It was around this time two years ago that I had to say goodbye to my dad. Father’s Day has felt different ever since. He was a gentle man of conviction who loved his family…

Equipped with a bucket and rag, I went down to the creek’s bank Wednesday evening seeking atonement. Early last summer, I had planted two viburnum bushes about eight feet from the water’s edge.  Two things…

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, / That wants it down,” Robert Frost observed in his poem “Mending Wall.” I am one of those somethings. When the speaker of Frost’s poem wonders what…

In the never-ending battle for LGBTQ rights, two things happened Tuesday half a continent apart.  One made me more proud to be a Wichitan. The other made me less proud to be an American.  In…

In 2021, Kansas Tourism launched the Sunflower Summer program, opening the doors to our state’s zoos, museums, nature centers, and historical sites to Kansas families — for free!  Designed to help young Kansans explore and…

As evidenced by the last several years, intense rainfalls are becoming the norm in our neck of the woods.  Tuesday’s rains dumped almost 3 inches in two hours in parts of town.  Such an intense…

Another inconclusive round of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine on Monday was largely overshadowed by recent events on the ground: Russia’s pulverizing missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities and a military training ground,…

Several years ago, a colleague teaching at Miami University, a large state school in Ohio, kindly invited me to give a talk there. After picking me up at the airport, he suggested that we have…

“I’m very much concerned, as I know you are, about what’s being delivered to our children in this country,” said Fred Rogers to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Communications in May 1969. “We don’t have…

The $4 billion Panasonic battery factory in De Soto should have been a first-of-a-kind project for Kansas and the Midwest.  In addition to the estimated 4,000 new jobs coming to town, Panasonic and the state…