Print edition: 
Ever since she was a little girl, Winona Duncan has been rescuing animals.
Wherever her family lived, stray dogs and cats seemed to find their way to her, and "I can't remember a time when this child did not have something under her arm, bringing it home," said her mother, Maureen Barnard.
Her daughter was in elementary school when she decided to be a vegetarian, Barnard said, and the one hunting trip she took with her dad ended with her sitting in the truck.
"She just firmly believes that everything has the right to live and the right to a home," Barnard said.
Duncan, 32, has volunteered at animal shelters and rescue organizations for more than 10 years but is now moving forward with a lifelong dream: an animal rescue of her own.
Duncan is starting Nona's A.R.R.K. (Adoption Rescue and Recovery of Kansas) on eight acres she owns near El Dorado.
"I was getting way too many animals to be a foster home," she said. "I decided it would be best to go in my own direction."
A fundraiser on Oct. 24 in Augusta will help Duncan raise money for a conditional use permit and other fees that will allow her to officially set up the rescue.
With help from her boyfriend, Drew Koehn, his brother Austin and her mother, Duncan currently cares for 12 dogs and five kittens, all of which are available for adoption through her Web site, www.nonasarrk.com.
She's also caring for a stray German shepherd living in a housing development in east Wichita, hoping to gain his trust enough to bring him into the rescue.
Although Duncan pays for her animal rescues from her job as a hairstylist and assistant manager at Wholesale Beauty Club in Derby, she also relies on other animal lovers for donations of money, supplies or services.
Clients often bring her bags of dog food, she said, and her co-workers got together at Christmas to donate gifts of food and collars.
"I've got a lot of good friends, I guess," she said.
A Web designer who brought her two puppies he found in Wichita volunteered to create her Web site for free, and a client who works at a bank is helping her with paperwork, Duncan said.
Duncan also hopes to become a nonprofit corporation, which will allow her to apply for grants.
She's starting small, and hopes her network of friends will be there if the day comes when she accumulates more animals than she can handle.
"My hope is to have some foster homes set up and network with other rescue groups," she said. "I hope to not run into that problem right away."
Butler County has a couple of other animal rescue groups, and El Dorado has an animal shelter, but the county has no humane society.
"We deal with dogs and cats that kind of slip through the cracks," said Michelle Newbrey, a Towanda veterinarian who has inspected Duncan's kennels.
Newbrey said she thinks Duncan has the ambition and the facilities to create a successful animal rescue.
"I think she just has the desire to do this, and she's a good person to do it."
