Finger on the Weather

Snow is falling again in western Kansas today, and Wichita may see snowflakes late tonight and early Friday.

It’s not the first snow of the week for much of the western sector of the state. As much as 4″ fell at McCracken in Rush County and 11 miles south of Ruleton in Sherman County, and 3″ fell in Leoti, Sharon Springs and in rural areas north of Marienthal and southwest of Goodland.

I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve never heard of Ruleton, McCracken and Marienthal. Ruleton is a ghost town west of Goodland just north of I-70 on old U.S. 24, so small the census records no population for it. McCracken is a small place northwest of LaCrosse, and Marienthal is an even tinier town between Leoti and Scott City on K-96.

Marienthal is one of those rural Kansas hamlets whose most dominant structure is its Catholic Church towering over the prairie – think St. Joe-Ost for an example near Wichita – and I always remembered McCracken for its bandbox of a high school gym with balconies hovering over the court.

My prep alma mater, Pawnee Heights, regularly played McCracken when the school was still open, and we joked about relying on jump shots because anybody flying in for a layup was at risk for barreling into the brick wall about a foot from the out-of-bounds line. It was the kind of gym you expected to see in the movie “Hoosiers” – but that also made it fun to see.