In Greensburg

KAKE’s Larry Hatteberg, the master storyteller, talked to our group this morning. He showed the video he made right after the tornado in Greensburg. It is true Hatteberg, an exceptionally emotional piece even two years later. One woman from Greensburg working in the adjacent church kitchen paused to watch the video and got teary-eyed later [...]

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Evan Evans calls himself a helper — “a Martha,” a worker in the Biblical sense.
Evans, 68, and his wife Bonnie are among a group of 47 volunteers from Ainsworth United Methodist Church in Nebraska. The high school students and adult sponsors have been in Greensburg all week, performing what Evans calls handyman jobs at an [...]

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Looking for a place to build your dream green home? Greensburg resident Matt Deighton is offering a free lot in his hometown.
The 100×150-foot lot is on Spruce Street, about four blocks south of U.S. 54. He bought the property from a woman whose home was destroyed in the tornado. She later moved to Pratt, Deighton [...]

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Before today, Matt Deighton and his dalmation Molly had given 152 tours of Greensburg. He’s been using an old school bus on loan from the Church of the Nazarene in Dodge City.
Deighton’s job officially ended March 31, but he’s been tying up loose ends and handling unofficial tasks, including tour requests. The church is [...]

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Our caravan from Wichita State arrived in Greensburg shortly after 10 a.m. There are 19 of us. Most are from Kansas, but there are two from Iowa and one from Lagos, Nigeria. Everyone, though, has heard of Greensburg.
We’ll be staying in the Greensburg United Methodist Church with Methodist volunteers from Ainsworth, Neb. Another group of [...]

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A year ago, good friend Cort Anderson and I took a Wichita State University class to Greensburg to report on the town one year after the tornado. One year later, Cort and I area headed back to document Year 2 of the community’s rebuilding process.
We’ll have new faces and new voices in the group, with [...]

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If you’ve been through Mullinville, 10 miles west of Greensburg, no doubt you’re familiar with M.T. Liggett. He’s the crusty old artist whose creations adorn the highway going in and out of town, especially on the west side. You may have seen him some time ago on “Hatteberg’s People.”
Judging from his work, he has a [...]

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Cort Anderson’s photo, which was the inspiration for the 2007 state Christmas ornament, will be on sale this weekend at his show in Topeka to benefit the South Central Kansas Tornado Relief Organization. The photo was taken in the yard of Kathy and Tom Doherty after the deadly storm. Anderson is making a limited number [...]

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Elma Hellwig and her poodle Pooler with a box of her famous cinnamon rolls.
If there’s one person in Greensburg that everyone — especially the volunteers — likes to see coming, it’s Elma Hellwig. Especially if she’s got a cardboard box of her made-from-scratch cinnamon rolls in hand.
The 86-year-old, who lives in a FEMA trailer while [...]

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On assignment this morning in Greensburg, we stopped by the Big Well for some additional photos. As we went inside the gift shop, we noticed the door jam was splintered. Then we saw that the door had been pried open.
Burglars, likely some kids, said gift shop manager Stacey Barnes, took only the money in the [...]

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