How was your Big Kansas Road Trip experience? Here at the I-R, we purposefully chose to stay within the county lines. It was our goal in covering the BKRT to showcase Ellsworth County and those who chose to visit.

With such an expansive event happening literally in our own backyard, it could sound silly to not experience what Lincoln County and the city of Lucas have to offer. They absolutely had amazing demonstrations and experiences. But so do we.

As the county newspaper, we felt it was important to focus locally. Lincoln County and the city of Lucas will still be there next week.

And we’ll probably need a week to recover from everything that was happening in Ellsworth County!

From sunup to past sundown, events were planned in every nook and cranny of the county.

Some events or locations are always available to us, such as the state parks. Others, such as the Bar J Ranch or missile silos, are available by invitation or special arrangement. It isn’t every day you can see local artist Christine Slechta hand-paint a Czech egg.

To those who opened your homes, hearts and businesses to visitors: the words “thank you” don’t seem like enough. Having hundreds of strangers tromp through your pastures, places of business and eateries is a lot.

As journalists, we are tasked with interviewing those who visited our county. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Visitors raved about the attractions, the way they were embraced and the beauty of Ellsworth County.

We dedicated four pages of coverage to the BKRT, and we know it isn’t every story that happened — it’s simply not possible to cover them all — yet, we are working on additional follow-up information for next week’s paper, so keep your eyes open for that. Karen Bonar Publisher