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LAWRENCE -- University of Kansas faculty and staff members will set out on a six-day tour of Kansas on Friday, May 17, making several stops in the capital city to learn about the state's governing body and history.
KU's sixth annual Wheat State Whirlwind tour will begin at 9 a.m. May 17 when about 40 faculty and staff members spend the morning touring the state Capitol and pass the early afternoon at the Kansas Museum of History. Late in the day, the tour will return to Lawrence for a presentation by the Kansas Innovation Corporation.
The tour will break for the weekend but will pick up again on Monday for five days of travel across Kansas.
The tour is sponsored by Chancellor Robert Hemenway, who established it in 1997 to get new KU faculty and staff members out into Kansas communities to enhance their understanding of the state's culture, heritage, people and physical beauty.
Following the tour of the Capitol, the KU faculty will meet with Lt. Gov. Gary Sherrer, Topeka Capital-Journal legislative reporter Jim McLean and Jerry Slaughter, executive director of the Kansas Medical Society. KU professor of political science Burdett Loomis will act as moderator.
Loomis said he expected the meeting to come at the end of a long and intense legislative session. Although he said he would try to keep the discussion on task, he didn't think he would have to do much more than get the conversation started.
"I will just set things up and then let people talk about what's on their minds," Loomis said. "My job is to expose the faculty to a relatively sophisticated discussion about what the legislature does and why it does what it does. Then in the next week, they'll go around the state and understand implicitly why the legislators look at things the way they do. It's a nice combination."
Just before lunch, tour participants will meet briefly with Gov. Bill Graves at the Capitol for an official welcome.
The lunch hour will take the faculty and staffers to the Kansas Museum of History, where they will eat and then learn about the state's past through the Kansas State Historical Society.
Wheat State participants will meet with director Bob Keckeisen and other museum staff members, who will take the faculty and staff on a behind-the-scenes tour of the museum and its archives.
The museum includes more than a million archaeology specimens; 500,000 photographs; 100,000 objects; 70,000 feet of manuscripts, records and newspapers; 25,000 maps and atlases; and 25,000 feet of books and periodicals.
When the tour returns to Lawrence at about 2:40 p.m. Friday, Matt McClorey, a representative of the Kansas Innovation Corporation, will present information about the KIC's mission to stimulate the creation and development of technology-based, high-impact businesses in northeast Kansas. The presentation will take place in the Pine Room of the Kansas Union.
On Monday, the tour will begin a trek around Kansas that will include stops in more than 20 Kansas communities, including Emporia, Cottonwood Falls, Wichita, Dodge City, Greensburg, Montezuma, Garden City, Marienthal, Colby, Nicodemus, Palco, Russell, Lucas, Sylvan Grove, Wilson and Salina, as well as points of interest in between.
Highlights will include cultural, business and social events in a wide variety of locations that will expose the faculty and staff members to Kansas' diversity.
For more information about the tour and its participants, itineraries and maps, visit the Wheat State Whirlwind Web site, or call University Relations news bureau at (785) 864-3256 to receive a copy by mail or fax.
Wheat State Whirlwind tour itinerary for Friday, May 17
8 a.m.: Meet at the Kansas Union and load the bus for Topeka.
9 a.m.: Arrive in Topeka at the Capitol Building for tour.
10 a.m.: Legislative panel discussion (Lt. Gov. Gary Sherrer, Jim McLean and Jerry Slaughter) moderated by Burdett Loomis in Room 519 South.
11 a.m.: Meet with Gov. Graves for welcome and photo opportunity.
11:30 a.m.: Depart for the Kansas Historical Society.
Noon: Arrive at the Kansas Historical Society for lunch and tour.
2 p.m.: Depart for Lawrence.
2:40 p.m.: Arrive back at KU for presentation on Kansas Innovation Corporation in Kansas Union Pine Room.
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