December 1, 2020 | By The Active Age
Veteran radio broadcaster Carla Eckels and Wichita business leader Junetta Everett were among five people inducted into The Kansas African American Museum’s Trailblazers Hall of Fame last month. Eckels, who is Director of Cultural Diversity for News and Engagement at KMUW, has been an announcer and news producer for KMUW since 1996. She hosts the […]
| By Ted Blankenship
Dorothy and I have reached a certain age. I’m going to stop right there and do a little complaining about the English language as we Americans know it (which is not so well at times). This “having reached a certain age” bothers me because no matter how old we are, we have reached a certain […]
| By Sharon Van Horn
As this crazy year of 2020 has unfolded, we have come to recognize and be thankful for many groups of people we, until now, have taken for granted: medical workers, first responders, truck drivers, store workers and teachers to name a few. To that list I would add one more group that showed their valor […]
| By The Active Age
Catholic Charities, Wichita, is partnering with Kansas Eviction Prevention Program to help tenants and their landlords apply for up to $5,000 in rental assistance. The program is designed to help Kansans who are facing eviction because of financial hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The State of Kansas has designated $35 million of CARES Act […]
November 20, 2020 | By Mary Clarkin
CHENEY – A small-town nursing home with a strong record of health and safety inspections has been identified as one of Sedgwick County’s deadliest COVID-19 clusters with 12 resident deaths. The 45-bed Cheney Golden Age Home eluded the coronavirus until the fall, when it compelled the nursing home to dedicate two of its three wings […]
November 17, 2020 | By Mary Clarkin
When Sedgwick County announced Sept. 1 that Meridian Rehabilitation and Health Care Center was a COVID-19 cluster with 18 cases but no deaths, the families of some residents knew the situation was even worse. Two residents, Roseshell Adams and Jack Van Es, had been infected by the virus by the time they died in late […]
November 2, 2020 | By Joe Stumpe
It took Elizabeth Bishop a couple tries to get over the electoral hump. But for the second election in a row, she can rest easy. The state representative from southeast Wichita, who lost her first four races for office, drew no opposition on the Nov. 3 election ballot, something of a rarity for a […]
| By The Active Age
“Without Passageways, I would be homeless. Or worse.” — Military veteran Sometimes even heroes need a hand. That’s the idea behind an organization that aims to keep homeless veterans from living and dying on the streets of Wichita. Nearly seven years ago, Jennifer Garrison and her mother, Susan Moellinger, left their careers to start Passageways, […]
| By Mary Clarkin
COVID-19 made a rapid, deadly march through the 106-bed Meridian Rehabilitation and Health Care Center, claiming nine lives and infecting 78 people in a matter of weeks. The long-term care facility at 1555 N. Meridian, which has a history of health inspection problems, was identified last month as Sedgwick County’s second-deadliest COVID-19 cluster. Only Clearwater […]
| By The Active Age
Share your favorite holiday recipe with The Active Age for a chance to win a cookbook. We are looking for recipes in every category — main dish, side dish, appetizer, dessert. The only requirement is that the recipe not contain more than 10 ingredients (not counting water, salt and pepper). The prizes for the top […]
| By Joe Stumpe
Photos by Joe Stumpe A temporary version of Southwinds Casino (left) opened in Park City last month. A few days later, Amazon announced that it would occupy a massive warehouse under construction in Park City (right). PARK CITY — When John Todd started advertising homes for sale here, he purposely […]
| By Joe Stumpe
Is Adriene Rathbun crazy? Putting out a cookbook called “Social: Holidays and Happy Hours” in the current environment might seem like it. “This may be a horrible time in the middle of the pandemic, but I also think people want to daydream,” Rathbun, food columnist for the Wichita Eagle, said. “We’re going to get past this eventually and […]
| By Pat O’Connor
Midtown was Wichita’s original neighborhood. In 1869, it held about a dozen buildings, all on Waco between Murdock and 9th Street, belonging to Darius S. Munger. Broadway was then Texas Street, and Market Street was Chisholm. Wichita Street and Waco were named in honor of the indigenous Native American tribes. Things had obviously changed by […]
| By Amy Geiszler-Jones
When our family needed to make a trip to the Chicago area for a family funeral in early September, we decided to make some memories and fit in some educational adventures for the school-age grandchildren, as well. With the Chicago area being under a quarantine order, our plans of saying hello again to the T-Rex […]
| By Ted Blankenship
The Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism says two black bears were spotted in thestate recently, one in southeast Kansas and the other in the southwest part of the state. That’s taking social distancing pretty seriously. We don’t know where they came from — probably Missouri or Oklahoma. We don’t see many black bears […]
| By Mary Corrigan
As Thanksgiving approaches, there are two specific things for which I am most grateful this year: The Active Age staff and our Active Age readers. First, putting together each issue of the monthly paper is, in the best of times, a labor of love. With a full-time staff of only three, they “run” at […]
| By Nancy Wheeler
As Thanksgiving approaches in this most challenging of years, we might consider these famous words about thankfulness and gratitude. Can you identify the authors? 1. This American essayist and Transcendentalist said, “Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously.” 2. This author of “I […]
October 1, 2020 | By The Active Age
They donate, doctor, volunteer, fly, garden, promote, perform, teach and much more. They are the winners of The Active Age’s Thrive Awards, putting experience and enthusiasm to work to acheive excellence.This month, The Active Age recognizes 25 people over 55 who are making a positive difference in Sedgwick, Butler and Harvey counties. Collectively, these people […]
| By Ted Blankenship
If you’ve been to the grocery store recently, you’ll notice that toilet paper is on the shelves again. So, buying it is now less of a problem than getting it out of the packaging it came in. You may not like to admit it, but you know what I mean. You need the product and […]
| By Pat O’Connor
Large shopping centers came to Wichita in the 1950s, but even then, they could not compete with downtown. Buses quickly took people from all points on the compass to the large, compacted shopping district. There was so much pedestrian traffic that the stoplight at the Allis Hotel, in the 200 block of south Broadway, had […]
| By Mary Clarkin
School scenes: Students at Andover High School, above, gather for a socially-distanced assembly while cheerleaders at Maize South High “mask up” during a football game. High school journalism students from those schools, Derby and Maize High documented the first day of school with photographs and a video for the Wichita Journalism Project. To watch the […]
| By The Active Age
Share your favorite holiday recipe with The Active Age for a chance to win a cookbook. We are looking for recipes in every category —main dish, side dish, appetizer, dessert. The only requirement is that the recipe not contain more than 10 ingredients (not counting water, salt and pepper). The prizes for the top […]
| By Amy Geiszler-Jones
By Amy Geiszler-Jones Don Bates has a new pen pal. And no, he won’t be marrying this one. Bates and Newman University junior Kayla Garvert have been emailing each other since the school launched a letter-writing campaign to brighten the day of two senior […]
| By Tammara Fogle
By Janice Sroufe Charisse Kahler wrote a song called “The Gardener” a couple of years ago that nicely sums up her experience as one. Well I dig in the dirt, you know I plant and I pray. To embellish the earth, in a humble way. Growing food for the birds, bees and butterflies, Sustenance for […]
| By Tammara Fogle
By Beth Bower The perfect dinner for a cool autumn night just might be a warm bowl of soup. Especially one you didn’t slave over a stove all day making. Even though things are running at a slower pace these days, it’s still nice to be able to fix a meal—in one pot with little […]