Koch buys Hall of Fame some time

Kudos to former Wichitan Bill Koch for sparing the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame from eviction by the city with a generous $100,000 donation, which will allow the hall to cover the rent on its Old Town building. Let’s hope the funds also buy the attraction the time to develop a firm funding plan for the future, which should involve coaxing the rest of the state into realizing its role and responsibility to the hall.

5 Comments

  1. JWink
    Posted August 31, 2008 at 6:18 am | Permalink

    Thank you Bill Koch for stepping up to help your former home town. Now its incumbent on the operators of the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame to get to work and attract the paying public through the doors to finally make the sports museum financially stable.

  2. CapnAmerica
    Posted September 1, 2008 at 10:03 am | Permalink

    Why shouldn’t he keep it afloat.

    It was a vanity enterprise from Day One.

    This is what the Koch’s always seem to do: you want a right-wing anti-tax think tank? Buy The Cato Institute. You want a local anti-tax zealot? Buy Karl Peterjohn. You want a Kansas anti-tax, anti-intellectual PAC? Buy the Flint Hill Policy Institute.

    Bill Koch wants a venue to show off his magnificent obsession of yacht racing.

    (Boy, there’s a sport we can identify with . . . here in Kansas!)

    So he bought one. Local billonaire builds monument to self

    Wow, stop the presses.

  3. bth
    Posted September 1, 2008 at 6:17 pm | Permalink

    Capn – most of the right-wing things you refer to are supported by CHARLES Koch; not Bill. I don’t know that Bill Koch has been particularly involved in politics.

    Maybe they could move the Hall to the Boathouse. That just might be a winner.

  4. StevenEDavis
    Posted September 1, 2008 at 11:10 pm | Permalink

    David Koch, one of the Koch family billionaires, bought the vice president slot from the libertarian party in 1980 for 1/2 million dollars. Made perfect sense to the “free-market” Libertarians; who, in turn, make little sense to rational people.

    The Koch family, who were on the board of the founding members of the John Birch society; number among the 50 richest people on the planet Earth. Their propaganda arm, “The Flint Hills Institute” are allowed to publish Op-Ed pieces in the Wichita Eagle like they are some helpful non-profit group. Sorry, they are a very for-profit group and sticking you with high gas prices are their basic aims. But they want the comsuming public to accept their goals and to be grateful.

    Read Thomas Frank to know the truth…

  5. JWink
    Posted September 2, 2008 at 6:06 am | Permalink

    BTH: The Boathouse on Maple-Lewis and Arkansas River would be a good location for the Sports Hall of Fame. Would be near Lawrence-Dumont Stadium and Ice Sports. Good idea.