latest
Do looks really matter? This topic is better suited to philosophers, but a series of observations from my trip to the Baltics earlier this year with Kansas Farm Bureau’s Casten Fellows Program has had me questioning my belief that if something works, it does not matter if it looks good. I have pondered the value of aesthetics in the spaces where we spend our time and the possessions with which we fill them.
Read more
Everyone agrees. We need to recruit more young people to our communities. They are the future entrepreneurs, volunteers, homeowners, school enrollments, and the desperately needed succession plans we need for our baby boomers who own 60 percent of the businesses in Kansas. We NEED them, but how do we attract them and keep them?
Read more“If you want to keep your team, pay them what they’re worth,” Liz Elting, contributor to Forbes Women.
Read moreIn a few short days we will all sit down and celebrate Thanksgiving — the holiday that is meant for us to reflect and decide what it is for which we are thankful. We have a lot to be thankful for in this great nation, not the least of which is our farms and ranches. This is so appropriate because Thanksgiving is associated with food.
Read more
I always enjoy receiving suggestions from readers because it means they want the I-R to be better — the same as all of us who work at the newspaper.
Read more
While perusing through books at an estate sale, a friend found a book about celebrated Civil War nurse Mother Bickerdyke. A passage from “Mother Bickerdyke and The Soldiers” described the defense of Corinth, Ms., from Oct. 3 and 4, 1862.
Read more
On Nov. 11, 1918, Ralph Lindsey wrote from his hospital bed in France “Armistice signed at 11 o’clock. Grand celebration all over France. War is at last over and I am still alive!” Later in life if you asked him about the scars on his chest he would simply respond with a shrug and say, “I zigged when I should have zagged.” Ralph was my great grandfather, and now, nearly 103 years after he wrote those words, our nation once again finds ourselves celebrating the contributions of our veterans during a period where their sacrifices may be less visible than they have during the past 20 years of war.
Read more