Three Wichita-area items are featured in latest Ripley’s Believe It or Not! book

There is never a dull moment when it comes to Ripley’s Believe It or Not! annual books.

This year’s edition, “Reality Shock!,” features three items from the Wichita and Mulvane area.

On page 220 of the book, which is now on sale, Wichitan Leslie Canaday was featured for keeping a Christmas cookie 28 years in a blue velvet jewelry box. The cookie, according to the book, still looks as good as when it was made for Leslie by her mother when Leslie was five months old.

On page 127, Mya Whittington was taken to a hospital when she was seven months old with a lump in her neck. Doctors pulled out a two-inch black feather. She may have either swallowed it or inhaled it and it pierced the inside of her cheek or throat.

And, on page 191, Ken Larry Richardson from Mulvane is featured for his 150-foot-long replica of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge spanning a small creek on his farm. Richardson spent 11 years building the bridge and used 90 tons of concrete.

None of the three Kansans were able to be reached Thursday.

But Ripley’s officials had plenty to say.

“Our entries have to amazing, they have to be unbelievable and true,” said Edward Meyer, vice president of Ripley’s exhibits and archives.

Meyers told The Eagle that since 1929, when Ripley’s began a syndicated newspaper cartoon feature, it has done 643 stories on Kansas-related items.

“A whole lot of entries get weeded out and are not as good as people might think,” Meyers said on Thursday. “We have had so many entries on cats with multiple toes. Right now, we are waiting before we do anymore. Every item has to have a wow factor. It is something we want to impress on everybody. You have to have a visceral gut reaction of ‘Wow. Holy smokes, you have to see this!’”

More than 5,000 entries were submitted for the making of this year’s book, Meyers said. Only 1,000 were accepted.

And believe it or not – even with the latest entries, Meyers said: “Kansas isn’t one of our hotbeds.”

This story was originally published October 3, 2014 at 11:20 AM with the headline "Three Wichita-area items are featured in latest Ripley’s Believe It or Not! book."