John Colclazier says he's had only positive comments on his roof.

John Colclazier is a Greensburg native. He was a longtime volunteer firefighter, county appraiser for 12 years and served recently on the planning commission. He seems to be the kind of guy who works hard, but doesn’t appreciate being told how to do it — or when.

Maybe that explains the roof on one of the houses he is repairing in Greensburg. He bought the house and several others that were repairable after the tornado.

The yellow house on the northeast corner of Spruce and Grant — one of just a few that survived the May 2007 storm on the west side of town — has blue tarps on the front windows and a roof with shingles of different colors. But it meets city code, he says.

That’s Colclazier’s point. He says he was reacting to a city council member’s comment at a recent meeting about progress needing to be made on some of the vacant houses. That council member, Colclazier says, lives across the street from the house he is repairing.

Colclazier’s plan is to move into the house. He lost his home in the storm, along with several rental properties. Only his home was insured, he says.

He was planning to put a metal roof with flexible solar panels on the south-facing house, but his neighbor’s comment at the council meeting prompted him to shingle the roof. The leftover shingles came from a contractor in Salina.

Eventually, Colclazier said, he’ll put on the metal roof. When? Depends, he says, on what that city councilman says further.

He says he hasn’t had one person complain about the shingles on the roof. But, he adds, he’s had 20 or 30 people stop him to say they like it.

And the blue tarps that recently went up on the side facing the council member’s house? They’re there because of another of his comments at the council meeting about blue tarps not being a sign of progress.

Under the tarps, by the way, are perfectly good windows.

Colclazier roofed his home with leftover shingles he bought from a contractor in Salina.

Cindy Showalter works on the wedding cake while her mother, Marilyn Goodheart of Greensburg, watches.

Funerals are more common in some western Kansas churches than weddings. That speaks volumes about the plight of small towns and their dwindling populations.

Greensburg United Methodist hosted its first wedding since it was rebuilt after the 2007 tornado. Pastor Terry Mayhew said he has conducted 11 funerals since the arrived in town two years ago. Most were in neighboring Haviland or Mullinville since the Greensburg church was destroyed. This was Mayhew’s first wedding.

Kristen Alderfer and Zachery Unruh were married May 31. The bride’s family has a long history in the church. Both the bride and groom are from Greensburg. They plan to live in a house Zach has remodeled just outside town.

The bride’s aunt, Shelly Showalter of Goodland, spent the better part of three days making the multi-tiered cake designed to feed 300. It was a family project, she said, since several relatives stopped by to lend a hand or offer advice.

We watched the daily progress on the cake as Showalter worked in the kitchen of the church where we are staying. I worried that one of the students — or perhaps a volunteer staying at the church — might unknowingly cut a piece of the cake to eat when they opened the freezer while looking for a snack late at night.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen. The cake construction — like the wedding — came off without a hitch, according to the bride’s mother, Kim Alderfer. And, speaking of the couple, Kristen and Zach are enjoying their honeymoon in the Bahamas before they return to Greensburg.

Bill Johnson, the ever-present volunteer, is still helping in the Greensburg area. He’s staying in Haviland at a rental house he remodeled between mission trips with the United Methodist Church. Like Bill says, they’ll even let a Lutheran go along.

Bill recently returned from a mission trip to Nebraska, and in mid June he and the Methodist work team will go to an Indian reservation in South Dakota to work. He says volunteering keeps him going.

For the rest of the coffee drinkers, it was another morning before work, or whatever they had planned for the day. All the regulars, however, will be ready for Vic when he returns from vacation. He’ll hear plenty about the store running out of biscuits and gravy.

City Treasurer Pam Reves looks through an unclaimed family album found after the tornado.

City Hall’s lost-and-found collection may not be around much longer. The city of Greensburg has been storing items recovered after the May 2007 tornado, but they soon may have to go when the new city hall opens.

City offices have been housed in portable buildings since the storm, but city hall is expected to be ready for occupancy later this summer. When the move comes, the eight purple tubs stuffed with 150 or so keepsakes will be emptied and offered for one last time, officials say.

No one has claimed anything from the lost-and-found collection for more than a year.

Evan Evans takes a break from making waffles for volunteers from his Nebraska church working this week in Greensburg.

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 average of five homes each day.

This is the second summer that Evans and the mission-minded Ainsworth church group made the seven-hour trek to Greensburg. The year before, they went to Slidell, La., to help after Hurricane Katrina.

Evans is an optometrist in real life. He’s owned and operated his office in Ainsworth for 42 years. He’s a native of Iowa, but attended college at Ottawa University in Kansas, where he played football and basketball.

Besides helping people, Evans repairs and restores antiques, and makes furniture. His favorite creation is a tulip table made of maple, walnut and cherry wood. “Try to mix those three together and come out right,” he jokes.

The Ainsworth volunteers took a break Thursday night and went rollerskating in Pratt, 30 miles east of Greensburg. Evans didn’t go, though. He said he’s smart enough to know not to try skating at his age. Besides, he added, he has a bad back, and he’s still recovering from falling off a ladder and breaking one of his heels. He said he took enough guff after that episode.

Matt Deighton nails up a sign for the free lot he is offering in Greensburg. Photo by Mark Anderson, Kiowa County Signal

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 said.

Deighton told the Kiowa County Signal that he is looking for a younger family, preferably with school-aged kids, who’d like to build a home and settle down in Greensburg.

“I’d also like to see them build a green home, in keeping with how our town is rebuilding,” Deighton said. “Someone like that inquires and is really serious about building and living here, the property is theirs.”


Deighton said he has received nine phone calls since he erected the signs on the lot and around town. He also posted the free lot offer on craigslist this week.

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 reclaiming its bus soon, he said.

When giving directions or showing people around Greensburg, Deighton has three points of reference: the water tower, the grain elevator and the stoplight on U.S. 54.

On his 153rd and last tour, Deighton — former volunteer coordinator with the South Central Kansas Tornado Relief Organization — pointed out signs of progress. There’s little doubt he’s proud of what his hometown has accomplished since the tornado destroyed 95 percent of the community of 1,458 in May 2007. Now, he said, there are 785 residents.

All but one of the eight churches in town have or are rebuilding. There are dozens of new homes. There are no trailers left in Femaville. The last trailer was towed away earlier this month. Deighton lived in one of those trailers for several months before his house was ready for occupancy. Soon, Femaville will return to the wheat field it was before the storm.

Our technology whiz, Cort Anderson, headed home shortly after lunch today. We missed his expertise shortly after he departed.

Cort has to get ready for an exhibit of his fine art photography at the Mulvane Mountain/Plains Art Fair this weekend at Washburn University in Topeka. The annual juried show features artists of all types from across the Midwest.

Cort also is responsible for organizing a show of news photographs, including some of his own, from the Greensburg tornado titled “Greensburg: After Nature’s EF-5.” The show, at Studio 2131 in Kansas City, Mo., through June, will be traveling to sites around the state later this summer. Look for it in the southwest part of the state.

The show features images from Kansas and Missouri news photographers who covered the aftermath of the tornado. There are numerous captivating images among the work being displayed.

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 her new home is being built, has a long history of baking tasty treats. Elma used to produce all the baked goods for Burke’s Restaurant in Greensburg. She might have been the secret to the restaurant’s success all those years.

A son of the original owners, Larry Burke, operates the Copper Oven in Wichita, also a successful restaurant. The baked goods — and the food —there are great, too.

Elma says she’d like to go to Burke’s restaurant some day. I told her she ought to surprise him with one of her famous cinnamon rolls to see if he has forgotten the melt-in-your-mouth taste. If he’s like most people, he hasn’t.

Matt Deighton’s grandpa bought a 1951 Ford pickup from Ralph Baird Motors in Kinsley back in 1952. He sold it back to Baird, who was a co-pilot with actor Jimmy Stewart in World War II, in 1979.

Matt, volunteer coordinator with the South Central Kansas Tornado Recovery Organization, tried to buy the pickup from Baird, who had since moved his dealership to Larned, but it ended up with a Larned man. Matt’s sister later saw the old pickup in Larned, took a photo and brought it to Matt and their dad, who was ill with cancer.

Matt’s dad bought the Ford pickup for $2,500 a couple of years ago. He gave it to Matt for caring for him while he was dying of cancer.

After the tornado, which the pickup survived, Matt had some signs painted for the sides to solicit contributions to help rebuild Greensburg. He had in mind primarily the snowbirds who pass through Greensburg on U.S. 54 to and from their Southern destinations. He said they were constantly asking him how they could help.

Matt put the old pickup with signs attached on display near the highway in November, December and January to catch the snowbirds. He brought it out again for spring break. It worked. So far, more than $17,000 has been contributed to the Neighbor to Neighbor Fund at Greensburg State Bank.

The pickup is sitting in Davis Park on the north side of the highway. Last week, when weather forecasters predicted a big hailstorm, Matt rushed to move the pickup inside. In his haste, he lost the key to the ignition in a big mud puddle.

He still hasn’t found the key. He had to special-order a new ignition, which just arrived. By the way, the hailstorm never materialized.

To contribute to the Neighbor to Neighbor Fund, you can go to www.neighbor-to-neighbor.net.