1971-1990 Timeline
1973
The town of Wilson serves as a backdrop for the movie "Paper Moon," starring Ryan O'Neal and his daughter, Tatum.
1974
Jan. 15 — Joseph and Julie Otero are strangled in their home at 803 N. Edgemoor along with two of their children.
May 18 — Keeper of the Plains sculpture by Blackbear Bosin is dedicated in Wichita at the confluence of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas rivers.
October — A letter from a person claiming to have killed the Oteros is left at the downtown library. He calls himself BTK, for Bind, Torture and Kill.
1976
Aug. 11 — Michael Soles carries two rifles and a lunch pail filled with ammunition to the top floor of Wichita's 26-story Garvey building and opens fire, killing three people and wounding six.
Aug. 19 — President Gerald Ford chooses U.S. Sen. Robert Dole from Russell as his vice-presidential running mate.
Former Harvard professor Wes Jackson begins the Land Institute near Salina to experiment with sustainable agriculture.
1977
April 11 — The crew of a DC-6 loaded with 7 1/2 tons of Colombian marijuana mistakes a highway for an abandoned airstrip near Jetmore.
Farmers threaten to strike, demanding higher prices. An American Agriculture Movement rally in Hays draws 3,500 participants for a 10-mile-long tractor parade.
1978
Nancy Kassebaum, the daughter of former Kansas Gov. Alf Landon, becomes the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate on her own.
1979
After the fall of Saigon, Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian refugees begin coming to Kansas.
1980
Wichita aircraft plants lay off thousands.
Wichita native Lynette Woodard, a four-time All-America basketball player at the University of Kansas, plays on the U.S. Olympic teams in 1980 and in 1984.
1982
Olive Ann Beech retires as chairman of the aircraft company that bears her family's name.
1984
A Wichita man dies of AIDS — the first such death in Kansas.
1985
Wolf Creek Generating Station, a nuclear power plant, begins operating near Burlington.
1986
Kansas voters approve a state-owned lottery and the sale of liquor by the drink in establishments open to the public that serve food.
Oil prices plummet, and the farm and oil crises begin to hit family farmers.
1987
Dec. 30 — The bodies of Kelli Fager, 16, and her sister, Sherri, 9, are found in a hot tub in the Wichita family's basement. Phillip Fager, 37, is found shot to death in the living room.
1988
April 4 — The University of Kansas team defeats Oklahoma to win the men's NCAA basketball championship.
1989
June 10 — Wichita State University defeats Texas to win the College World Series in Omaha.
The Coleman Co. is purchased by New Yorker Ronald Perelman.
1990
March 13 — The Hesston tornado destroys 35 homes and injures 60 people. Two people in nearby communities are killed.
This story was originally published January 29, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "1971-1990 Timeline."