Tour to make 3 Wichita stops; visits in Medicine Lodge, Greensburg, Dodge

LAWRENCE -- More than 40 faculty and staff from the University of Kansas will be introduced to Wichita's aircraft industry, Native American heritage of the area and a unique science museum Tuesday, May 21, as they travel on KU's annual Wheat State Whirlwind Tour of the Heartland.

From Wichita, the faculty bus will head southwest to Medicine Lodge, Greensburg and Dodge City for day three of the six-day Wheat State tour.

This marks the sixth year that KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway has sponsored the tour to help KU faculty new to Kansas learn more about their new home state and the communities that are hometowns for many of their students.

At Boeing, Richard "Dick" Ziegler, senior communications manager, will give the KU faculty an overview and brief tour of the Wichita division of Boeing aircraft -- Kansas' largest manufacturer.

Near downtown Wichita at the confluence of the Big and Little Arkansas rivers, the KU faculty will meet with Larry Inlow of the Mid-America All-Indian Center and Museum, 650 N. Seneca. Rick Young Eagle, a center guide, will discuss the services and mission of the center and museum with the KU faculty. The museum showcases lifestyles of the Kiowa, Cheyenne, Wichita and Sioux peoples who first lived in this area. The center provides services for Indian peoples in the area today.

At 11 a.m., nearby on the Arkansas River, Pat Clough-McCombs of the digital design studio at Wichita's Exploration Place, 300 N. McLean Blvd., will give the faculty an overview of the interactive, high-tech theatres and exhibits that explore flight and space, health and the environment, and natural history.

Following lunch at Exploration Place, the faculty will depart for the Gyp or Red Hills and the Gant-Larson ranch, 1801 N.W. Forest City Road, Medicine Lodge. Ranchers Bob and Charlene Larson and Beverly McCollum, a journalist and historian, will meet with the faculty to talk about the area's past and present including the 1867 peace treaty signing with the U.S. government by chiefs of the Kiowa, Comanche, Arapahoe, Apache and Cheyenne nations.

Later the tour turns north into Kiowa County to meet Rhonda McKee, director of the Big Well Museum in Greensburg. The faculty will have an opportunity to examine the world's largest hand-dug well and to hear about the Brenham pallasite meteorites found in the 1880s on a farm near Brenham between Greensburg and Haviland. In 1890, KU Chancellor Francis Snow was one of many scientists to visit Greensburg and purchase one of the meteorites. The Brenham meteorite is known worldwide among geologists specializing in meteorites.

Snow's specimen is at the University of California-Los Angeles, said KU geology chair W.R. VanSchmus. KU's geology department has a polished slice of a Brenham meteorite found in 1968 in Kiowa County by Ellis Peck, a local farmer. VanSchmus, who grew up in Illinois, said he knew of many Kansas towns long before he came to Kansas, and he later visited Greensburg because town names identified locations where meteorites were found.

The bus will continue west to Dodge City's Boot Hill Museum, where the KU faculty will meet Kansas Regent Floris Jean Hampton and her husband, Marvin; Dodge City Community College President Richard Burke; and City Manager John Deardoff. Several DCCC faculty will join the KU faculty and their hosts for dinner and entertainment at Boot Hill. KU Chancellor Bob Hemenway plans to join the tour in Dodge City and travel with the faculty on Wednesday to Montezuma, Garden City, Marienthal and Colby with stops to watch buffalo in Logan County and see the chalk pyramids in Gove County.

Wheat State Whirlwind Tour of the Heartland for KU faculty itinerary for Tuesday, May 21

7:45 a.m. Load the bus
8:10 a.m. Depart for tour of Boeing
8:30 a.m. Arrive at Boeing
9:25 a.m. Depart for Mid-America All-Indian Center and Museum
9:45 p.m. Arrive at Mid-America All-Indian Center and Museum for tour
10:50 p.m. Depart for lunch at Exploration Place
Noon Depart for Medicine Lodge and Gant/Larson Ranch
2 p.m. Arrive in Medicine Lodge for tour of the Red Hills and history presentation
3:15 p.m. Depart for Greensburg for tour of the world's largest hand-dug well
4:30 p.m. Arrive in Greensburg
5 p.m. Depart for Dodge City
Point of interest: Feedlots near Dodge City
6:15 p.m. Arrive at Comfort Inn, Dodge City
6:45 p.m. Depart for Boot Hill for shopping and dinner
8:30 p.m. Return to Comfort Inn

Boeing Wichita
www.boeing.com/commercial/wichita/index.html

Mid-America All-Indian Center and Museum
www.theindiancenter.com/index.html

Exploration Place
www.exploration.org

Medicine Lodge
skyways.lib.ks.us/kansas/counties/BA/

Greensburg
www.bigwell.org

Dodge City
www.dodgecity.net