January 29, 2015 News

Birthday: January 29, Stacy Betz, Robert B. Thompson, Fritz Foster, Eunice North; January 30, Ian Stevens; January 31, Debbie Oelkers, Todd Frazier; February 1, Joshua Moran, Justin George, Mason Brackney, Karen Simmerman; February 2, Neal Jacobs, Paty Miller, Doug Elias, Michael Showalter, Donny Anderson; February 3, Don Irvin, Elaine Albright; February 4, Earl Brenner, Darian Rogers, Everett Legleiter.

Anniversaries: January 31, Thayne and Machree Jones; February 2, Shannon and Donna McKinney.
Happy Birthday, Kansas.

Our sympathy to the family of Verlin E. “Buster” Humphrey, 67 of Russell, who died Monday, January 19, 2015 at Hays. His daughter Jamie Basgall lives at McCracken.

BLEEDING KANSAS LECTURES: Sunday, February 2, Constitution Hall State Historic Site in Lecompton, Kansas at 2:00 p.m. “Railroad Empire across the Heartland: Re-photographing Alexander Gardner's 1867 Westward Journey Through Kansas”, by John Charlton, photographer, Kansas Geological Survey, University of Kansas with remarks by Nancy Sherbert, curator of photographs, Kansas Historical Society. Charlton will sign copies of his book after the presentation, which will be available for purchase the day of the event. Suggested donation $3.00 for adults.

Had a nice letter from Roz Moran Bethke with up-dates on her family. JoLynn and Adam Brown live in Parker, Colorado. They have identical twin girls, Breanna Roslyn and Baylee Roberta Brown born June 25, 2014, so they were six months old on Christmas day. They have a big brother, Nolan, who is 3. Patrick and Kylee Bethke work for Citi Bank and do their work from home. Dan and Jessica Bethke are in Santa Clarita, California. Their kids are 14, 10, 6 and 5. Dan works for Disney. Del is busy with building projects and serving his clients. He still gets treatments for his carcinold tumors every four weeks. Roz retired in December and is trying the Kansas City Star system for clutter called SPASM, sort, purge, assign a place, set limits and maintain.

W. B. Foster story in Volume 11 McCracken History. The story is set in the early 1890's. It seems that about as fast as the railroad company would haul ties and distribute them along the right-of-way, they would disappear. This went on for quite some time until the main office in the East decided enough was enough. So they sent a railroad “Dick” (detective) out to investigate. About the time that he was passing near the Foster homestead one of the Western Kansas blizzards hit. The blowing snow lasted several days. Naturally, my grandparents, the William Fosters, took the gentlemen in. Their supply of buffalo and cow chips were nearly exhausted (their only source of fuel) other than some band new railroad ties. Naturally he frowned on what was happening to the railroad property, but he was as cold as anyone else, so the chips really flew trying to get the ties cut up into small enough pieces to go into the stove. After the snow and wind subsided in a few days and the sun came out, the railroad detective headed back East to file his report which read, “Unable to solve the mystery of the missing railroad ties.”

Addie Mills was a  last Saturday overnight guest of Jay Klee at Council Grove City Lake.  Enroute home on Sunday she visited with Chris Zimmerman.
 
The Jail/Museum has purchased the 1953 Telephone Directory for McCracken, Kansas.  It also includes Nekoma.  Some of the advertisers are Bryant Pharmacy, Farm Supply Co., Rush County Grain Co. Farmers Co-op Ass’n, Citizens State Bank, Meyer Hardware, Hubert Brackney Appliance, K. T. Oil Corp., Norlins and Klema’s Store,  Suzanne Randa obtained this for us from E-Bay.
 
Mary Mills celebrated his birthday on Thursday.  Addie brought ice cream and cake.

Dominic and Kayla Weskamp attended the Wichita State and Missouri State basketball Wednesday night. Tickets were a Christmas gift from the ‘kids’.

This is from Heloise: Greeting cards can be passed on to be repurposed into another product and teach life skills to children at St. Jude’s Ranch for Children. They take the fronts of greeting cards (no writing on the front or back) and turn them into new cards. All types of card fronts are welcome, but they especially need birthday and thank you card fronts. Unfortunately Disney and American Greetings cards cannot be used because of copy right issues. The size 5x7 inches or smaller is easiest to work with.

The address is St. Jude’s Ranch for Children Recycled Card Program 100 St. Jude’s Street Boulder City, NV 89005

A supper of ham, beans and corn bread were enjoyed Friday evening at the home of Roy Langdon in McCracken. Those attending were Mike Conner, Les and Cheryl Rogers, Shirley Higgins, McCracken; John Langdon and John Brown, Columbia, Missouri. Those who came later were Don and Lynnette Doornbos, Tony Harp.

Phil Pieschl, Minneapolis, Jeff Jennings, Dean Kolich, Kansas City, Steve Orendac, Tulsa, Chuck Hamm and Roy Bowers were here this weekend hunting. Phil, Jeff, Dean & Steve all played football at Hutch Juco when Chuck and Jerry were there playing baseball in 1975-76.

Jay and Erin Delcshal took part in the escort in Lawrence for President Barack Obama. Jay is a police officer in Kansas City and comes to McCracken regularly to hunt and ‘get away’. He and Clinton Swan are both police officers.

Rose and Les Diehl lost their beloved dog Chappy this past week. We are very sorry for their loss.

History notes

Feb 1965

Arlene Gilbert, Kathleen Stremel, JoFay Gaschler spent the weekend in Wichita where they attended the Kansas Music Educators Convention.

The girls played in the area band and orchestra which played at the convention. Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Mills announce the adoption of a daughter, Joy Christine born January 4, 1965. Guests for supper at the home of Lloyd and Hattie Conner last Sunday honoring their grandson, Danny Conner on his birthday were Glenn and Liz Conner, Mike and Danny, Mr. and Mrs. Floyd Belden, Beloit. Melvin and Mildred Littler, Calvin and Doneta Parsons, Gerald and Emma Mae Anderson attended the policeman’s benefit ball at Great Bend Friday night.

January 1975

Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Russell Peters on the birth of a son, Jason Lee, born January 16 at CKMC in Great Bend.

The undefeated Mustangs blasted out a 99-48 Lincoln Branch League win over Eastern Heights Friday night. Casey led the scoring with 27 points. In the B-team game, McCracken won by several points. Steve Foreman had 11, Mike Conner 11 and Chuck Higgins an even 20.

Roger Legleiter is a member of the DCCC Livestock Judging Team. They will attend the Nat’l Junior Intercollegiate Livestock Judging Contests in February in Houston, Texas.Elvira Fudge died in KC, Missouri last week. She was a sister of the late Mrs. Bert Irvin. Burial was in the McCracken Cemetery.