In Greensburg

Rob Walton is a certified lay speaker for the United Methodist Church in Oklahoma.

Rob Walton says he’s not really one of Sam Walton’s sons, even though he occasionally jokes about it since one of the Waltons also is named Rob. He’s not related to the multi-billionaire, but he’s still looking for the branch, he quips.

Walton and his wife Vera, pastor of the Lamont United Methodist Church in Oklahoma, brought a team of two dozen adult volunteers and youths to Greensburg this week. The youngest on the trip is 8. The Lamont group arrived Monday, and then spent the afternoon walking fields and picking up debris.

“It was the third time through, but we still picked up a lot of junk,” Walton said, adding that some of the wood the workers found had been shoved into the ground by the 2007 tornado.

Walton, 70, said he and his wife, who’s “much younger” at 53, have had tragic lives. He was an alcoholic. Both have had previous bad marriages, he said, that ended in divorce. A former nurse, she entered the ministry about eight years ago, right after they went broke trying to raise corn in the Panhandle, where they don’t get much rain, he said.

Now, Walton serves the spouse role in his wife’s ministry. He just ended a four-year term as state president of the United Methodist Men. Both have worked in prison ministry.

This is Walton’s fourth mission trip.

“This is what it’s all about — working with our youth,” he said. “We have generations of people going to prison. We don’t need to build more prisons.”

We finally were able to push Chandra's car after it became high-centered in the sand.

One of the most interesting obstacles we encountered last week wasn’t people we couldn’t reach for interviews. It was the sand roads north of town. Well, for one of us anyway.

Chandra Stauffer headed to an interview seven miles north of town. A while later, my cell phone rang. It was her husband, back in Wichita. Chandra had texted him (her cell didn’t have service in that area) about her problem: Her car was stuck in deep sand. He contacted the Elliott School of Communication at WSU, got my number and called.

Chandra might have been able to text some of the class members instead of her husband, but she forgot her laminated press card that contains all our cell numbers on the back. Lesson No. 1, she said later. Three of us headed out to rescue Chandra. She also had managed to text another student, who also headed her direction.

Just before we reached Chandra and her car, which was high-centered in sand, a pickup driven by a local farmer turned in front us. A stroke of luck, because we figured he had a shovel that might come in handy. As it turned out, Jason Unruh didn’t have a shovel, but he did have a piece of pipe and a big pipe wrench that came in handy for digging sand out from under Chandra’s car. We also put the pipe and wrench under her tires for traction when he pushed.

With the help of Jason and those of us who responded to the emergency, we eventually freed the car. After that was done, Molly Walsh — who also had responded to Chandra’s text for help — announced that she had lost her keys. Oh, no, we moaned as we started searching and digging in the deep sand once again. I’m sure Jason thought he’d never see the last of us city folks.

We found Molly’s keys a ways down the road and started backing our vehicles to the intersection. We didn’t dare try to turn around for fear of getting stuck again. If that had happened, I’m sure Jason would have just driven off and left us.

Chandra made her interview (the house was in the previous mile section), which turned out well. The most ironic part of the ordeal was the sign at the intersection. Lesson No. 2, Chandra said. We snapped a photo of her next to it.

If only she had paid attention to this sign. . . .

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 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.

Larry Hatteberg, left, and M.T. Liggett with the sculpture that honors the longtime KAKE photojournalist.

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 when she talked about it.

The best advice Hatteberg offered was to quit talking and listen. That’s a good tip for people in general, not just journalists. Let the people tell the story, he told the students. Don’t get in the way.

Afterward, we talked Hatteberg into going 10 miles west to Mullinville to get a photo of him with highway sculptor M.T. Liggett, who created a piece honoring the skilled photographer in the 1990s. We got the photo, along with a fresh batch of Liggett’s political quips.

Today, Liggett — obviously a KAKE fan — was working on a sculpture of morning anchor Jemelle Holopirek. When finished, she will be placed next to the sculpture of Bill Clinton, who has a padlock on his zipper. Holopirek will be holding the keys to the padlock, Liggett said.

Also in the works are sculptures of President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Satomayer, and Janet Napolitano, Homeland Security secretary. Liggett isn’t fond of either political figure. True to his crusty nature, Liggett quipped that Napolitano “has a big butt and is built so low to the ground that when she farts she blows gravel into her shoes.”

The man is crude, but certainly up-to-date on his current events.

Check out Larry Hatteberg’s video that ran on KAKE shortly after the tornado.

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.

Two or three of us were up early today to get a jump start on our Greensburg stories.

I was awake shortly after 3 because my Coleman air mattress gradually deflated during the night. By 3:30, I was flat on the basement floor in the Sunday school classroom where we bunked.

Figuring I could beat the shower crowd and catch up on my work, Cort Anderson and I were ready to get into our media room — the church parlor — by 5. But the key wouldn’t open the door. Several people with volunteer groups staying at the church offered their assistance to no avail. We even tried the door leading from the women’s restroom into the parlor.

We waited until 6:45 to call the pastor at home to get his master key to the church. It opened the door without a hitch. It’s shortly after 7. So much for that early start.

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 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 volunteers from the Methodist Church in Erie, Kan., is staying across the street in someone’s basement, but eating meals here, too.

We’re staying in three Sunday school rooms. Some of the women are sleeping in the luxury suite — the nursery.

Our media room is set up in the parlor. We’ll have to be out early Friday afternoon because there’s a wedding in the church on Saturday. Fortunately, the church has Internet access, so we can work everywhere in the church — except the basement.

We have a tour with Matt Deighton, a Greensburg native and unofficial mayor of Volunteer Village. His job ended the last of March, but he offered to show us around.

We’ll start on our stories later today. All our work will appear on greensburgrebirth.com.