Spring 2004 Newsletter, Washburn Center for Kansas Studies

Speaking of Kansas, Newsletter of Washburn Center for Kansas Studies

Veterans Day Ceremony, Washburn University, Nov. 11, 2004
—by Roy Bird, Guest Speaker

   In the spring of 1865 a college that became Washburn University was established in Topeka, the Kansas capital. A few young Topekans had worked diligently for more than a decade to secure the benefits of a college to attract population, educate citizens, promote their community's stability, and for economic development. A transfer of property in 1861 had sealed the deal between the Congre-gationalist Church's General Association in Kansas and the college trustees. “Col. Ritchie having gone into the army sent me a power of attorney to execute with his wife a deed to the land,” according to trustee Harvey Rice. “Mrs. Ritchie and myself executed the first deed to the college site where Washburn now stands. On account of the war nothing more was done until 1865."
   President Abraham Lincoln's name, in the minds of the college founders, was synonymous with the Union and freedom and, therefore, “appropriate for a College whose establishment was sought by those who would perpetrate civil and religious liberty.” On a trip east, as agent of the trustees, Samuel D. Bowker, who had been in a Union Kansas regiment, called on the President, who approved the proposed college. Bowker wrote “that the success of this institution was a matter of deep concern to President Lincoln, and that, during the week of his re-inauguration, he expressed to me His cordial approval of its design and gave assurance of his prospective aid in its Behalf.” Lincoln's tragic death just two months after the launch of the Kansas college—until that time called sometimes Monumental College and sometimes the Topeka Institute—promoted a circular entitled “Lincoln Monumental College” calling the institution “A monument to the Triumph of Freedom over Slavery” and indicating that it was “Dedicated to the Memory of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, From March 4th, 1861, to April 15th, 1865.”
   Lincoln's assassination so enshrined his name in the hearts of Kansans that no one argued over renaming the Topeka Institute. Although the President's death prevented the aid Lincoln proposed to Bowker, the memorial idea was used prominently in future campaigns to raid funds for the college, now called Lincoln College.
   The Civil War and Lincoln's death greatly influenced the early history of the Congregational college. The coming of the war stop-ped promising progress. The donation of a farm southwest of Topeka by John Ritchie—veteran of the Fifth Kansas Volunteer regiment and colonel of the Second Kansas Indian Home Guard Regiment—revitalized the project, and he signed the deed on a drumhead on the field of war in March, 1865. At the close of the war, Lincoln College invited all Union veterans residingin Kansas to attend tuition free, but only eight young men responded.
   Col. Ritchie's original deed had been ineffective because the founders had not yet incorporated. Thus no legal governing body existed to accept the gift. The new deed, signed in the field before Ritchie was mustered out, included 160 acres on which we now stand and $2,400 in cash.
   Meanwhile, the trustees purchased lots on the northeast corner of Tenth Avenue and Jackson Street for $400, also provided by John Ritchie. Here on a long-gone ridge overlooking the site where the capitol building would rise, they planned to start the college. The Tenth and Jackson site was selected for a building. Harvey Rice constructed that building after contractors failed to bid because, as one of them told Rice, “it took money to put up buildings.” Rice proposed to build it at a cost of $7,000. He used Union soldiers stationed in Topeka to excavate the foundation. He used stone from a quarry on some of Ritchie's property, and his own “three yoke ox team and two two-horse teams” to haul lumber from Atchison and Leavenworth.
   In preparation for the grand opening of the college, the trustees appointed faculty who would continue to influence the institution. Some of them were Union veterans who had been teachers and who now returned to their civilian occupations.

The contributions of Civil War veterans was acknowledged when the Washburn campus was visited for the only time by a U.S. president while in office. In September, 1911, William Howard Taft dedicated the flagpole north of the old Thomas Gymnasium. This flagstaff and the mosaic tile base were given to Washburn by the Topeka members of the Grand Army of the Republic, surviving veterans of the Civil War's Union army. The G.A.R. had invited President Taft to dedicate the new Memorial Building (which now houses offices of the Kansas Secretary of State and the Kansas Attorney General) on the site of the Lincoln College building at Tenth and Jackson. Taft was invited also to dedicate the flagpole at Washburn because of its strong ties to the Union during the Civil War and because it, too, was a G.A.R. donation.

Lincoln bronze sculpture, Topeka capitol grounds. Photo by Carol Yoho.

“President Abraham Lincoln's name, in the minds of the college founders, was synonymous with the Union and freedom...”

Veterans of the Second World War have been called by Tom Brokaw “the Greatest Generation.” On this day when we honor all veterans, I would add that so, too, were the veterans of the American Civil War. They helped make Kansas a free state; they helped save the Union; they helped to shape Kansas and Topeka and make them what they are today. And they created this great institution of higher education—right down to the very ground—of which we are all so proud today.
Each generation since has contributed soldiers who became veterans: Professor William Harsh-barger served with Washburn students during the war with Spain; the 120 members of the Wash-burn College Ambulance Com-pany, half of whom were students, who served in France during World War I, and the many students who were enrolled in the Student Army Training Corps and became officers in the "Great War;" the 900 young men who served in the V-5 and V-12 Navy pilots program, the 50 students in the Army Reserve who were called to active duty in 1943, the young men who filled the semesterly quota for Army, Navy, and Marine enlistees in the Student Reserve Corp, the half of the law students who curtailed their legal education because they joined the armed services, and especially those who died at places they'd never heard of like Anzio, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa during World War II; the student soldiers or recent alums who were called back to duty in Korea, the many students who doubled Washburn's enrollment thanks to the G.I. Bill, and others who enrolled in the university's ROTC program; those who attended Washburn while serving at Forbes Air Force Base, the Arnold Air Society and Angel Flight, or who interrupted their education to serve in Viet Nam; the members of my own classes who I saw depart before the semester was over to serve in the Gulf War; and those who are serving today in Bosnia, in Afghanistan, and Iraq, as well as those who are prepared to go. I have had in my years as an adjunct white, African American, American Indian, and Hispanic veteran students, reservists or National Guard members.
To all the veterans and all those who are not with us—from the Civil War to today's hot spots in which Washburn students, faculty and administration have served—Washburn says “Thank you.” Without veterans, this university would not be what it is today.

Your Local Grocery Store Revisited
—by Tom Schmiedeler, Geography

grew up in the 1950s and 1960s in Tipton, a
German- Catholic community of about three hundred nestled in the heart of the Smoky Hills in north-central Kansas. Despite the efforts of this resilient community, which has been always centered on St. Boniface parish and its attendant parochial schools, the business district of Tipton has not been immune from the negative impacts associated with the changes in Kansas agriculture over the past century, especially those that have reduced the number of farmers trading on Main Street.
The impact of these changes on the townscapes of small places like Tipton becomes obvious through time, though they vary considerably from place to place. Business districts gradually acquire the look of abandonment with derelict buildings and vacant lots where structures once stood but have been razed, often quick-on-the heels of business closure. In some cases, because of landlord neglect, building components, especially roofs, become too dilapidated for repair. A landlord, too, in the absence of tenants, may be unwilling to pay fire-insurance premiums, especially on frame buildings that could become firetraps. Some sociologists, however, have alluded to a more subliminal factor in the destruction of these buildings. As long as they stand, they serve as material manifestations of the collective memory of what the community used to be as members interacted not only within the walls of the buildings but within the social space of the community network. Thus, they can be rather unpleasant reminders of the social capital that has been lost to the town.
But what, indeed, is that social capital and how did these businesses interact within the web of community relations to help create it? These are not easy questions to answer particularly for one not trained in the sociology

Buildings can be
“rather unpleasant reminders of the
social capital that has been lost
to the town.”

of small towns. But perhaps a personal, retrospective journey back to my favorite Tipton business might provide some insight. The business, known regionally as Schmiedeler's Store, was that of my grandparents and parents. The period for my time traveling is the 1950s and 1960s so my musings are, in effect, childhood memories. The period is significant, however, in that it represents a stable chronological bridge between the 1930s and 1970s and is therefore revelatory of localized business relationships of the earlier period and of the changes in them that transpired as rural Kansas society left one era and gradually entered a very different one.
   Schmiedeler's Store was distinctive in the community in that it was a general store. By definition general stores (shortened from general merchandise store) carried a wide variety of goods including groceries but they lacked specialized departments. The structure itself was a one-story brick building with tar roof. The front door was centered in a rectangular alcove within a façade of window panels on each side. Such recessionals were standard features for business façades in small towns for they sheltered the entrance from the elements, isolated customers from sidewalk foot traffic, and provided strategic space for advertising. The rectangular-shaped interior had wooden floors that required periodic swabbing with linseed oil and a daily cleaning with sweeping compound. A pressed-tin ceiling, a popular building material when the store opened in 1923, was overhead.
   Store space was roughly evenly divided among groceries on the left and a hodgepodge of merchandise on the right that included men's work clothing, shoes, rubber boots, notions, toiletries and over-the-counter drugs, school supplies, fabric, religious statuary, and oil cloth for kitchen tables. Then there was the “meat counter” at the rear of the grocery section. It consisted of a refrigerated show case, wrapping table, chopping block, scale, grinder, and two slicers. Adjacent to the meat counter was a walk-in cooler that held front and hindquarters of beef and pork suspended from meat hooks in the back and dairy products on shelving in the front. The beef and pork came directly from a regional slaughterhouse in Downs located only sixteen miles northwest of Tipton. Little if any pre-packaged meats were sold in the store.
   In winter time the social core of the store was around a pot-bellied stove located near the back in the dry-goods section. The fuel was usually bituminous (soft-black) coal brought to the town by the Santa Fe Railroad over its

[graphic: cut of meat]

Osborne branch that originated in Salina. The depot agent transferred the coal to his pickup and delivered it with good cheer to the lean-to coal shed made of tile blocks and abutting the back of the store. It was the job of everyone who worked in the store, but especially the children, to fill the scuttle and to keep the fire going. As a source of warmth, the pot-bellied stove performed like any other stationary glowing orb; it delivered heat energy only so far. On the coldest days the front of the store was more frosty than toasty, and ice formed frequently on the inside of the great front window panels. But, of course, this heating imbalance created some of the ambience of the store as shoppers would first mingle about the stove, warming hands and feet as they leaned forward on the black veneer wooden chairs that probably once served duty in the local movie theater. My brother, Jack, recalled that in his pre-school years he often took naps

"When the freight arrived at the store, we were expected to be there."

on top of the men's overalls near the warmth of the stove. The heyday of burning coal for heat in local businesses and residences had long passed by the mid 1950s and so the pot-bellied stove in our store went the way of the operator-assisted telephone call sometime near the end of the decade. Although the new, forced-air, gas-burning unit was suspended from the ceiling in the vicinity of the old stove, the space surrounding the place of the old stove never again felt as warm.

   The Protestant work ethic was alive and well in this Catholic community and my siblings and I were introduced to store chores at a very early age. Stocking shelves or "packing out freight" was the one task that you could count on every week. This activity is still rather l [graphic: lotion bottles] abor intensive today, but it was even more so in the period before bar codes. Freight arrived on Wednesday around mid afternoon from a small wholesaler who operated out of the village of Paradise, one of a series of communities along state highway 18, most of which were athletic rivals of the Tipton Cardinals. When the freight arrived at the store, we were expected to be there. In my last pre-school Christmas I remember getting a print set with inkpad and individual letters and numbers. Whether by design or not, the print set introduced me to the task of marking prices on individual cans and packaged goods before they were shelved. The boyhood bliss of summer afternoons spent at Carr Creek, the “railroad bridge” or at the baseball diamond, where balls hit off the north side of public school in right field were in play, always made discharge of this weekly obligation difficult.
   Another job was loathsome from the beginning. It involved the raw milk that farmers brought into the store. The milk had to be tested for cream fat content, which determined the price of the milk, before it was shipped out of town. The testing involved placing milk samples in small test jars and then those containers in a centrifuge, which separated the fat from the milk. It was my task to clean these and other testing bottles in a metal tub in the very back of the store. At some point in time my father no longer accepted milk for testing from the farmers. Competition with another local business may have been a factor, but the fact that fewer farmers kept small dairy herds as farm diversity declined was probably more decisive.
   The fall and early winter was the time for making the store specialty—sausage or wurst. Most was sold just before and during the holiday season. The mix of pork, beef, and seasonings was an old family recipe but from whom I do not know. The process began with orders from the Downs slaughterhouse. Meat was cut into small chunks and then ground and seasoned. Amounts varied but most batches filled two fifty-gallon crocks. Casings arrived in brine in small wooden kegs. My brothers and I either turned the handle of the one-gallon stuffer or tied the ends of the casings with string. After applying liquid smoke, sausage links were hung in the unheated "back room" on discarded broom handles. We sold most of the sausage locally, but large orders sometimes came from regional businesses which gave links as Christmas gifts to their best customers. Of course, this increased demand for the product.
   Through time I realized that sausage making was really the only profitable activity in the store and the extra cash came at just the right time for the holiday season. As a [graphic: wrapped hard candy] result, we were showered with Christmas gifts that were more befitting a family with a significantly higher income. Like those of children today, our letters requesting gifts were sent to Santa at the North Pole, but we selected the gifts from a catalog issued by Bennett Brothers, a giant Chicago wholesaler. As youngsters we never made the connection—the magic of Christmas!
   And the magic of Christmas permeated the store as well. A Christmas tree truck loaded with Douglas fir parked behind the store was the first indicator that it had arrived. Initially, most trees were stored in the back room where their delightful smell competed with that of the smoked sausage. Trees were sold at the front of the store and brought there as space permitted. They were wrapped in netting; cutting it off and shaping the trees by pressing down on the branches was one of the many enjoyable tasks during the season. Of course, the family tree was selected first and then important customers were notified.
   Prior and after the Christmas season—limited then to late November and December—the wider of the two grocery aisles was either open or used to display sale items. During the Christmas season it became a glorious

“The magic of Christmas
permeated the store
as well.”

repository for fifty-pound, gunny sacks of peanuts, Brazil nuts, walnuts, pecans and hazel nuts. Although acceptable Christmas fare, these nuts could not compete with the specialty candies that came to the store then. They includes a wide variety of bulk hard candies sold from tin, drum-shaped containers and an equally broad assortment of soft candies, the bulk of which were chocolates that arrived in cardboard boxes. Peanut clusters, peanut brittle, cream mounds, stars, turtles (a type of nutty, caramel chocolate), and orange slices were among the confectionaries I recall, but there were many others. They were sold in bulk or packaged in plastic bags. There was no shortage of labor for bagging chocolates as there was for “sacking” ten-pound bags of potatoes at other times of the year. Even as youngsters we joked about having to “try the chocolate to be sure it wasn't spoiled” in shipment. Above the aisle and spanning the length and breadth of the store were wires festooned with garlands and with green and red wide ribbons. Putting up the decorations was a lot of work, but the anticipation of what was to come made it fun. Taking them down was the low point of the winter.
Much like that experienced at the end of the Christmas holiday, a feeling of melancholy flows through this reminiscence. Today the location of Schmiedeler's Store is one of those vacant lots that sadly comprise too much of the space in our small Kansas towns, as they do in towns throughout the Midwest. On the other hand, the corporate interlopers that displaced “mom and pops” on Main Street are abundant, even penetrating the market of some relatively small places. Like those of Schmiedeler's Store and the other Tipton businesses, the proprietors of the largest of these interlopers can and do make the claim that their business is “family owned and operated.” But they will never be able to make the claim that their business is family owned and operated and locally centered in the community in which it serves and from which it evolved. That is not the same claim at all and I, for one, am very grateful for knowing and having lived the difference.

Kansas Studies Courses—

Spring 2004 offerings include:

Art and Architecture in Kansas (Reinhild Janzen)
State and Local Government (Loran Smith)
Kansas Politics (Bob Beatty)
Contemporary Kansas Literature (Tom Averill)
Kansas Historical Geology (Will Gilliland)

Professional Archaeologists of Kansas Prepare for “Kansas Archaeology Month” in April —Margaret Wood, Sociology and Anthropology
t their general membership meeting in October the Professional Archaeologists of Kansas (PAK) began planning a month long, statewide celebration of Kansas' historic and prehistoric heritage. The objective of Kansas Archaeology Month is to raise awareness of Kansas' important archaeological heritage and to promote conservation of our irreplaceable sites. During the month of April 2005 PAK members will be busy presenting lectures and films, organizing artifact identification days, and presenting special museum exhibits related to this years theme, “Faces of The Past.” Kansas Archaeology Month has a long history in the State and in the past was primarily funded by the Kansas State Historical Society (KSHS). Due to State budget cutbacks, however KSHS was no longer able to support this important event. In 2002 the Professional Archaeologists of Kansas stepped up to the challenge and have been hosting Archaeology Month events ever since. Last year Governor Kath-leen Sebelius signed a Proclamation officially declaring April “Kansas Archaeology Month.” One of the important missions of PAK is to facilitate outreach and education. As part of Archaeology Month last year PAK members prepared lesson plans for grades six through eight, which meet Kansas Board of Education standards and have provided annotated bibliographies for teachers and students. These are available on PAK's web site at: www.ksarchaeo.info/	Each year PAK also distributes hundreds of posters to schools and other institutions free of charge. Copies of posters from past years are also available on PAK's website. PAK also produces t-shirts, calendars and other items in order to raise awareness about archaeology in Kansas and to raise funds to support Kansas Archaeology Month activities. This year's theme, “Faces of the Past” will be featured in a glossy calendar with pictures of artifacts ranging from prehistoric effigy vessels to porcelain doll fragments. PAK is an organization of professionals and students from across the State. Members volunteer and give tirelessly of their time to see that Archaeology Month continues. If you are interested in participating in Archaeology Month activities, getting an Archaeology Month poster or acquiring Archaeology Month goods please see the Professional Archaeologist of Kansas web site or contact any of the following people: Margaret Wood, Myra Giesen, Donna Roper, Brad Logan, or Tim Weston.
Kansas Geography Field Trip 2004 —Tom Schmiedeler, Geography
he annual Kansas Geography Field Trip was held on Saturday, October 9. An absolutely beautiful day greeted the 25 participants who assembled on the Washburn campus at 7:45. The first stop was on the bluffs of the scenic river road about five miles east of Topeka. Tom Schmiedeler spoke about river meanders and deposition at a particularly nice view of the Kansas River from the road. Later, Steve Bozarth, from the K.U. Geography Department, discussed native vegetation and introduced species of vegetation from a site on top of the river bluffs. For comparative purposes, he brought with him a current, land-use map of Kansas and a map of native vegetation. After the river road site, the group proceeded to a geoarchaeological site about 20 miles west of Topeka in the vicinity of Paxico. The precise location was at a cut bank and point bar on Mill Creek, a major tributary of the Kansas River. Rolfe Mandel from the Kansas Geological Survey discussed artifacts found at the location, referred to as the “Claussen site” by researchers. Some of the artifacts date from about 10,000 years before present. Rolfe also explained the geomorphic history of the valley in the Holocene Period of the last 10,000 years. The focus of the field trip shifted to the historical geography of Lawrence on the third stop of the tour. Tom Schmiedeler explained how the early physical geography of the city, particularly an early ravine running through the city in what is now Watson Park in downtown Lawrence, influenced the development of the Old West Lawrence neighborhood. He also spoke of the	separateness of North Lawrence in its early history. After this meeting at the old Union Pacific depot in North Lawrence, the group crossed the river and had lunch at a number of venues in downtown Lawrence. After lunch, the tour went to Haskell University in the southeastern part of the city. Mike Caron, a historian of Native Americans and Haskell discussed the Haskell cemetery, the resting place of about one hundred Indian children. Mike also led the group to the Medicine Wheel, a sacred Native American site on the southern end of the campus adjacent to the Baker Wetlands. After some discussion there of the significance of the Medicine Wheel, the group crossed over 31st street and entered the controversial wetlands. The focus of the discussion, again led by Mike Caron, was on what the wetlands meant to the native peoples and the efforts to destroy the wetlands by advocates of the South Lawrence Trafficway. After a walk on the boardwalk through the wetlands, the group started back to Topeka at approximately 3:15. Funding for expenses related to the field trip were graciously provided by the Center for Kansas Studies, as they have been for nearly all of the field trips.

Fellows News, from September Center for Kansas Studies Minutes

Bob Lawson, English, noted his book, The
Collected Sonnets of Robert N. Lawson, has just been published by Woodley Press. A book signing was held on in the Union bookstore on September 9.

Bill Roach, Business Administration, reported
that the Kansas-Studies listserv now has 236 members. He believes that it is an active listserv but perhaps one too dominated by history and museums themes. Bill encouraged fellows to promote postings on Kansas geography, geology, art, literature and other fields pertaining to their interests.

Bob Beatty and Mark Peterson, Political Science, presented a paper with a Brown vs. Board theme in Canterbury, England in September. Center funds will help complete their project, which involves a documentary film, accompanying book on Kansas governors, and analysis on the role and function of the Chief Executive in Kansas politics and policymaking. The final phase of the project involves filming of the final interviews and details.

Roy Bird, English, mentioned that his new book,
Civil War in Kansas, has been published.

Carol Yoho, Art, encouraged support of the Kansas Authors Club Centennial Convention to be held at the Topeka Capitol Plaza, October 22-24. Events include a variety of workshops (including one on sonnets by Center fellow Robert Lawson) and featured speakers. Convention details are available online (http://skyways.lib.ks.us/orgs/kac/). Carol continues her website work for the Center throughout the 2004-05 academic year. She encourages
fellows who have not submitted biographies to the website to do so by contacting her at carol.yoho@washburn.edu.

Tom Averill, Writer in Residence, English, announced that the Food Colloquium, in the developing stages last spring, is off and running. The Center is supporting event speakers. Also, the next annual Speaking of Kansas Series will include two poets and a fiction writer. Tom announced a new collection of Kansas stories to be published in February by the University of Nebraska Press

[spoon graphic]

Noted K.U. Anthropoligist to be Kansas Day Speaker

Don Stull, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Kansas, will present the Kansas Day lecture sponsored by the Center for Kansas Studies. The lecture is tentatively scheduled for Friday, January 28 at 4:00 P.M. For more than thirty years Don has conducted basic and applied research throughout the United States. Since 1987 his research interests have focused on the impact of the meat-and poultry-processing industries on workers and their host communities as they struggle to meet the challenges presented by rapid growth, rapid industrialization and increasing ethnic diversity. Don directed a team of six social scientists in a Ford Foundation study of changing ethnic relations in Garden City, Kansas. Since then he has conducted research in Lexington, Nebraska and Guymon, Oklahoma, and he has served as a consultant to a number of communities on the plains and prairies of the United State and Canada. He has authored or co-authored more than fifty scholarly articles and book chapters, and three books including the most recent Slaughter House Blues: the Meat and Poultry Industry of North America (with Michael Broadway; Wordsworth, 2004).

Art Faculty Show : Mulvane Art Museum, Oct. 16 through Dec. 5

This biennual showcases the work of Washburn art faculty. Gallery hours: Mon., closed; Tues.-Wed., 10 AM to 7 PM; Th-Fri.,10 AM to 4 PM; Sat.-Sun., 1-4 PM. CKS Fellows involved include Mary Dorsey Wanless, Marguerite Perret and Glenda Taylor.

HORTUS BOTANICA : Focus on the artwork of Marguerite Perret

work by Marguerite Perret, Catron Visiting Professor of Art

Latin for botanical garden, this series juxtaposes native botanical species of the tall grass prairie states in the central Midwest with symbols of commercial land development. The style of presentation is evocative of both botanical illustration and herbarium specimen sheets. The large botanical specimens on display are based on examples from the collection of the University of Kansas Herbarium. These are presented as digital assemblage with "details" of diamond rings, designer dresses and other items sold in malls, aerial views of Cul-de-sacs and drawings of barbed wire fences---instead of the expected elaborations of seed pods and flower structures.

The small specimens and artist books are drawn from a student herbarium collected in western Illinois in 1914. Botany and specimen collection was an important part of the curriculum at that time. These are presented in vintage microscope storage boxes and combined with representations of both human and plant cellular structures.

Center for Kansas Studies Sponsors Fiber Artist
—Marguerite Perret, Catron Visiting Professor of Art

Fiber artist Joleen Goff currently lives in Warrensburg MO, but her most powerful memories are of her childhood in Kansas, and her work by Joleen Goff, Warrensburg, Missouri connection to her grandparent's farm. She notes that "My physical connection to the farm began as a newborn in 1958 and ended in 1996 when my own two sons were two and five years of age and my grandparents moved from the farm into town. Although my physical presence on the farm has ended, my emotional connection to my grandparent's farm has continued to provide spiritual sustenance and helped shape who I am as an artist and person."
   Farm Stories: A Place of Belonging is an exhibition of quilts and photo-silk-screened images that depict themes from the farm. The work will be on view in the Georgia Neese Gray Theatre Lobby Gallery, Garvey Center, Rm 130, from January 31 - February 25, 2005. Among the works on display will be the Field Studies series which is comprised of four, 4 foot by 4 1/2 foot dyed, batiked, laminated and stitched silk constructions depicted the seasons. Together, Goff says, "the series conveys a story of the earth and its rhythmic change of seasons and cycles of life so integral to rural Kansas."
   Goff will give an artist's lecture on Thursday, February 24 at 6:00 PM in the Garvey Center, Room 131 and a hands on demonstration where participates can make Plaited Vessels (a 3-D structural fiber and collage technique), on Friday, February 25, from 9:00 AM - noon, in the Garvey Center, room 201.
   Goff's visit is supported through the Center for Kansas Studies and is part of a Fiber Arts Forum sponsored by the Washburn University Art Department. For more information, contact Marguerite Perret, Catron Visiting Professor of Art, 785.231.1010 ext. 1771.