By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

The understanding of the causes of depression and anxiety has evolved over the last 50 years, but a new book suggests we might have some power to combat the debilitating illnesses.

Johann Hari, in his book “Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes for Depression — And the Unexpected Solutions,” suggests reconnecting with other people and our environment can hep people suffering from depression and anxiety.

Ken Windholz, psychologist and a faculty member at Fort Hays State University, gave a presentation on the book to the Hays National Alliance on Mental Illness on Monday.

For 50 years, the medical field has relied heavily on the theory that depression is caused by a lack of the brain chemical serotonin. To combat this, medication known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs were prescribed.

Exposure to light, exercise and a healthy diet have also all been found to increase serotonin levels in the brain.

However, Hari suggests there are psychological and social factors that also can influence mental health.

Some of the those psychological factors include learning, emotions, thinking attitudes, memory, perceptions, beliefs and stress management strategies.

Social factors include social support, family background, interpersonal relationships, cultural traditions, medical care, socioeconomic status, poverty, physical exercise and biofeedback.

Psychological, social and biologic factors all intersect to affect a person’s physical and mental health.

“This is how we have been doing this in modern treatment,” Windholz said. “We separate things out. We start to think of ourselves as separated also. This is my brain. This is my social relationship. This is my psychological relationship. This brain stuff must not be impacting my social relationships, or my social relationships might have a little bit to do with my psychological stuff, but not much.

“That is the key to understanding this and understanding treatment is to understand all these things interact. We are not half a person walking around. Every one of us is a whole, blessed, integrated human being.”

The author suggests depression is a function of our lost natural and intended internal and external connections —biologically, psychologically and socially.

Windholz posed this is simpler language.

“What he is saying is that one or more of these features of ourselves is out of sync. The chance is when we are really depressed, all of these things are out of sync,” he said.

These changes tend to feed off each other. If you are off physically, then you can be off psychologically and/or socially.

Mental health treatment is coming full circle to understand brain chemistry is not the only cause of depression.

“Since the use of antidepressants came along, it has not significantly reduced the instance of depression,” Windholz said. “It has relieved a good bit of it. People still get depressed even when they are taking anti-depressant medication. Even when they have been switched to two or three antidepressants, they still get depressed. We didn’t understand why.”

Depression and anxiety are the most common complaints among those seeking mental health treatment, but Windholz said they are probably the illnesses science understands the least because there is such a wide range of factors they encompass.

Hari said we are disconnected in a variety of ways. He said we are disconnected from meaningful work. Windholz presented some statistics.

The author also suggests that we disconnect from meaningful values.

“We have become a materially focused society,” Windholz said.

People who do not experience nature become trapped like an animal in a zoo, he said.

By CRISTINA JANNEY

Hays Post

The Ellis Count Relay for Life was Friday night at the Downtown Pavilion.

Mary Ann Randa  was recognized with a community engagement award. Bernita Kinderknecht was also honored. She was a long-time supporter of Relay for Life. She died last year, and her family dedicated her memorials to this year’s Relay for Life campaign.

The Ellis County Relay For Life has been going since 1999.  Nationally it started in 1986  by a single individual and others started joining in.

All donations made are 100 percent tax deductible.

All the profits go to the American Cancer Society to be used in research.  Money comes back to the locals in many forms.  Here are a few:

            “Road to Recovery” – provides transportation for cancer patients to their treatment.

            “Hope Lodge” – provides lodging for patients and their caregivers when treatment is away from home at no cost.

            “tlc” – provides wigs and mastectomy products

            “Look Good Feel Better” – volunteer cosmetologists help women to cope with skin changes.

            Cancer Survivor Network

This year’s local goal is $35,000. The Relay will have its annual golf tournament next weekend. The total amount raised will be available after that.

Donations can still be made online by going to the Relay for Life website.

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

The Hays City Band is organizing for the summer season on the direction of new Fort Hays State University professor Peter Lillpopp.

The band accepts community members high school age and older of all skill levels. Lillpopp urged potential band members not to be afraid of the difficulty level of the music. The band includes college students and faculty who can play the more difficult parts.

The band’s first rehearsal will be 7 to 9 pm. Monday, June 4, at the newly remodeled FHSU Dilley Rehearsal Hall in Malloy Hall. Other rehearsals will be the Mondays before performances on June 11, 18 and 25, also at the rehearsal hall.

Musicians do not have to attend all rehearsals or participate in all performances.

If you don’t own an instrument, one can be provided through the college.

The free performances will be:

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 12 at the Hays Downtown Pavillion

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 19 at the WaKeeney VFW

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 26 at Washington Elementary School in Ellis

The band will play a range of music, including Sousa marches, jazz, movie scores and tunes from Broadway musicals.

“I really like it when I go into to communities and they have something going on downtown, and if it is great music, even better,” Lillpopp said during an interview this week on the KAYS Morning Show. “It really showcases the community and community pride. It is patriotism really. Short of going into the military, there is nothing more patriotic than you can do than join a community band.”

Lillpopp has conducted other community bands, including the Boulder Community Band and Windham Concert Band in Connecticut.

“So this is something that I really believe in—community bands,” Lillpopp said. “I have played in many as a tuba player and conducted many. I am really excited to get to work with them.”

Lillpopp just completed his first year teaching at FHSU. He is the director of athletic bands and low brass. He recently graduated from the University Colorado with a PhD. He received his undergraduate degree from University of Southern California, where he also was involved with the marching band.

“They have a really good tradition here that was started by my predecessor, Lane Weaver, so I have been trying to just continue the really good things that are going on here in Hays,” Lillpopp said.

The FHSU band has already met to discuss shows for the fall football season, he said.

For more information on the community band or its concerts, contact Lillpopp at 785-628-5353 or by email at [email protected].

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

A historic home in downtown Hays has a new look, thanks to a local couple.

Larissa and Kris Munsch spent the bulk of last summer working on the exterior of the house at 117 W. 13th. They have reopened the home, formerly the bed breakfast the Tea Rose Inn, as the Inn at 117.

Larissa, who bought the house two and half years ago, runs a group on Instagram called Oldhouselove, which has more than 84,000 followers.

“I have always been obsessed with old houses and loved old houses,” she said. “This was a dream house for me when I purchased it.”

Larissa met Kris at another old house. The couple joked Kris, who also has a love for old houses, married Larissa just to get the house.

The home was built in 1909 by early Hays entrepreneur Justus Bissing Jr. He owned the local mill and built other homes in the city, including the Mary Elizabeth Maternity Home. Bissing was involved in bringing electricity to the City of Hays, and he also designed and built furniture, some of which is in the collection of the Ellis County Historical Society. This included an intricate wooden light fixture.

Larissa has a special affinity for old lighting and has restored several antique pieces for the house.

Bissing lived in the home for about two years before it was purchased by the John Basgall family. Generations of the Basgalls lived in the home until the 1990s when attorney John Bird bought the house.

The Basgalls owned a grocery store that was in the building now occupied by The Paisley Pear. The grocery store was then moved to 13th Street behind the house.

One of the family’s descendants, Dale Wolf, the great-grandson of Irene Basgall Wolf, gave the Munsches a number of antiques that had been used in the home. These included rugs, a Tiffany-style lamp, rocking chair, a shoe shine kit and a family photo.

Eventually the house was turned into a bed and breakfast, the Tea Rose Inn.

Larissa said she would like to work toward having the house placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The home is already located in the historic downtown Chestnut District, which is on the national registry.

When Larissa bought the house, the interior was in good condition, but the home need extensive work to its exterior.

Larissa spent a couple of days at the Ellis County Historical Society researching Bissing, the Basgalls and the house. She was able to find a couple of historic photos of the homes on which the couple has based the renovation.

The Munsches aided by a couple of Fort Hays State University students spent a month and half scrapping old paint, power washing and replacing damaged wood on the exterior of the house.

“Had we wrapped the house in hardy siding,” Larissa said, “you just lose so much character. You lose the character. You lose the history of the house. It is wasteful … more material to the landfill. We knew the right thing to do was to fix the siding.”

Kris said, “Putting vinyl siding on an old house is like putting dress pants on a pig.”

For every square nail in the wood siding on the 3,200-square-foot Victorian home, the Munsches drove new modern nails. This required the entire house to be recaulked.

The Munsches still need to do some work on the porch, but thus far they have put 68 gallons of paint on the house.

The house had been originally painted tan, brown and white. Larissa wanted to be a little more colorful, but maintain the historic integrity of the house. She researched historic color pallets and decided on four colors, a mint green, gray, maroon and white. Trying to decide where to put different colors was like a giant puzzle, they said.

The Munsches also replaced the crestings on top of the house. Kris said he thought the crestings had originally been wood and rotted away. The couple replaced them with iron. In an effort to bring the house back to as near as possible to Bissing’s, original vision, the square supports on the porch were replaced with round columns with crestings.

“The whole time we worked on the outside and the whole time I built those porch columns,” Kris said, “I am thinking about Mr. Bissing—Justus Bissing, the guy who originally built this house. That guy was a craftsman. Every time we would finish something, we would step back and say, ‘I think Mr. Bissing would like this.’ There is a lot of that and a lot of pride.”

Larissa said, “It is like I don’t own this house. I am just a steward of this house. I am a steward of keeping the architecture alive, the history alive.”

The Munsches needed to replace the wooden skirt molding than ran along the outside of the house. The Munsches went back to the old mill in Hays and were able to find the original cutter head used to make the original boards. New boards were made using that cutter head.

On the interior, the couple added stenciling to one bedroom and the entryway ceiling. Larissa said the original home would have had wallpaper, but she did not want to burden future owners with stripping wallpaper.

Larissa said she wanted to restore the home as much as possible to original, but over the years the home has been updated with modern comforts the couple wishes to keep, including modern bathrooms and kitchen and air-conditioning. The home is still heated by a boiler through radiators, which the couple said keeps the home toasty in the winter.

One of the next projects for the house is the replacement of the oriole window that originally faced 13th Street. Larissa said she believed the window was probably damaged in a storm and removed.

“What we are cursed with is that she finds these original things …” Kris said. “The challenge is that she finds something like that and learns more about it. I love to build stuff that is a challenge, so instantly I started thinking in my mind, ‘Can I build this? Could I build this?’ Now that we know that was on the house, without a doubt, we know that it has to be put back on the house.”

Larissa said, “If you go outside and look at that side of the house, it changes the whole look of the house. It is just so amazing and beautiful. We feel it just has to be put back on.”

Larissa said she can’t imagine ever selling the house, but the couple already has another project. The couple is getting ready to move a 1910 Craftsman 70 miles from Ness City to their workshop in Hays so that it also can be restored. They hope to eventually move into that home and will open up the fourth bedroom at 117 to boarders.

“I have probably redone 50 house in town, but somewhere along the line, I don’t want to flip houses anymore,” Kris said. “I don’t want to just buy a house, clean it up and sell it. There is no challenge in that.”

The Munches currently live at the Inn at 117. They use the kitchen and living room and the third-floor bedroom. The three  bedrooms on the second floor, which each have private baths, are rented through Airbnb. The inn can be booked directly through Airbnb or the inn’s website will redirect you to the Airbnb site.

The Munsches have been steadily booked and have had guests from all over, including Taiwan, England and both coasts.

“You get to meet really cool people,” Kris said.

Cost to rent a room is $60 to $76 per night, depending on which room you choose and time of stay. This includes a cleaning fee. Airbnb offers discounts for extended stays. Although the inn no longer offers breakfast, the Munsches have partnered with the Golden Griddle, which offers a 10 percent discount to inn guests.