KU News Release

Colby, Scott City, Cimarron, Dodge City among Wheat State tour stops May 23

LAWRENCE — Day three of the 10th annual Wheat State Whirlwind Tour will take University of Kansas faculty and staff members to a Colby museum, a buffalo pasture, a wind farm and a historic Kansas frontier town on Wednesday, May 23.

On the third day of the tour, the participants, including Chancellor Robert Hemenway, who sponsors the tour, will travel from Colby to Dodge City, beginning with a morning tour of Colby’s Prairie Museum of Arts and History. The museum details life of the early settlers of the western Kansas plains and the hardships they endured while making a life on the wind-whipped prairie. While at the museum, Wayne Bossert, manager of the Northwest Kansas Groundwater district, will speak to the group about a concern shared by the earliest pioneers and today’s residents: water. Bossert will discuss water conservation efforts currently under way and the future of groundwater, especially as it relates to agriculture.

The tour bus will then travel to Oakley, where the group will see the first of many buffalo. A larger-than-life bronze statue stands as a tribute to Buffalo Bill Cody, who was born 10 miles west of Oakley.

Tour participants will graduate from a bronze buffalo to the real deal when they board flatbed trucks and get out with the herd at Duff’s Buffalo Ranch in Logan County. Charles “Charlie” Duff and his son, Richard, have taken the KU group up close and personal with the buffalo each year of the tour. As owners of Beef Belt Feeders of Scott City, the Duffs raise cattle and buffalo for meat. They keep about 200 buffalo in the pasture near U.S. Highway 83.

The pasture is located in an area that has produced a bevy of fossils over the years. While part of the group rides with the buffalo, others will stay behind to visit the Keystone Gallery, a fossil and rock gift shop at the pasture’s gate. Chuck Bonner and his wife, Barbara Shelton, operate the shop, which features some of the natural treasures discovered in the area.

Following the buffalo rendezvous, tour participants will travel to Scott City, where they will have lunch at the Majestic Theatre Restaurant. In its earliest days, the theatre showed silent films and hosted traveling entertainment. Today, the historic building serves as a restaurant and home to live entertainment.

The tour will roll on to Cimarron by way of Garden City, where tour commentators will focus on topics such as the cattle and meat packing industries and their importance to the local and state economies. Don Steeples, vice provost for scholarly support and the McGee Distinguished Professor of Geophysics, will also speak about the Hugoton Natural Gas Field. The gas reservoir has produced trillions of cubic feet of natural gas since its discovery in 1922. The Kansas Geological Survey, based at KU, recently issued a report that details ways operators who work in the field can extend its life and more efficiently recover remaining gas.

In Cimmaron, Kathleen Holt of the KU Child Welfare Training Network will speak to the group before it tours the community’s downtown area.

In Montezuma, the tour will visit the 170-turbine FPL Gray County Wind Energy Farm. Established in 2001, the farm is designed to produce enough energy to power 33,000 households. Energy produced at the farm supplies customers in Kansas and Missouri.

The day’s final destination is Dodge City, the famous cattle and frontier town. The group will have dinner at Long Branch Saloon, part of the Boot Hill Museum. The museum pays homage to the city’s days as a wild frontier town, when legendary lawman Wyatt Earp patrolled the city’s dusty streets.

Faculty and staff will start the day Thursday, May 24, with a visit to Dodge City Community College, where they will meet with President Richard Burke. The day’s route will head east with stops scheduled in Mullinville, Medicine Lodge, Arlington, Inman and Hutchinson.

Itinerary for Wednesday, May 23

8 a.m. — Tour Prairie Museum of Arts and History. Presentation on GW Management District by Wayne Bossert
9 a.m. — Depart for Oakley (23 miles)
9:25 a.m. — Arrive in Oakley. Point of Interest: Bronze Buffalo
9:40 a.m. — Depart for Duff’s Buffalo Ranch
10:15 a.m. — Arrive at Duff’s Buffalo Ranch. Buffalo roam with Charles Duff, owner, and visit to Keystone Gallery
11:30 a.m. — Depart for Scott City
Noon — Lunch at Majestic Theatre Restaurant, Scott City
12:45 p.m. — Depart for Cimarron (70 miles). Point of interest: Garden City
2:15 p.m. — Arrive in Cimarron
3:10 p.m. — Depart for Montezuma (17 miles)
3:30 p.m. — Arrive Montezuma. View wind turbines and visit Stauth Memorial Museum
4:30 p.m. — Depart for Dodge City (29 miles)
5:15 p.m. — Check in at hotel
6:00 p.m. — Depart for dinner
6:15 p.m. — Dinner at Boot Hill Museum’s Long Branch Saloon
8:15 p.m. — Return to hotel

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