By Tom Wilbur

My friend, Dennis Lauver, our fearless leader at the Salina Area Chamber of Commerce, is an interesting guy. And he is always curious about gaining feedback from people within the community—gauging their interest, and helping take Salina where it wants to go. In his position, he is a Promoter for new businesses who are inquiring about the benefits of setting up shop in our area.  (And of course, Promoter has a capital P, and that rhymes with T and that stands for Trouble—or was it pool? That whole Music Man, and the Wells Fargo wagon thing, messes with my head).

Anyway—recently posted on Mr. Lauver’s Facebook page (see, I told you he was a friend), was a question asked by a business prospect looking to enjoin their business with our community— and the question was simply this: “What is Salina known for?”

I was going to interject a one or two word response, but it really got me to thinking (a little scary) and I got excited about exploring the possibilities with you, my little doobies. What is Salina known for? Salina is known for lots of things, and there are a lot of things about Salina that people don’t know.

I am a lifetime Salinan. Though born on an Air Force base somewhere near San Marcos, Texas— my father soon brought us back to his hometown of Salina, Kansas, where his father lived, and his grandfather had lived before that. Dad understood the value of raising kids in a town like Salina, and I’m incredibly grateful to him, and Mom, for that decision.

As we begin our journey into ‘what Salina is known for’, we could easily start with a sign found toward the end of Dr. Seuss’ classic, “I Can Read With My Eyes Shut”, that says “Salina, Kansas—Birthplace of Curtis A. Abel, 2,376 Miles”. I guess the good Doctor might have placed that sign there to suggest Salina’s a long way from somewhere. People in Los Angeles or New York City probably see us as some little city way out in the middle of nowhere, if they’ve even heard of us before—but, of course, we know ourselves to be right here where we’re supposed to be– at home, in a town we love.

On the surface, most folks know Salina as a town of nearly 50,000 people, located in the center of Kansas, where Interstate Highways I-70 and I-135 intersect. People driving by know that we’re the largest town between Topeka, Kansas, and Denver, Colorado, on I-70. If they routinely drive to the West, they may encounter two headed calves, and the world’s largest prairie dog—and a whole lot of wide open spaces. There’s a Garden of Eden and at least one Starbucks out there, too. Yes indeed, that’s the prairie—where Native American Indians once lived, and millions of buffalo roamed—now thousands of acres of land producing wheat, corn, soybeans, pigs and cattle to feed people. Near Salina you’ll find wild turkeys, pheasant, and quail in our fields, fish in our lakes, and abundant populations of wildlife. And this Summer, a lot of dirt wanting for moisture and crops.

You might see some oil wells being drilled, and an energy producing windmill or two, churning in the Kansas breeze. I’m certain that meteorologists study for years trying to determine why it’s so windy in various areas of our country. Kansas is a lot windier than Chicago for example, a place known as The Windy City (although Rahm Emmanuel may have given Chicago a boost in that department). I surmise it to be pretty simple concept, actually: There’s simply nothing for the wind to hit out in these parts—no tall buildings or mountainous peaks, anywhere. So we hear, and feel, the wind blow.

Salina is the county seat of Saline County, Kansas, and for some reason severe weather and tornadoes that plague Kansas at different times of the year, generally by-pass Salina. You can actually watch on weather radar as huge red blobs of lightning, massive clouds and angry energy forces head right toward us, and just before The Blob arrives—it breaks up and deflects its wrath upon unassuming Assaria, Bennington, Kipp, or Chapman, Kansas. In Salina, we really do have all four seasons—but not always when you expect them to occur. This Summer was hot as a frying pan, and with all that wind, we had a free whole body blow-drying service nearly every day. But I’ve seen a blizzard on Halloween, and played golf in shirt sleeves in the middle of January. So you learn to respect the weather out here.

But I digress— Salina was settled by the William A. Philips Settlement party in 1858 (not to be confused with the Salina Tea Party, or those hotties known as Wilson Phillips, a female pop band, though there are plenty of Wilson’s here, too). Salina was incorporated in 1870, after fending off Indian attacks and the bush-wacker attacks of the day. The first manufacturer of jeans, The Lee Company, started in Salina in around 1890. St. John’s Missionary Baptist Church was founded by freed slaves in the late 1800’s where they met on Sundays in an earthen dugout by the river in North Salina, to thank God for their blessings. My friend, Pastor Allen Smith, leads that church— working every day to build a bridge with all the citizens of Salina. We have great churches, and vibrant places of worship in Salina—numbering nearly 100—because most of us are God-fearing people.

Salina continued to grow in the early 1900’s, with manufacturing and as a regional hub for agriculture. We had grain traders here, and a flour mill along the river. It was reported that there were a few houses of ill repute at certain junctures, in our city. I wouldn’t know about that. We did have a cable car that ran up and down the brick streets of Santa Fe Avenue, to take you back and forth—long before many of us used to cruise up and down Fe.

In the early 1900’s a disgruntled depositor of a local bank demanded his money one day—when his wish couldn’t be granted, he went home, got a gun, and came back to shoot an assistant vice President— who did survive. But the disgruntled man was tried and convicted, and a couple of days later—he was on his way to Leavenworth prison. Justice was swift in those days.

In 1920, an elephant named Snyder, traveling through town with a circus, went on a rampage and had to be put down with weaponry from our local military academy. They tried cyanide first, but it was going to take more than that to stop an angry elephant (actually 15 silver tipped bullets) and regrettably old Snyder spent his last day on Earth here in Salina.

In the early 1930’s, the Smoky Hill Army Airfield was built (probably to defend us from those scurvy dogs from Missouri, but that’s a whole ‘nother story). That little air base grew into a mighty strategic air command unit—eventually was known as Schilling Air Force base. There were easily 10,000 people who worked in support at the air base or were stationed here in the early 1960’s. B-48 and B-52 bombers routinely flew over our area, along with some early fighter planes.

These military folks attended our movie theaters and drive-ins, and night clubs, and perpetuated one our most famous landmarks, The Cozy Inn. The Cozy Inn is in downtown Salina, where you buy little hamburgers by the sack. Salina residents find it humorous, and know someone’s not from around these parts when they walk into get Cozies in a suit or dress, and request say, two Cozies with no onions. That ain’t gonna happen. And the onion smell that will generally permeates their skin and their clothes will terrorize them for days. Think of “The Cat In The Hat”, and Thing 1 and Thing 2. Kind of a fun gag, for us locals. Salina’s Scheme pizza is across the street and that’s good, too.

And then one day a guy named Robert McNamara, the head of the U.S Department of Defense announced that Schilling was to be closed, and within a year or so, most of those folks were gone. They left empty houses, and empty night clubs, and Salina had a huge economic challenge before it. One of Salina’s great success stories was the development of the Salina Airport Authority, an organization founded to manage the giant airstrip and all the land and barracks around the former base– and to start to put it back to use.

In 1976, Salina held a street dance, for the bi-centennial of the United States. We had The Fifth Dimension come sing to us downtown. And we had so much fun that we have made it an annual event, called The Smoky Hill River Festival— the second full weekend of every June. It is our defining community wide event featuring music, arts, crafts, color, sound, food, and families coming together just to hang out under their favorite tree. Over the course of that weekend each year, nearly 100,000 folks pass through the gates and make their way to the site of the event, Oakdale Park. It’s a community celebration of life, here in our home town.

Here are other things Salina is known for—-

• Schwan’s—a frozen food provider that on occasion produces more than a million frozen Tony’s pizzas in a day– our largest single employer
• Philips—one of the world’s biggest and best florescent lamp manufacturers
• Exide Battery—among the world’s largest battery production plants
• Home to Kansas Wesleyan University, Kansas State/Salina, the Salina Area Technical School, Brown Mackie College—and the newest addition—the University of Kansas School of Medicine
• A nationally acclaimed community theater, The Salina Community Theatre
• A strong arts community headed by the Salina Arts and Humanities Commission, featuring the Salina Arts Center, and the Salina Arts Cinema
• The Stiefel Theatre for the performing arts brings national artists to Salina in music, dance, shows for children, comedy and hosts the Salina Symphony
• The Rolling Hills Wildlife Adventure—the vision of the late Charlie Walker– an outstanding place to take the family, just west of Salina, spanning hundreds of acres
• At the Smoky Hill Museum downtown you can learn even more about Salina
• A solid police department headed by Chief Jim Hill, and a city administration that works to help solutions for businesses to grow
• The Land Institute, headed by Wes Jackson– looking to find solutions to life on this planet through sustainable agriculture– and recognized world-wide
• Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Salina has received national attention, and serves to mentor hundreds of kids in our community
• Salina’s Bicentennial Center which can seat up to 8,000 people for a concert or sporting event
• Next door to the Bicentennial Center you’ll find Kenwood Cove—an outstanding aquatics park, paid for by the citizens of Salina—a great draw to the community
• Salina is a major retail shopping center, a significant regional provider of comprehensive health services with outstanding doctors, and a place where many Kansans come to retire
• The City, is one of the premier teen centers anywhere—providing a safe and fun environment for area middle and high school youth
• A terrific school system including the area public schools, Sacred Heart High School, and the Salina Christian Academy
• Steve Hawley, a NASA astronaut several times over, was born and raised here
• Our United Way and YMCA make a significant difference in the lives of everyone in Salina—and the community generously supports them
• Bill Graves, the former governor of Kansas, is from Salina
• A number of movies have been filmed here, including “Picnic” and “Up the Academy”
• Salina has four very good golf courses, and good baseball and soccer fields
• The late Kurt Budke, an outstanding women’s collegiate basketball coach at Oklahoma Stated University, was a Salina native
• Salina has fundamentally sound banks and strong business leadership who contribute to helping the community grow and prosper
• Our airport runway is an asset, headed by the Salina Airport Authority, and has been an alternative landing site for NASA space craft in event of an emergency
• Blue Heaven Studios, a former church, is recording blues masters from all over the nation, to save their legacies for posterity
• Paul Harvey cut his teeth in the radio business in Salina, and would often return to Salina, for events and broadcasts
• Salina is a home base for businesses that provide products to the world including Great Plains Manufacturing, Grain Belt Supply, Salina Vortex, Research Products, Exline, Inc., Crestwood Cabinets, KASA Industrial Controls, and many others
• In 2005, the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer, piloted by adventurer Steve Fawcett, and backed by Sir Richard Branson, completed the first complete solo orbit of the Earth non-stop in an airplane that left from Salina, Kansas and came back again, as the world watched on
• TV and Broadway actor Tyrees Allen, and the late George Murdock, are Salina grown
• Coach Ken Cochran, who invented Pop-A-Shot, is a Salina basketball coaching legend—
• Salina is a place where high school sports are very competitive, and the stands will be full on Friday nights
• The local live music scene in prospering, with home grown bands like Joe’s Pet Project, the Blades, the Soul Preachers, the Salina Municipal Band, the Paramount Band, the Last National Band, folk singers Mattson and Weaver, Split Decision, Imminent Doman, the Bill Burrows Band, songwriter/singer Ann Zimmerman and Salina’s own crooner, Les Lankhorst—and many more
• Terence Newman, a long term member of the Dallas Cowboys, attended a Salina high school, as did a number of major league baseball players
• The Central Kansas Flywheels Museum takes people back to the early days of agriculture

For years, Salina was known as the “City on the Move”. Years later when we won an All American City award, we were known as (wait for it . . . ) “Salina: The All American City”. We’ve been a number of other things like “Salina Works” and today’s “Right Reason. Right Place. Right Now!” Right On, my brothers and sisters!

But Salina isn’t really about slogans, and it’s not about our buildings or stores. Salina’s about our people. The kind of people who work hard for fair pay, people who understand that core values count—with the kind of independent thinking born and bred from ancestors who have worked the land, and faced great challenges. Challenges? They make us stronger. Drought? We’ll get through it. Tornadoes? We rope and lasso them for lunch. Serving others? It’s what we do, without asking. It’s part of the fabric that makes us who we are.

In Salina, Kansas, you can start a family, and know that you’ve raised them in a place where your kids will have the opportunity to learn, to grow, to participate, to achieve, and yes, even fail, sometimes. But it’s a place where people pick themselves up when they get knocked down. And if getting back up is a significant challenge, someone will be there to lend a hand of support. People in Salina understand that real achievement comes from making it happen, not waiting for a handout—as all Kansans believe– we reach to the stars, through difficulty.

Salina doesn’t have skyscrapers, and there aren’t very many celebrities who live around these parts. We don’t attempt to be anything we aren’t. Salina doesn’t have fancy limousines, or too many folks that put on pretenses. We are who we are. Home by home, business by business we have great people here—unified in our resolve to maintain a high quality of life for generations to come. People who care about each other, and trust each other. People who enjoy the adventure found in the beauty of a Kansas autumn day, the joy of a Spring shower, or the experience of bracing for a frigid winter blizzard, about to arrive.

People love this town for what it’s really known for—being a very bright spot, found right in the heart of Kansas—and that’s no accident. So, tell them that, Dennis. Hope this helps you, my friend.

Have a great week, everyone.

tw

Tom Wilbur is President/CEO of BANK VI in Salina, Kansas.  He is a graduate of the University of Kansas, a lifelong resident of Salina, a regular editorial contributor to newspapers and magazines, and a public speaker. He is a founding member of The Last National Band rocking Salina for 32 years, and is active with various civic and church organizations. Tom can be contacted directly at tomw@banksix.com