Reader elves cobble cartoon captions

It’s been several weeks since we ran one of our cartoon caption contests. Must have been just the right amount of time off to get readers’ creative juices bubbling, as the entries seemed better than usual.Click on the cartoon to see the winners and the runners up, then have a look at some of these other close contenders. Pauline Martins of El Dorado wasn’t optimistic for the chances of a new Kansas casino. Her caption: "Sorry, guys, but if Kansas gets a new casino, looks like it’ll have to come from us!" Bruce Cole, almost a perpetual contest winner from Wichita, had a couple of good ones: "When did you guys start working on this thing? 1995?" and "Keep making it smaller. We need to hide it downstairs in the Boathouse." Then came another good caption from Bruce’s wife, Patty: "It’s on Bob Knight’s wish list again this year. Someday we’ll actually deliver it." Another previous winner, Roger Neugent of Haysville, sent "And get on those requests for state school board monkey dolls!" Personally, I like any caption with "monkey" in it, especially applied to our simian school board! Maxwell John of Wichita was in a similar frame of mind with his caption: "No rush, fellas. They have to vote on the design first, so we have several years to get that toy ready. Let’s get the Abrams Genesis Science books packages for all the good little boys and girls." Recent winner Kathy Deane touched on an issue which I thought many readers would bring up, but which few did. Her entry: "Does it come with a Gamblers Anonymous handbook?" Really liked that one. Another good one from Kathy: "Does it come with the official ‘I-love- to-gamble Barbie and Ken’"? Another former winner, Karen Wallace, turned to The King: "To quote Elvis: Return to sender, address unknown, no such number, no such zone." The wisdom of Elvis is truly timeless. Ben Sanders of Wichita thought geographically: "Nice work guys. Make sure you put it with the other gifts going to northeast Kansas." Poetry emerged from the pen of Wichita’s Ed Baylie: "T’was the night before Christmas and all through the house, everybody was gambling and drunk as a louse." Who knew that lice overindulged? Lastly, our former mayor reemerged with Jim Schlegel’s caption: "T’was the Knight before Christmas and not a vote to be found." Oh, and also from former winner Jim Holler: "What did I tell you boys about moonlighting for Bob Knight?"