Ron Wilson Director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development This Kansas business is for the birds – gamebirds, that is. Today we’ll meet a young ruralpreneur who has created a business of raising pheasants and guiding pheasant hunts in his home region of rural Kansas.
It was about this time several years ago, when our part of the country was bone-dry like today, that I took what was probably my last outdoor hike with our dad. I swooped him up at his retirement home apartment and we headed to the McPherson Valley Wetlands just outside Inman for a hike. The trails had recently been mowed making the walking easy, but I had to measure my steps so my long legs didn’t out-distance him. We stopped on the first rise and I pointed out all the marshes that were now dry and the ones that still held water. Next, we meandered down into one dry pool along the trail where I had trapped muskrats the prior winter. We looked over a now flattened muskrat hut that had once seemed as big as a Volkswagen. We could still make out a muskrat trail in the mud that led from one big bunch of cattails to another. A little further, and we topped the dike along the drainage ditch that runs nearly a mile to the next road and drains all the marshes along the way, but was now so dry the ducks have to hitchhike down it. Just behind us, the drainage split as it made its way around a large grove of trees. The previous winter at that place there had been a long beaver dam that had since been demolished with heavy equipment. We stepped over the left-over rubble from that beaver dam and down into the dry drainage ditch. It was fascinating to think that the previous winter the water was deep enough where we stood that I hesitated to wade into it with chest waders. We found a beaver den or two dug into the bank deep in the bottom of the dry drainage. Bottles, tree limbs and strangely enough a bright yellow golf ball all lay in the mud waiting to be covered once again when the rain came. The grove of trees harbored mammoth cottonwoods probably as old as dad and I together. We clamored up out of the dry ditch, meandered through the trees and onto the road that led us back to the truck.
The biggest bets aren’t made at a card table, racetrack or during the Super Bowl. Instead, they happen every day on farms and ranches across the country. While most bettors place their hopes (and a few dollars) on a single event, those who grow our food face a successive series of wagers with the fate of the farm in the balance.
Ford County Extension Office The 2022 Ford County Fair Livestock Shows saw over 50 Ford County 4-H and FFA members compete July 21 thru July 24. The youth livestock exhibitors exhibited high quality animals they have worked with throughout the year.
The following are the overall top 10 high school football teams in Kansas in each class: 6A, 5A, 4A, 3A, 2A, 1A, 8MD1 and 8MD2. These rankings are voted on by a panel of the Kansas sports media from around the state for the start of the 2022 season.
Mike Smith DCCC Sports Information Director For the first time since 2017 the Dodge City women’s soccer program has won their season opener as they claimed a 3-0 win over Southeast to open the 2022 season. Eager to get the season rolling the Conquistadors would pick up their pace throughout the first half and ultimately outshot Southeast 8-2 in the first half on the way to a 1-0 lead at intermission.
Guadalupe Ceja’s dream has been six years in the making. The woman who grew up among business owners in Mexico is pleased to announce the grand opening of her first business, a tortilleria on the north side of Dodge City.
Dodge City High School Thursday, Sept. 1 at 10 a.m.
Sept. 2 is the last day for vendors to register for the third annual International Festival that is sure to pack downtown Dodge City from 3 to 7 p.m.