Pittsburg State University - Kanza Yearbook (Pittsburg, KS)

Page 10 text:

THE LAND Miles and miles of grasslands, wheatfields and prairies dictate the nation’s image of her. Dusty roads, coughing hand pumps, rickety windmills, droughts and locusts plagues are pictures quickly flashed upon the visitor’s mind. Her yellow, straw-filled vastness seems mundane to the average traveler, A place unexciting to visit Jet alone to live, she is considered a part of tf e nation easily erasable and even more easily forgotten. Except by those who live here. Here the land is necessary. To the farmers the wheatfields are truly golden. The land is a supplier — a source of nourishment — the cord that keeps a man alive. Here earth and man are intimate.

Page 12 text:

A Strangers come here expecting to find Dorothy and Auntie Em or sunburned innocents in gingham shirtwaists and overalls amid seas of toothy grins and co-op caps. Surburbanites often mis- take the open trust of leaving keys in the car and screendoors unlocked as hayseed naivitey, but the narrow- minded, straight-laced label often doesn't fit here. Offspring of poor settlers searching for homes, they re- spect a man’s right to belong. Immigrants bent on making it made the land itself their home and liveli- hood. From the dirt under their finger- nails to their sod houses, the earth be- came their second God. A “get along and we ll get by attitude brought a friendliness that has been passed from generation to generation. Today, only fragments of the old coun- tries remain in faces, temperments and appetites. Thick German and Ita- lian accents of yesteryear have been tempered by the slower Kansas drawl. Lifestyles have merged. Children of miners and farmers are now execu- tives and rock stars. 8