by RICK DANLEY // September 16, 2017 WINFIELD — On a warm mid-morning earlier this week, with a flock of purple martins wheeling high overhead and a soft wind rolling through the tallgrass prairie at the southern tip of the Flint Hills, Barry Barber invited me to look closely and with care at a large pile … Continue reading The Guru of Grass
by RICK DANLEY // June 18, 2018 PARSONS — Southeast Kansas’s GOP faithful poured into the Parsons Municipal Auditorium on Saturday for a forum featuring four of the top Republican candidates for governor. Current front-runners, incumbent Gov. Jeff Colyer and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, appeared alongside former state Sen. Jim Barnett and Insurance … Continue reading GOP in SEK: Debate Night
by RICK DANLEY // March 29, 2019 The United Methodist Church entered a new era in its long history when in late-February, after three days of fierce debate, the church voted to uphold its prohibition on both same-sex marriage and the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy. The controversial measure, which passed by a narrow … Continue reading ‘Think and Let Think’: UMC/LGBTQ
by RICK DANLEY // November 25, 2017 NEOSHO FALLS — On April 18, 1945, 18-year-old Wesley Carroll stood with the other recruits in line for the 120-foot high dive at the Great Lakes Naval Station in northern Illinois. As he neared the ladder, a man from the master-at-arms’ office approached. He pulled Carroll out of line … Continue reading The Brothers Carroll
by RICK DANLEY // February 28, 2019 There are times when a small-town reporter, reviewing a local theatrical event, is obligated, out of kindness, to fudge the truth, to conceal from the reading public the production’s major blemishes and emphasize instead what a good job! everyone did or how great the costumes looked. But then, very occasionally, … Continue reading 5 Shorts Plays to Frighten & Amuse
by RICK DANLEY // September 29, 2018 The plan was to interview a young man who’d recently been run over by a bale of hay. He’d been standing near the hay trailer, helping unload the cylinders, when one of the giant, 2,000-pound bales slipped from the tractor’s front spikes and began rolling his way. The … Continue reading Part I: A Close Call (hay, heroism & hooey)
by RICK DANLEY // October 12, 2018 In an on-the-record interview last month, in which one other person plus a digital recorder were present, Brandon Griffith described for this reporter the details of his service in the United States Navy. During the course of the 65-minute interview, the polite, 39-year-old Burlington native paid special attention … Continue reading Part II: Stolen Valor
by RICK DANLEY // November 11, 2017 On July 25, 1946, at 8:34 a.m., 95 unmanned warships floated idly atop the aqua-blue waters of the Bikini Atoll, a secluded lagoon at the far reaches of the South Pacific. These were the target ships. Just beyond this flotilla, a ring of 150 support vessels, containing nearly … Continue reading Bikini Kaboom
by RICK DANLEY // October 21, 2017 It’s not a coincidence that Milton gave the devil the best lines in “Paradise Lost” or that of the three books in Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” the “Inferno” is the only one anyone still bothers to learn. Or that set next to the regal menace of a character like Darth … Continue reading Ella Reese & the Small-Town ‘Sex Problem’
by RICK DANLEY // March 10, 2017 It was an afternoon in late July of 2014. Aric Toler, living in Charlotte at the time and working in the corporate security division at Bank of America, was at home, scrolling through his Twitter feed. Toler was following the news coming out of eastern Ukraine concerning Malaysian Airlines … Continue reading Open Source
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