Les Anderson is a professor in the Elliott School of Communication at Wichita State University. This is his second year of bringing journalism students to Greensburg to tell the story of its rebirth.
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 the exception of one — Todd Vogts. Todd was in the class last summer, just before he graduated from WSU and started a new job as editor of The Ledger in Moundridge. He’s taking a week of vacation to accompany us and help with the class. We’re glad to have him back.
Another change is that we’ll be staying in Greensburg this summer. We’ll take up residence in the basement of Greensburg United Methodist Church, along with several dozen volunteers, during our two-week stint. We’ll arrive the Tuesday morning after Memorial Day.
Like last summer, we’ll be posting print, audio and video stories, along with photos. And, like last time around, we’re looking for story ideas, particularly those stories that haven’t been covered and involve people. We welcome your ideas.
It was a great two weeks in Kiowa County. I was amazed at some of the pieces the students produced on tornado recovery efforts in Greensburg and the surrounding communities.
The people in the communities where we worked were extremely hospitable. I think the students’ eyes were opened not only to what happens in a community after a disaster, but also to life in small Kansas towns as well. For some, it was pure culture shock.
A big thank-you to the people who helped us, particularly those who work with SCKTRO, the South Central Kansas Tornado Relief Organization. They are solid folks. To those in Haviland, who put up with us for two weeks, an extra thanks, especially to June Boettcher at the Friends Church and C.D. Fitch at Barclay College. The daily hospitality of Vic Hannan and his morning coffee crew at the hardware store also was appreciated.
If you haven’t had a chance to check out the students’ work, go to greensburgrebirth.com.
As we headed home at the end of last week, we traveled east on U.S. 54. We passed the scene once again of the tragedy that occurred at the rest stop between Cunningham and Pratt, where the Colorado couple stopped to get off the highway during a severe thunderstorm. Unfortunately, it’s also where their lives ended when a tornado picked up their small car and slammed it into a wheat field a few hundred yards north.
The video by Patrick Vera of the scene is a grim reminder of the often-deadly force of Mother Nature.
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 lot of opinions and doesn’t hesitate to share them through his cartoon-like sculptures made of whatever he can get his hands on. Three of the students in our Greensburg project class wanted to interview him. It took them the better part of a week to track him down, but they finally got the opportunity.
Ian Crane, one of the students, was the most adamant about interviewing him. He got his wish. The fact that Ian had two attractive women with him probably didn’t hurt his chances. Incidentally, both of the women came back with big metal hearts with their names on them, courtesy of M.T.
Our class numbers have dwindled drastically today. There are just five of us remaining tonight at Jackson Hall on the Barclay College campus in Haviland.
Those who departed early fretted about the stormy weather between here and home. No one ran into a problem, as far as we heard. It sounded like the Wichita area dodged most of the really bad stuff tonight.
We’re writing and editing the final print and audio pieces. Our plan is to wrap it up by Friday mid-afternoon, and then head back to Wichita. It’s been an exhausting but productive two weeks. We’re ready to sleep in our own beds again.
Besides, the oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies my aunt sent are almost gone.
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 of prints, primarily as gifts or to benefit Greensburg.
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.
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 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.
Some of the leaders of the recovery effort in Greensburg are willing to go to Parkersburg, Iowa, to share their experiences and expertise with townspeople there.
An EF-5 tornado on May 25 killed at least seven people and destroyed 300 homes in Parkersburg. It’s a repeat of Greensburg, only on a smaller scale, says Matt Deighton, volunteer coordinator of the South Central Kansas Tornado Recovery Organization.
Deighton says he thinks the lessons learned in Greensburg would be helpful to the Iowa community.
Deighton says recovery leaders in Greensburg haven’t been asked, but he plans to use his FEMA contacts to open communication with people in Parkersburg. He says the people in Greensburg didn’t have anybody who had been through a similar disaster to give them advice.
Deighton says he is also going to send two groups of volunteers from Nebraska and Iowa who had planned to help in Greensburg next week to Jewell, some three hours north, to help with recovery efforts there. A tornado hit that Kansas community on May 30. More than 250 volunteers are scheduled to work in Greensburg next week.
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 crowd. Clinton’s reported plan is to drop out of the presidential race, endorse Obama and ask for party unity to carry the Democrats to victory in November.
Clay Corbet said he can’t wait until the Obama bumper stickers come out so he can plaster hardware store owner Vic Hannan’s vehicle with them. Vic is the most vocal Republican supporter not only in the morning group, but likely in this part of the state.
Today’s forecast of possible nasty weather was a recurring topic. Half-joking, a couple of the coffee drinkers asked others as they came in if they had their fraidy hole cleaned out in preparation for predicted bad weather later today and tonight. It figures, Clay said of the forecast of even stronger winds than we’ve had since late Wednesday. Today is league golf day for some of them.
Eighty-something Clifton Clark, farmer and school bus driver for more than 50 years, got the biggest laugh of the day when he proclaimed that women and weather were two things men always talk about but can’t change. At least with the weather, he added, you can hope.
Conversation stopped momentarily just after that when Debbie Smitherman joined husband Dwight and the group at the big round table.
“Why is it,” someone asked, “that when a woman sits down it suddenly gets quiet?”
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 donation jar. Probably about $30, she said. Thankfully, added Barnes, they didn’t bother the nearby cash register or mess with any of the gift shop items or promotional material.
Later in the morning, while doublechecking with Matt Deighton, volunteer coordinator with the South Central Kansas Tornado Recovery Organization, about the number of deaths in the Greensburg tornado, he corrected me when I said there had been 13 victims.
Make that 14, he said somberly. Roberta Schmidt died over the weekend, he said. According to Deighton, she had been hopitalized since the tornado. Schmidt died June 1 at the Life Care Center in Wichita. Her husband Arnie also was hurt in the deadly storm, but recovered.
Services for Schmidt, 80, will be Thursday morning at the Haviland United Methodist Church, since the Methodist Church in Greensburg hasn’t been rebuilt. Survivors include her husband, two sons and a daughter.
Roberta Schmidt, 14th victim of Greensburg tornado.
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.
Les Anderson is a professor in the Elliott School of Communication at Wichita State University. This is his second year of bringing journalism students to Greensburg to tell the story of its rebirth.
