While last week’s high winds were unpleasant for anyone living in Western Kansas, Oklahoma, or Texas, they changed life for many. Our hearts ache for families learning to live with only the memory of lost loved ones, ranchers who’ve lost livestock, and those who’ve lost homes and possessions. Despite the tragedy, Plains people once again saw that catastrophe reveals our best nature.

Social media offered a peek into individuals, families, and communities who share this landscape. It’s comforting to see relatives supporting loved ones who traveled wherever necessary to battle raging flames or evacuate threatened residents. One post shared a photo of a young girl who fell asleep praying for her daddy and his squad working 24/7 outside of Hutchinson. You know she was concerned, but her peaceful face and clasped fingers revealed such deep faith. Her innocent confidence reveals how those affected by this firestorm will rebuild their lives.

In addition to individuals, communities contributed help. In short time, groups organized supply drives, collecting water, Chap Stick, eye drops, clean socks, and other necessities to support those willing to leap into an inferno. While many battled flames, others took their places at work or at home, so firefighters could focus on immediate dangers. Hundreds wrote heartfelt thank yous to men and women who dropped what they were doing to protect distant towns. That said, you know these warriors are sad about homes and property they couldn’t save. Supporters’ kindnesses offer a balm for those heartaches.

In other photos, junior high and high school students readied sleeping and eating areas for evacuees in gyms and cafeterias. These kids modeled what they’ve seen parents and grandparents do repeatedly during crises. They made certain people had shelter and food. School buses transported nursing home and hospital patients to safety. In this case, that wasn’t always enough. Due to uncontrolled winds and flames, some evacuation centers relocated. You didn’t hear complaints. People continued ministering to others experiencing the worst time of their lives.

Now that the most urgent firefighting efforts are winding down, truckers are hauling hay and fencing materials into fire-ravaged regions. Churches, clubs, and other organizations are collecting supplies and funding for those who’ve lost everything. First responders and others are reviewing their procedures. Those who weren’t affected are wondering how best to help during future events. Many are donating to local fire volunteer fire departments to enable them to repair and replace necessary equipment.

No matter what, it’s good to know we live where people sacrifice to keep one another safe. It’s worthy to note that residents support firefighters, first responders, and law enforcement. We let them know in various ways that their and their families’ sacrifices are appreciated. As more stories emerge, it’s clear that living on the Great Plains is a challenge. Those we call neighbors make it worthwhile.

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.

I get occasional emails from readers about stories I write, so seeing the email Sunday in my “in-box” was not unusual. The sender said he was 87 years old, and that was impressive, but what really got my attention was the caption at the bottom of the email that read “Sent from my iPad;” that told me volumes about the 87 year old sender.

Keith Kimple grew up east of Lyons, and in the fall of 1940 when he was about 10 he accompanied his dad to visit a cousin in Iowa who was a coon hunter. They hunted coons for several nights, in those days still with the aid of a carbide light, and although they got no raccoons, the cousins dogs caught a wild mink each night by digging them out of their dens.

Keith had been bitten by the hunting and trapping bug, and when they got home from Iowa he began experimenting by skinning skunks and possums dragged into the yard by his dog “Skip.” He had a couple old double-spring traps and set one in front of what he thought was a badger den in the pasture. He said as a young kid he was scared to death the morning he found a coyote in that trap. He managed to get the coyote skinned and stretched on a homemade stretcher he fashioned from a board; all following directions found in the back of a 1944 trap supply catalog from a company called FC Taylor Fur Company in St Louis (Keith still has that catalog.) FC Taylor also bought fur, so Keith bundled up his coyote pelt and spent twenty three cents to mail it to St Louis. His reward was a check from FC Taylor for twenty five cents!

Kimple’s introduction to fishing came at a young age too, using a novel ice fishing technique. When he was 6 or 7 he remembers often going with a group of kids and their dads to Cow Creek when the ice was safe enough to walk on. With a hand saw the grown-ups would cut a long narrow notch in the ice across the frozen creek. Ground up oyster shells, which were used in chicken feed and are very white, were sprinkled onto the creek bottom, making it easier to see fish when they swam under the hole. The kids would all walk onto the ice a long ways away from the hole and begin stomping and jumping to scare the fish toward the hole, where the dads would be waiting with steel spears to spear them as they swam beneath. Kimple told me they had a forge at home used for shoeing horses, and when he was in high school, he used that forge to make his own fishing spear out of a five-tined pitchfork. That homemade spear once snagged him a 10 pound carp that was laden with 2 pounds of eggs.

In 1951 Keith married his sweetheart Marilyn, and told me “She’s always been a better fisherman than me.” Marilyn introduced Keith to bass fishing, having learned on her families’ pond, and he also enjoyed catching channels cats and flatheads on limb lines set along Cow Creek. They heard tales of unbelievable fishing in Minnesota’s innumerable lakes, so after harvest in 1958, with 3 young kids, 1 only a year old, they packed up and headed to Ruth Lake in Minnesota where they fished for northern pike from a boat hand made by a local Swedish man. Fishing at Ruth Lake became an annual event, and years later, after finding a cabin for sale there, they called from a bag phone on the trip home and bought that cabin. Kimple said “That was the best thing we ever did for our family.”

In the early 1950’s Kimple did a stint in the marine corp. and was stationed at an air base near Santa Anna California. The base had a hobby shop for GI’s to use and “I began going there when I wasn’t doing something important like walking guard duty,” Kimple said with a grin. There he got hooked on leather working and purchased a $6 leather working tool kit. He ordered leather and supplies from the Tandy Leather Co., so by trial-and-error and by following instructions supplies with various leather kits, he became a skilled leather worker.

Over the years Kimple has also made many knives, grinding and polishing old files into blades, using deer antler and various woods, including Osage Orange for handles and making leather sheathes for each. One of his most recent projects is a full length leather scabbard for an old Henry .22 caliber rifle he owns. In 1980 he heard that a “log cabin camp” in Lyons was selling out, so he bought one of their little 12 x 14 Sears and Roebuck log cabins for just over $100 and moved it to their present home northwest of Hutchinson on a homemade trailer he built from an old tractor front end. These days he spends time out there most mornings working on leather and other projects of some sort.

The Kimples son and grandsons, several of which are medical doctors all enjoy the outdoors as much as their parents. Kimple says their living room becomes a deer camp for a week every deer season as they all come there knowing grandma will cook for them. When I asked Keith and Marylyn if I could do this story, he replied “Well we are a little shy, but if you think it worthwhile after seeing our stuff, we will agree. We all have to have our hobbies, and mine kind of run to the outdoors.” I couldn’t agree more! Continue to Explore Kansas Outdoor.

Steve Gilliland, Inman, can be contacted by email at [email protected].

By Max Kautsch, Board Member, Kansas Sunshine Coalition for Open Government

Advocates of open government have good reason to celebrate this Sunshine Week, a national celebration of government transparency, which runs from Sunday, March 12, through Saturday, March 18.  In Kansas, the week also represents an annual commemoration of the Kansas Sunshine Laws, which primarily include the Kansas Open Records Act (KORA) and the Kansas Open Meetings Act (KOMA).  Under these laws, members of the public can exercise their right to request access to government records and meetings to learn how public officials exercise their power.

In Kansas one cause for celebration is a successful exercise of open government rights by a member of the public from Independence, with the assistance of the Kansas Attorney General’s Office.  This success is proof that remedies are available to Kansans who feel their government is less transparent than it should be. For her work in promoting open government over several years and in pursuing her complaint of an open records violation to the highest levels of state government, the Kansas Sunshine Coalition is awarding a 2017 Friend of Open Government to Debbie Miller.

In April of last year, Ms. Miller, a longtime resident of Independence, made a request under the open records act for a copy of the form the city uses to evaluate the city manager’s job performance. Ms. Miller was not requesting any personally identifiable information related to any performance evaluation; she simply wanted a copy of the blank form itself.

Although the KORA provides access to many documents in the possession of public agencies, those agencies can legally deny access to a document if it falls within an exception in the law. For example, under the KORA, a public agency is not required to disclose “[p]ersonnel records, performance ratings or individually identifiable records pertaining to employees or applicants for employment.”

This “personnel record exemption” is the reason the Independence city administration gave Ms. Miller to justify withholding the blank form she had requested. The city also asserted that it did not have to disclose the form because it “was specifically created to assist in the evaluation of Mr. Micky Webb, the Independence City Manager.”

However, Ms. Miller was not satisfied with that response. She believed that a blank form was public information that could not possibly be exempt from disclosure as a personnel record. Believing the city was in violation of the law, she filed a complaint with the Kansas Attorney General’s Office in May of 2016.

After a lengthy and thorough investigation, the Attorney General’s Office found that the city had indeed violated the KORA. In a letter to the city dated January 30, 2017, Assistant Attorney General Lisa Mendoza wrote that the blank form was “sufficiently generic that it raised a question about whether it was in fact ‘specifically created solely to assist in the evaluation of” the city manager.” Moreover, according to Ms. Mendoza’s letter, a Google search showed that an “identical” document produced by another source existed on the internet.

Thus, the Attorney General’s Office concluded that the city “fell well short of meeting its KORA obligations,” and found the city in violation of law for the manner in which it had responded to Ms. Miller’s request. In turn, the city commissioners signed a “Consent Decree” admitting that the city violated KORA, agreeing to pay a $250.00 fine, and also agreeing, going forward, to “comply with the requirements of the KORA…in responding to each KORA request it receives.” Meanwhile, the City Commission voted not to renew the contract of the city manager, and has begun a search for a new city manager.

The finding of a KORA violation, resulting in the fine and the consent decree, reflect well on the Attorney General’s Office and indicates it is making good use of expanded Sunshine Law enforcement powers granted by the Kansas Legislature in 2015. Still, sunshine would not have come to Independence without Ms. Miller’s determined efforts to challenge the city’s refusal to disclose a blank form. She is an inspiration to members of the public everywhere who are concerned about transparency in government, and she proved that persistence pays off.

This Sunshine Week is a time to celebrate the initiative of Ms. Miller as a concerned member of the public, coupled with action by the state’s open-government enforcement agency, to effectuate change. The process of asserting rights under the KORA and KOMA can often be akin to the state’s motto, “to the stars through difficulties.” However, Ms. Miller’s successful efforts and the city’s decreed consent to abide by the law suggest that more sunshine may be on the horizon in Kansas.

Max Kautsch, an attorney for the Kansas Press Association, the Kansas Association of Broadcasters, blogs about open government issues at kautschlaw.com. He also represents members of the public seeking to assert their rights under the Sunshine Laws, including Debbie Miller.