kansas Department of Revenue’s Division of Vehicles has kept a list of no-no (BANNED) words ever since.

The list has almost 1,200 entries and is filled with your standard curse words, sexual innuendo, racial slurs, drug references and urban slang, The Wichita Eagle reports.

Here are a few examples:

420, a reference to marijuana, is banned.

So is MURDER, as is REDRUM, which, as anyone who has seen the movie “The Shining” knows, is “murder” spelled backward.

Also banned are FANNY, FBI and HELLBOY.

Substituting “ph” for the letter “f,” for example, is a popular ploy. So is using numbers as letters, as in A55.

“They’ll go to all kinds of lengths to get around” the list, said Donna Shelite, director of vehicles.

Other banned plates are more difficult to figure out and need Google – or a seventh-grade boy – to decode.

“There are some I don’t understand,” Shelite said, laughing.

The state’s list is a mix of plates drivers have tried – unsuccessfully – to get as well as just common-sense guidelines.

The state also watches out for automatically generated plates that would be a problem, such as 123SEX, Shelite said.

Personalized plates can be up to seven letters or a combination of up to seven letters and numbers.

The state processes 61,000 applications for personalized plates every year. It rejects about 300 a year, Shelite said.

Plates also can land on the list if they’ve garnered complaints by other drivers. Shelite said she has handled only two complaints and thought, “Oh, my gosh, how did this get through, because I did know what it meant.”

Sedgwick County Treasurer Linda Kizzire said drivers who want personalized plates are asked to list three choices in order of preference and an explanation “as to what it means.”

The treasurer’s office then sends the applications to the state, which makes the decision about whether a plate will pass muster.

If the first choice is acceptable, the state makes that plate.

“If it’s objectionable, they then drop to the second choice,” said Jo Hillman, deputy treasurer.

Some people fill out only one choice, though.

If the plate is banned, the state will let them know.

Personalized plates cost $45 in addition to registration, regular fees and taxes.