wichita family magazine june 2016

Wichita Family • June 2016 - 1

MAKE THE MOST OF A KID-FREE WEEK

pg. 6PERFECT FATHER’S DAY GIFTSpg. 4

june 2016

CADDYING TURNS INTO SCHOLARSHIPS

pg. 10

2 - www.wichitafamily.com

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Published By:

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Publisher:

Todd Vogts

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Publisher Todd Vogts [email protected]

Wichita Family Magazine is published 12 times a year by Lucky 7 Publishing LLC. Wichita Family Magazine is available free, at schools, stores, restaurants, libraries, retailers and local attractions, as well as other places families frequent. For a complete list of where to find Wichita Family, or for subscription rates, email us at

[email protected] or visit our website at www.wichitafamily.com.

Copyright 2016 by Lucky 7 Publishing LLC. All rights reserved. Wichita Family Magazine is not responsible for errors, omissions or contest fulfillment from third parties. Reproduction in part or in whole without written permission is strictly prohibited. Wichita Family is distributed free of charge. The magazine’s advertisers make this possible, so support them! We reserve the right to edit submitted material. All submissions will be considered for publication, but we reserve the right to refuse material. Materials will not be returned. Any

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I’m a news junkie. There’s no denying it. I read news online nearly constantly. Anytime a newspaper is available, I consume its contents. My favorite television stations are 24-hour news channels, and I spend a majority of my day listening to National Public Radio in my vehicle or online.

My NPR station of choice is 89.1 KMUW out of Wichita. I love the na-tional programming the station carries, and the local news coverage is stel-lar, which is why the station has been receiving many awards of late.

KMUW recently held its pledge drive. Normally I don’t enjoy hearing the on-air personalities urging listeners to make a donation, but for whatever reason, this time was different.

It didn’t bother me. Instead, the story and reasons given for contribut-ing to public radio spoke to me. They

inspired me. I have

been listening to KMUW for several years, but it wasn’t until this year that I experienced a moment of profound awareness.

KMUW

was a service I used on a daily basis, and it was something I valued greatly. So, why was I willing to let others carry the weight of assisting the station in staying alive? Shouldn’t I do my part to ensure it continues to exist?

As I thought about it, I realized I couldn’t remember when I had last changed the radio station in my pickup. I realized I listen almost exclu-sively to NPR. I realized it was my first choice in listening, even when other options existed. Furthermore, I real-ized on the rare occasion a program I don’t enjoy comes on, I listen to NPR program podcasts.

It was a sign. I needed to contribute, so I made my first-ever public radio pledge.

So when did I become an NPR listener?

When I was younger, driving to school, the radio was always cranked up as I jammed to my favorite music. However, from the time I road on the school bus, I enjoyed the occasional break in the music for when the disk jockey would talk or, if you were riding on the bus with me, when Paul Harvey took over the airwaves and read the news.

As I moved into college and began studying journalism, I still listened to music in mornings, but I tended to gravitate to morning talk shows. These

generally consisted of entertainment news and lively banter between hosts.

Then, as I got older and continued my study of the media, my tastes began to change. I fell deeply in love with the news. I started to seek out news programing, and that’s when I found National Public Radio.

I started off listening to NPR while living in western Kansas. I drove a morning bus route, and I always had the radio tuned to the local NPR station. The students I drove never complained, and one day forever stuck in my mind was the day one of my students, he was a young grade school student, got onto the bus and asked me if anything new had been said about a news story we had heard the previ-ous day. Then he proceeded to tell me about a news story he saw on the tele-vision prior to me picking him up.

It was awesome! I felt like my listening to NPR in the mornings had instilled within him an interest in the news, and knowing what is going on in the world by consuming news is a key component to living in a democracy.

Public radio is important to a community, and because it is a public enterprise, it takes people who care to help keep it on the air. If you value local news and want to keep your com-munity healthy, I urge you to donate to KMUW as well.

Message from the Publisher

Todd [email protected]


Photo Courtesy of Getty Images

Dad can be hard to shop for some-times. Of course, he can never have too many ties, coffee mugs or tools.

But doesn’t the man who taught you how to ride a bike, to play catch and to always try your best deserve something more personal and unique.

Sure, he will be happy regardless of what

you get him, but why not help him enjoy more time with the interests he has out-side of being a great father. Here are some Father’s Day gift ideas for every kind of dad – from the grill master to the car enthusiast and the clean freak to the hygiene centric and every kind of dad in between.

— Family Features

Let Dad Stand Out With A Million-Dollar Shine

Your dad can now achieve the million-dollar appearance of Barrett-Jackson car auctions in his garage. Their Premium Auto Care line includes washes, waxes and detailers formulated with synthetic hydrophobic polymers and genuine carnauba wax for lasting brilliance and easy application. Learn more about how to bring a long-lasting and brilliant, deep shine to your dad’s car at Barrett-JacksonAutoCare.com. Barrett-Jackson Premium Auto Care products, which range in price from $5.49 to $17.99, are available at retailers nationwide, including Walmart, Pepboys, Menards and select Home Depots, and through online retailers including Amazon.com. For the ultimate gift, go a step further and wash his car for him.

A Gift Dad Can Sink His Teeth Into

Make Father’s Day complete with a dinner he’ll remember for years. The Omaha Steaks Father’s Day T-Bone Gift package is a meal dad will be willing and eager to fire up the grill for. The package is headlined by two 18-ounce T-Bones and includes four Brisket Burgers and four Gourmet Jumbo Franks along with Omaha Steaks Seasoning. Regularly $194.95, you can now bring the family together to enjoy this incredible fare for just $69.99. For more information, visit omahasteaks.com.


For The Dad Who Loves To Drive

What do you get a dad who loves his car and truly loves to drive? How about something that connects him to his car, like a shoe that enhances his driving experience? While comfortable and stylish enough for every-day wear, the Piloti Spyder S1 driving shoe features patented Roll Con-trol heel technology, superior red suede and mesh panels for maximum comfort and flexibility as well as the perfect combination of support, size, grip and feel. Check out the Spyder S1 ($150) as well as Piloti’s com-plete line of luxury, casual and performance driving shoes at Piloti.com.

A Spotless Workshop, Man Cave and Car

It’s the ultimate gift for dad and his man cave. The Dirt Devil FlipOut™ is a premium cordless hand vac, perfectly designed to keep his man cave, workshop or set of wheels spotless. The 16-volt, fade-free lithium battery means faster charging, longer runtime and continuous power. It’s com-pact and lightweight, and has versatile tools for quick and easy cleaning. The FlipOut is $49.99. For more information, visit DirtDevil.com.


Making the most of a kid-free week

“I just can’t stand being home alone when the kids are away at camp,” my running buddy

said to me several miles into a run last fall. For the first time since the start of the run, I was rendered speechless, not by the lack of oxygen, but by shock and confusion. “Explain,” I managed to mumble out between strides. She shared that in the past when her kids for summer camp, she felt incredibly lonely, sad and homesick for them. “So this year,” she explained, “I’m going to Puerto Rico for the week.”

For a brief moment the mother’s guilt hit me. “Why am I not heartbro-ken at the idea of my children being gone?” Or said the more truthful way, “Why is the week they are away one of my favorite times of the year? Do I not love my children enough? Am I a ter-rible mother? A bad person?”

Of course the answer to all of those questions is, “no.” I adore my children and enjoy their company. We meet all of their needs and a vast majority of their desires. Camp, though, is the ideal situ-ation for everyone in our family. They get to be somewhere they love, and we have time to do whatever we want with-out having to juggle a child’s needs.

So, on a hot July day, we will wake to the sounds of three kids too excited to sleep because camp day has finally arrived. We will load trunks with sun-screen, clothes and swimming suits. We will pile into a car with the windows all painted with camp slogans, and we will drive to the place they look forward to every day of the year. I will visit their cabins, make their beds and smother them in kisses. I may even shed a tear or two; I usually do. But then I will say goodbye, and I will rejoice in know-ing that my kids are safe and happy at Kanakuk. Then, for one glorious week, we will not have parenting as our number-one responsibility.

I never stop being a parent dur-ing this time, and I certainly do not forget about my children. I still scour the Kanakuk website for pictures of them every single morning (and let’s be honest, five other times throughout the day…okay ten…okay hourly). I think

about them constantly, but I also think about me. I think about my husband. And I enjoy every minute of it.

Since the conversation with my run-ning buddy, I have heard others express the same concern:

“How can parents survive the loneli-ness and/or guilt of enjoying time when the kids are away at a summer camp?” In the world of parenting, I do not excel at much, but this one I have down. Lonely? Nope. Guilty? Not anymore. Ecstatic? Definitely!

So to help answer the question, here are five tips on how to enjoy your time as much as your kids enjoy camp:

1. Let go of the guilt. Believe it or not, guilt is not one of the four major food groups for parents. By sending them to camp, you provide them with a life-changing experience. They learn independence. They make new friends. They learn to take risks. They play out-side and love every minute of it! And guess what? YOU give them the gift of camp. You can take responsibility for those experiences—it’s a parenting win!

2. Remember that absence really does make hearts grow fonder. Maybe I am the only one, but my parenting skills tend to decrease in direct propor-tion to the amount of time I spend with my children. Remember how much more sane you are after having a break. When the kids come home from camp, you’ll feel renewed and a little more tol-erant of constant questions or elevated volume. The same will be true for them. Your kids will realize how much you do for them because at camp, no one is there to pick their dirty clothes up off the floor. At camp, they have to find their own lost shoes or put them up so they aren’t lost in the first place (imag-ine that!). You will miss them. They will miss you. It’s healthy.

3. Be intentional about how you use your time. Recognize this for what it is—you get a vacation. Maybe not from work. Maybe not on a beach. But you get a vacation from what is likely the biggest responsibility in your life. Plan to take advantage of it. Even if you plan to do nothing more than sit in your quiet house, binge on ice cream, watch movies, sit by the pool without being splashed, run at 8 a.m. instead of

4 a.m., and enjoy the simple pleasures without factoring in a kid’s schedule. Make the plan. Have something to anxiously await like your kids anxiously await being launched off a blob into a lake. Think in advance about how you want to use your time and do it.

4. Reconnect with you and/or your spouse. The first time our children left for camp, I remember grocery shopping with my husband. The two of us. In the same place. Without kids. I noticed that we talked, we laughed, we meandered. The responsibility of parenting tempo-rarily vanished, leaving us as that young couple who once just enjoyed being together doing nothing. I saw a differ-ent person in my spouse. He was more carefree than I had seen him in years, and I know he saw a different person in me. I was his friend again, not just the person constantly reminding him of all the things we had to do.

If you can, plan a mini-vacation. One year, I had to travel for business, and my husband decided to join me for the week. We ate at restaurants without kid menus, slept in, watched movies and ate dessert in the middle of the day. It was exactly what we needed.

5. Be a super parent. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. The easiest time to be a super parent is when your kids are away at camp. Here’s the simple way to do it. Send thoughtful care packages and/or notes to your kids.

Before my kids leave for camp, I pur-chase an inexpensive card for each day they are away. I take 15 minutes to fill them out, stamp them and have them ready to go so that all I have to do is drop one in the mailbox each day. Easy! I send their camp addresses to friends and family and ask them to send notes as well. I even send letters from the pets, which takes me all of 10 minutes on any given day. And if you really want to earn your cape, send care packages with all the otherwise useless stuff that campers love—glow sticks, water balloons, card games, fake mustaches, beach balls, nail polish, stuffed animals, inexpensive bracelets they can share with friends, etc.

With a little planning and a few minutes each day, you can be the parent yelling, “nailed it!”

BY JENNIFER ADAMS


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Details: www.exploration.org300 N. McLean Blvd., Wichita, KS •

Now that school is over and home-work isn’t piling up and many of your child’s activities have stopped, summer is a great time to reconnect your kids with the love of reading. Wichita Pub-lic Library Youth Services Librarian Erin Downey Howerton shares some tips on how to encourage get your children into books.

Tip #1: Read together with audio-books. Road trips are a great time to share a fun story together as a family. Younger children can understand a higher level of spoken language than they’re able to read, so this is a perfect way to expand everyone’s vocabular-ies and hear the wonderful voices of professional narrators bring books to life. Try the audio versions of Carl Hiassen’s youth eco-novels like Hoot and Flush to spur discussion, and learn

more about the natural world.Tip #2: Boost imagination with

wordless picture books. Among the most lauded and award-winning books for young people are wordless picture books. Have your grade-schooler to read one of these, and narrate the story they think should be on the page, but isn’t. Flights of fancy like Aaron Becker’s Journey will challenge kids to flex their imagination muscles, while the more realistic Blackout by John Rocco might be just the thing that inspires a tech-free, old fashioned fun evening together.

Tip #3: The best book is a self-selected book. While it might be tempting to try and guide your child’s reading choices, research and practice shows that the love of reading stems from being able to choose one’s own

reading. Empower them to choose books with topics that resonate with them and allow your children to select books for themselves in addition to the ones you or a teacher are request-ing they try. This drives the intrinsic motivation that everyone needs for a successful reading experience.

Tip #4: Make it rewarding! Join the 10,000+ other Wichita youth who are signing up for the Wichita Public Library’s Summer Reading program! Between May 25 and July 20, kids will be challenged to read every day, win-ning prizes along the way! Parents with babies and toddlers under the age of 3 can participate in our Baby Book-worms program that introduces our youngest learners to the skills that help get them ready to read.

Public library provides summer tips to keep children reading


My parents have a picture of the three of us when I was just a baby; it’s an underwater picture, and our eyes are open, our lips pursed, and we all have that look that’s unique to humans submerged in water — I don’t know how to describe it but to write that we seem out of place.

Photographs have that quality, of course, because they capture people in a moment’s time, but add to that an un-derwater stillness and the frozen effect is doubled somehow.

I enjoy the memory of that picture and my mom and dad’s fond recollection of that day. It marks the beginning of a long history of swimming both in pools and the ocean, and I still like to play in the water.

There’s a peace about being underwater, too, that I can enter even as I write about it. I think that has to do with the quiet of it all that’s part of the slowing already described above.

Now that summer is upon us, pools open, and we’ll soon observe herds of children migrating to the local watering hole on a daily basis. We call them pool rats. I don’t know how that phrase came to be, but the image of a rat doesn’t fit. I’d like to see more children at the pools every day — and I can’t say I’ve ever wanted more rats.

My point is that children are busy at so many other things; in fact, I have many students who are relieved when school begins in the fall because it’s then their calendar isn’t so full.

Of course the younger generation is judged by the older ones, but this time the actions of the young aren’t altogether their fault. I’m sure in some instances it’s not their fault at all.

I genuinely want to know when — and why — our cul-ture began to believe that our children needed calendars at all. I remember long bouts of boredom during the summer months, and it was great!

My wife and I will soon have to deal with the temptation to shove our children into activities they “need,” and they’re at the age when they will want to engage in sports and other organized events. I pray we’ll give them some underwater time, too — time to be still and let the quiet and the peace of a summer day wash over them. I pray we’ll let them be bored or even let them feel out of place at times because everyone else will be running, running, running. I pray that for us all this summer.

Ian Anderson is a teacher, a husband, and a dad. He lives with his family in Central Kansas. Occasionally, he tweets here: @ian_writes.

By Ian Anderson

June Underwater

~ A Time To Slow Down eSSAy ~


Being married to the editor, you think it’d be easy for me to come up with a topic to write about each month. Some-times, I even say, “Give me a topic!”, and he will usually come up with something helpful. But as we are both sprint-ing toward summer and the end of our school year, our minds are going in, what seems like, 15 different directions. So when he gave me the topic “Summer Lovin’”, I repeated my request. “Give me a topic!” To which he replied, “...Had me a blast.” And while I would love to write about Grease or how much I loved watching Grease Live, I wasn’t sure how I would attempt to connect to you through that piece.

Even though his suggestion was less than helpful when it came to writing an entire piece about the topic, his idea did give me a push towards thinking about the things that I love to do during the summer, which brought on more think-ing and reminiscing about what my summers growing up looked like.

I’ve been really sentimental lately, as I am entering my summer break.

Now, yes, I went swimming, hung out with friends and went on trips with my family, but there are simple things done during past summers that have made quite an impact on who I am today. The first of those items being a chore done everyday during the summers of my childhood.

Now, my father is outdoorsy. Not in the camping, hik-ing, fishing sense, but in the mowing, gardening, going on walks, watering flowers, trimming hedges, landscaping kind of way. Each morning during the summer, my dad would call, probably hoping to wake me up, to give me instruc-tions as to what I was supposed to water and when. “Ken, water the flowers on the east side of the house now. Then sometime before lunch, water the bushes on the south side and the bushes on the west side of the house. Make sure you don’t forget!”

So, I would slip on my flip-flops, and go to it; dodging bumble bees and waving at neighbors as they drove by. Then, I didn’t see the value in having these chores. I not-so-secretly hated doing these tasks for my dad, but, as I think back to it and now that I am grown, I truly appreciate the time spent in the beauty that was and still is our yard! He is the best landscaper that I know, and now that the editor and I have a new house that has absolutely nothing of a yard, I have very high expectations for how my yard and landscap-ing will look. Needless to say, my husband is more than willing to let my dad help out!

Another common, summer activity for me was going to the lake, and it is still one of my favorite things to do. I have such a romanticized view of the lake. I always was and still am more than willing to spend my entire day on the boat! Sit in the sun, talk with family, watch other boats troll by, take the occasional dip in the lake, switch out a cousin for the jet skis . . . Now that is my idea of the best summer afternoon!

Now that I am grown, I look back on times spent at the lake with the same sentimentality as I am feeling now at the school year ends. My heart wells up, and there is that little flicker of excitement mixed with, what seems like, a mental PowerPoint of good memories!

One of my family’s favorite things to do is to play games while we are there! In particular, to play sand volleyball. We get all of the kids, aunts, uncles and grandparents out there. There have been times of so much laughter that we have had to take a break from the game and attempt to come back and finish later after we’ve all calmed down!

Thinking of past memories and the simple tasks and activities that take place during the summer really have me excited! Whether it’s admiring my dad’s landscaping or planning for my own, a cruise around the lake on my uncle’s boat, taking a walk with my mom, eating a meal outside on the patio furniture, or walking through the zoo, those are the things that make summer for me!

So yeah, I am summer lovin’, and I will have me a blast!

Kendall Vogts lives and teaches in Central Kansas. She is married to WFM publisher Todd Vogts.

By Kendall Vogts

~ A Summer Lovin’ eSSAy ~

Memories Are Made While Being Outside


Waking up at 6 a.m. to carry golf clubs for more than four miles in the hot sun

can be tiring, and the days are long. But when a full tuition and housing scholarship is on the line, the hard work is worth the effort.

That is exactly what more than 10,000 high school caddies nationwide, including four from Wichita and more than 100 from Kansas, have done in order to earn a once-in-a-lifetime shot at a full college scholarship.

This year, more than 910 deserv-ing golf caddies across the country attended college on the Chick Evans Scholarship, one of the nation’s largest

privately funded scholarship Pro-grams. Supported by the Western Golf Association, the Scholarship provides full tuition and housing at leading uni-versities across the country, including the University of Kansas. The require-ments are straightforward: earn good grades, have a strong caddie record, demonstrate financial need and display outstanding character.

Wichita resident Michael Hurley, a 1981 Evans Scholar graduate who was awarded to Michigan State University, can attest to the role that caddying played in driving his success both on and off the golf course.

“Caddying has impacted where I

am both professionally and person-ally today,” said Michael. “It instilled a strong work ethic in me and helped me develop interpersonal skills by work-ing with successful men and women golfers. Because of caddying, I have an appreciation for the game of golf.”

Being a caddie was certainly a lot of work, but students were able to experi-ence events they would not have had the opportunity to witness elsewhere. Michael’s favorite memory of his jour-ney to receiving the Evans Scholarship was caddying for Canadian profes-sional ice hockey player Gordie Howe (who is now retired). Gordie, a legend then, was gracious to Michael for his help on the golf course and has always been a great role model in Michael’s life.

While the early mornings were tough, Michael cannot put into words how thankful he is for receiving the Evans Scholarship.

“When I found out I received the Scholarship, I was awestruck and com-pletely humbled,” said Michael. “The Evans Scholarship allowed me to go to a major university which had never been in my dreams before. At that time, I knew what a special privilege the Scholarship was, but looking back 35 years later, I realize that I had com-pletely underestimated how excellent of an opportunity it was.”

Caddying offers more than merely summer employment for young men and women in Kansas. It allows ex-posure to successful role models, new friends and life lessons. The decision to become a caddie could be life-chang-ing, just as it was for Michael.

To apply for the scholarship, appli-cants must have caddied regularly for a minimum of two years and are ex-pected to caddie and/or work at their sponsoring club during the summer after they apply for the scholarship. To learn more, please visit www.wgaesf.org.

Wichita teens earn scholarships via Chick Evans caddy program

The Chick Evans Scholarships are administered by the Evans Scholars Foundation and supported by the Western Golf Association, which joined with legendary amateur golfer Charles “Chick” Evans to establish the cad-die scholarship program in 1930.

wichita family magazine june 2016

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