In Greensburg

Ozi Utah came back from her work on the Scout cabin rock pile this afternoon with a big smile on her face.
“Guess what I found?” she asked as her smile grew even bigger. She held up a piece of mortar she chipped from one of the stones.
All of us in the fellowship hall at the [...]

[Read more →]

One of the requirements for the Greensburg class is for students to volunteer. Most have concentrated on getting interviews and writing, so the latter part of this week has been filled with work in the community.
They’ve volunteered in different ways. One student painted signs. Another mowed vacant lots with an Oklahoma group also staying at [...]

[Read more →]

Sometimes, en route to the real story, you run across interesting tidbits about people.
Take Georgia Abrams, for example. She’s an intern with GreenTown in Greensburg and has been attending Indiana State, but is transferring to Kansas State University this fall.
Georgia, who is staying in the basement of the Methodist Church with our group, is back [...]

[Read more →]

Vic Hannan, the owner, was on vacation in New Jersey, but the coffee crowd still showed up last week at Haviland Hardware. And, for the most part, they were happy without Vic around — until the store ran out of biscuits and gravy mid-week.
Bill Johnson, the ever-present volunteer, is still helping in the Greensburg [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

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 [...]

[Read more →]

Hardware store owner Vic Hannan, standing, laughs at comments among early morning regulars including, from left, Denny Ross, Clay Corbet and Dwight Smitherman.
The conversation early this morning among coffee drinkers at the Haviland Hardware store focused on politics and weather.
The possibility of an Obama-Clinton ticket sparked comments among what seems to be a mostly Republican [...]

[Read more →]

Home for the weekend, but we’re heading back to Haviland and Greensburg shortly this afternoon. Greensburg — and what we saw, heard and learned last week — has been in my thoughts most of the weekend. I’m sure it affected the students, too. I’m anxious to hear their thoughts when they return for another week [...]

[Read more →]

Bill Johnson on the front porch of the house he’s remodeling in Haviland.
Bill Johnson admits he’s pretty much of an anomaly. He’s a loner, but he loves being around people, especially when he can lend a hand. He’s been doing plenty of that in recent months.
We interviewed Bill on Mulberry Street in Haviland, where he [...]

[Read more →]