In case you hadn’t noticed, agriculture provides almost everything we eat, use and wear daily. This industry is increasingly contributing to fuel and other bioproducts.

Still, too few people understand and appreciate this contribution. This is particularly true in our schools today where students may be exposed to agriculture only if they enroll in related vocational training – if it even exists.

March 20 marks the first day of spring. It falls during National Ag Week, March 19-25. This is a time to recognize and celebrate the abundance provided by this nation’s farmers and ranchers.

National Ag Week encourages each American to understand how food and fiber products are produced; value the essential role of agriculture in maintaining a strong economy and appreciate the role agriculture plays in providing safe, abundant and affordable products.

During this period we as agricultural associations help those in our communities understand how food, fiber and renewable resource products are produced. We must highlight the essential role agriculture plays in maintaining a strong Kansas economy as well as our U.S. economy.

It’s up to us to foster an appreciation of the role agriculture plays in providing safe, abundant and affordable food, fuel and fiber among today’s citizenry. Also, we must inform this same population about the career opportunities in the agricultural industry.

Agriculture is too important a topic to be taught only to a small percentage of students considering careers in agriculture and pursuing vocational agricultural studies.

County Farm Bureaus across the state will be celebrating National Ag Week. Activities include radio programs on farming and ranching, breakfasts, ag book distributions, library displays about agriculture, newspaper ads, farm tours, ag implement dealer tours and farm and ranch safety programs.

These activities are intended to increase the knowledge of agriculture and nutrition among today’s consumers to help them make informed personal choices about diet and health. Informed citizens will also be better able to participate in establishing the policies that will support a competitive agricultural industry in the country and around the world.

A few generations ago, most Americans were directly involved in – or had relatives or friends involved in agricultural-related endeavors. Today, that’s no longer the case.

That’s why it is so important we join together on this special week devoted to telling the story of this unparalleled success story. Remember, celebrate agriculture this March 19-25.

Agriculture is truly amazing.

John Schlageck, a Hoxie native, is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas. 

In the rush of daily life, it’s easy to forget indoor toilets are relatively new to housing construction. Those who’ve never relied on an outhouse don’t understand how relieved residents were when they had a solid privy resting on a concrete foundation. Thanks to Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration, 600,000 American families enjoyed stable, sanitary facilities behind their homes.

The WPA focused on projects that improved life. Few communities could fund band shells, picnic houses, and swimming pools without federal dollars and the necessity to provide jobs. However, those weren’t the only projects that enhanced the USA. Health organizations had insisted from the early 1900s that Americans needed higher sanitary standards. Shallow pits and poor outhouse drainage led to epidemics related to fecal exposure. Scientists determined that concrete vaults at least 6 feet deep reduced such risks. This was a perfect goal for this department.

Most of us have visited WPA pools, buildings, and other monuments to hard work and hopes for better times. Depression era toilets add to the projects local labor teams and resources constructed. With so many built across the country, remains of facilities must still exist in western Kansas.

This information might help find them. Bureaucrats selected a standardized design that involved a poured underground vault planned so the top served as the outhouse foundation. Wisely, someone included a surface level concrete pot and vent hole. Cement flooring and seat construction offered better sanitation than wood construction did. Wisely, this design required screened vents to prevent fly-borne disease. Such models significantly improved public health.

While the vaults and seats were standardized and mass-produced, the actual wooden shelter depended on local materials and preferences. The plan called for a 4 x 5 frame and braced wooden door. While building crews followed similar plans, researchers note structures varied throughout the country.

Although labor teams installed over 600,000 outdoor commodes during that era, few remain. If you want to visit a Kansas WPA outhouse, you must get permission to search old homesteads for concrete foundations. Once you find one, don’t fall in the hole.

If seeing the wooden “house” satisfies your curiosity, a landowner in McPherson County moved one onto his property years ago. The Sherman House Bed and Breakfast in Elk County transported another one to a site near their flower garden and named it “The Flower Pot.”

A trip to Franklin County Indiana offers the opportunity to check out ten such relics. For your reading pleasure, their museum has an edition of the “Indiana Community Sanitation Program Regulation Manual, Sponsored By United States Public Health Service, Indiana Division of Public Health Works Progress Administration.” This would be helpful if you want to install a reproduction on your homestead. In addition, they’ve posted official outhouse maintenance rules tacked to a surviving privy door.

Personally, I want to observe one of these as an historical object. While WPA construction has many charms, I’m happy with my indoor toilet.

Native Kansan Karen Madorin is a local writer and retired teacher who loves sharing stories about places, people, critters, plants, food, and history of the High Plains.

By RON WILSON
Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development

“Many signals.” That describes today’s radio airwaves which have multiple sources and stations. Today we’ll meet a radio industry leader who has enhanced his stations’ service to the region and earned the Boy Scout honor camping society nickname, Many Signals.

Greg Buser is co-owner of KNZA FM radio in Hiawatha and other stations serving northeast Kansas, western Missouri, and southeast Nebraska. The Kansas stations are sometimes called Kanzaland radio from the name of the Native American Indian tribe, the Kansa Indians.

Greg grew up in rural Kanzaland between the towns of Whiting, population 187, and Muscotah, population 176. Now, that’s rural.

He began in a one-room school where he was the only student in his grade level for the first three years. “It was the only time I was head of my class,” he said with a smile. Greg attended Atchison County High School, graduated from K-State in Radio-Television and then heard about a new radio station in his home area.

Two employees of KMBZ radio in Kansas City, Mike Carter and Bill Bilyeu, decided that northeast Kansas needed a local radio station. They got an FCC license and built a radio station. In August 1977, they began operating KNZA FM radio from a site five miles south of Hiawatha with 3,000 watts of power. It was later upgraded to a 50,000 watt station. 

At that time, most FM stations were part of AM station operations.  KNZA FM is believed to be the very first stand-alone FM station in Kansas.

Greg Buser first visited the station when he was home on Christmas break from college.  He started on weekends and then worked full time, eventually buying into ownership.  Robert Hilton, an original on-air employee at the station, joined Greg as an owner before retiring in 2012.

In 1992, they built 92.1 FM in Seneca where they were already broadcasting high school sports. In 1996 they purchased KAIR AM and FM in Atchison. That station was originally called KARE but those call letters were purchased by a Minnesota television station.  The new call letters, K-AIR, seem appropriate for a station on the air in Kansas. In 1998, the owners built an FM station in Falls City, Nebraska and later bought the AM station there.

The key to the success of these stations is local coverage. The stations focus intently on local news, sports, and weather. “If it wasn’t for that, nothing else would matter,” Greg said. Obituaries and community announcements can be heard on these stations.  Station staff members attend 14 county fairs.

The stations produce two printed publications: A biannual shopper with customized covers for the relevant radio stations, and a high school football and basketball preview magazine featuring some 47 high schools and area colleges.

One challenge was how to operate multiple stations serving three different states. “We put together a website, www.mscnews.net, which covers news, sports, weather, and community announcements covering the whole area,” Greg said. Each station, in whatever state, can direct listeners to this site for more information. The site even features live streaming of high school football games for many area schools. “That site is getting a million clicks a month,” Greg said.

What does MSC stand for? When Greg’s kids got into Boy Scouts, he was asked what he does for a living so he could be identified by an honorary camping society native American name as is customary. When he replied that he worked in radio, the name he was assigned was Many Signals. From that it was fitting to name the website Many Signals Communications.

“Together, Greg Buser and Robert Hilton have made KNZA a dominant force in a market with numerous competing signals, including stations in St. Joseph and Kansas City,” said K-State journalism professor Steve Smethers.  “KNZA became successful because Greg and Robert never lost sight of the importance of good local service, a tradition that continues to this day.”

Many signals. It’s an appropriate name and description for these radio stations. We salute Greg Buser and Robert Hilton for making a difference with outstanding local coverage. For the communities they serve, that sends many positive signals.