City has many blessings
Each year puts what President Washington proclaimed the “day of public thanksgiving and prayer” at greater risk from the early onset of Christmas. But this deliciously American holiday still manages to stir up the gratitude as well as the cranberry sauce. Among the many blessings worth enumerating in south-central Kansas this year:
▪ The caring nature of our community. It shows itself spontaneously, such as in the outpouring of donations and support for the woman who was found attacked and burned in Fairmount Park on Nov. 14 and who died Saturday of her injuries; or for the surviving 5-month-old boy whose mother, father and grandmother were murdered in southeast Wichita in June. Or in how donors saw to it that a cancer and dialysis patient whose car was stolen in June ended up driving a better car.
But the generosity never lets up, either, pushing the United Way of the Plains’ $15.1 million fall campaign to success and providing the thousands of dollars and volunteers needed to power local charities all year every year. It also follows the need, inspiring and enabling the Lord’s Diner to add a food truck in the Hilltop neighborhood last June and GraceMed Health Clinic to plan a new full-service site in south Wichita and add three more school clinics.
▪ Our law enforcement officers and firefighters. The Law Enforcement Memorial outside City Hall and the Kansas Fallen Firefighters Memorial at the Kansas Firefighters Museum, 1300 S. Broadway, are constant reminders of the dangers faced by these public servants and the ultimate price so many have paid on behalf of their community. In January Wichita also mourned the death of Ken Landwehr, the retired Wichita police commander who helped solve more than 600 homicides. And the nation saw our brave first responders in action after the Oct. 30 crash at the FlightSafety International building at near Wichita Mid-Continent Airport that killed four people.
▪ McConnell Air Force Base and its tanker win. Last spring brought news of the final approval of McConnell as home for 36 of the U.S. Air Force’s new KC-46A refueling tankers, and $197 million in needed construction began in July. As the mission shows trust in McConnell’s experience and expertise with the KC-135 generation of tankers, it should provide some reassurance about the base-closing and defense-cutting fights to come (a hope being tested by last month’s announced Kansas Air National Guard job cuts). The base’s annual economic impact of more than $550 million on the Wichita area needs defending.
▪ The Sedgwick County Zoo. The reactions to recent deaths of two of its beloved residents, Cinda the elephant and Marbles the chimpanzee, showed again how much the zoo and its 3,000 animals mean to Wichita and the region. So did the community discussion about the county’s plan to contribute toward an expanded elephant exhibit that will be one of the best in the nation. The No. 1 outdoor family tourist attraction in the state, the well-run zoo has earned the loyalty of kids, donors and public officials alike.
▪ Intrust Bank Arena and the local leaders who got it built. Even as the debate continues about how the downtown venue might attract more acts in its second five years, the arena can consider one mission accomplished. This month it landed the first and second rounds of an NCAA men’s basketball tournament – in 2018 – just as promoters and voters hoped it would. Businesses and community esteem will benefit.
▪ Friends University’s Singing Quakers. Celebrating their 90th anniversary this year, the Singing Quakers have been fine ambassadors around the nation and world not just of music but of their college, city and state under both 45-year director Cecil Riney and current director Mark Bartel. They manage to be much more than a choir, drawing members from multiple generations of the same families and inspiring an alumni chorus and devoted fan base.
Of course, the civil and religious liberty afforded Americans remains a unifying point of praise on this holiday, as it was when Washington wrote 225 years ago of “acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God.”
Happy Thanksgiving.
For the editorial board, Rhonda Holman
This story was originally published November 26, 2014 at 6:06 PM with the headline "City has many blessings."