Jesse Chisholm, born around 1805 in present-day Tennessee, was a Cherokee with Scottish ancestry who developed what became known as the Chisholm Trail. He moved to Indian Territory with his mother, and became involved with a gold-seeking party, who blazed a trail to explore the area around present-day Wichita, Kansas.
He married Eliza Edwards in 1836 and he became a trader, working and serving as an interpreter between the Republic of Texas and local Native American tribes. He also worked between the US government and Native American tribes in Texas after Texas joined the US.
After the Civil War, he settled near present-day Kingfisher, Oklahoma and traded into Indian Territory. He built up a military trail into a road capable of carrying heavy wagons for his goods.
Later, this trail was used by ranchers driving cattle from Texas to Kansas. They named it the Chisholm Trail.
Jesse Chisholm passed away in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma in 1868.
Jim Roth, born December 24, 1968 in Prairie Village, Kansas near Kansas City, was elected as Oklahoma County Commissioner in 2002, and re-elected in 2006. He became the first ever openly gay person to hold a statewide elected office in Oklahoma.
He served as one of three members of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission from June 2007-January 2009. He is now a professor of law at OCU's School of Law.
Marj Dusay, born February 20, 1936 in Hays, Kansas, had a lengthy career in soap operas or daytime dramas such as All My Children and The Guiding Light, but to us Trekkies, we know here from the infamous Star Trek episode Spock's Brain, widely considered to be the worst of the original series.
In the first episode of the third season, the crew of the Enterprise has to deal with a woman who has abducted Spock's brain for her planet's 'controller'. The woman Kara, played by Dusay, utters the phrase "Brain and brain! What is brain?"
A dubious role to become famous, but it worked for Marj.
She passed away in New York City in 2020 at age 83.
Albert Comstock "A.C." Hamlin, born February 10, 1881 in Topeka, Kansas, moved with his family to Oklahoma Territory in 1890. In 1908, he was elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives due to the majority of African-Americans in Logan County, Oklahoma, which is just north of the capitol. He had served on the school board and a town trustee prior to his election.
The white supremacists in Oklahoma politics created a constitutional amendment created to prevent black people from voting. Thus, Hamlin lost his bid for re-election in 1910. The amendment, known as the 'grandfather clause' was declared unconstitutional in 1915, but Hamlin died in August 1912 of unknown causes.
Now, an awards banquet named for Hamlin is held biennially by Oklahoma's Legislative Black Caucus.
Eliza Burton "Lyda" Conley, born 1869, was the first Native American (Wyandot) to argue a case before the US Supreme Court. She was raised on a farm in what is now Wyandotte County in Kansas. Lyda graduated from the Kansas City School of Law in 1902 and was the first woman admitted to the Kansas Bar Association.
In the late 19th century, the US government was offering citizenship, but only if they gave up their tribal institutions. Many Wyandots accepted these terms and stayed in Kansas but many did not and moved to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). In 1906, the Wyandotte Nation in Indian Territory approved the sale of the Huron Cemetery in Wyandotte County where Lyda Conley's ancestors were buried.
Lyda and her two sisters rejected the sale and began to protect it, even building a structure in it for them to live in, so they could protect the cemetery around the clock. Lyda finally took her case to the US Supreme Court. She lost her case but her cause had gained much support. In 1916, Kansas Senator Charles Curtis (Kaw/Osage/Prairie Potawatomi) introduced a bill in Congress that precluded the sale of the cemetery and designated it a federal park.
Lyda passed away in 1946 due to injuries from an attack, in which a man hit her on the head and stole her purse. She was buried in the cemetery she fought so hard to save.
In 1971, the Huron Cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In December 2016, it became a National Historic Landmark.
Incredible and under-rated actress Barbara Babcock, born February 27, 1937 in Fort Riley, Kansas, appeared in two Star Trek episodes and provided voices in four others. She first appeared in A Taste of Armageddon in 1967 and then Plato's Stepchildren in 1968. She voiced Trelane's mother in Squire of Gothos, Isis the cat in Assignment: Earth, the Tholian commander in The Tholian Web, and Zetar in The Lights of Zetar.
She appeared in three episodes of Murder, She Wrote with Angela Lansbury. She won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her work in Hill Street Blues.
Actress Hattie McDaniel, born June 10, 1893 in Wichita, Kansa, busted race barriers in Hollywood when she won an Oscar, becoming the first African-American to win an Academy Award. She received the honor for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance as Mammy in Gone With The Wind.
She was not allowed to sit in the main room where the awards were being handed out because black people were not permitted. She was also not allowed to attend the premiere in Atlanta, Georgia. Clark Gable, a good friend of hers, threatened to boycott the premiere but Hattie convinced him to attend.
She passed away in October 1952 from breast cancer.
Ola Mildred "Millie" Rexroat, born August 28, 1917 in Argonia, Kansas, is the only Native American to serve in the Women's Airforce Service Pilots.
Her mother was from the Oglala and Rexroat started public school in Wynona, Oklahoma in 1923. She attended WASP training in Sweetwater, Texas and was given the task of towing target planes for aerial gunnery students at Eagle Pass Army Airfield.
When the WASPs were disbanded in 1944, she joined the Air Force and worked as an air traffic controller at Kirkland Air Force Base in New Mexico, during the Korean War. She continued to work as an air traffic controller for the FAA for 33 years.
She passed away in South Dakota in June 2017, just two months shy of her 100th birthday.
Frank Petersen, born March 2, 1932 in Topeka, Kansas, was the first African-American Marine Corps aviator and the first African-American Marine Corps general.
He enlisted in the US Navy in June 1950 and served as an electronics technician, but he vowed to a combat pilot. He entered the Naval Aviation Cadet Program in 1951 and completed flight training in October 1952. He accepted a commission as second lieutenant in the Marine Corps. He served during the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
In February 1979, he was promoted to brigadier general, the first African-American to achieve the rank in the US Marine Corps. In May 1983, he was promoted to major general and in June 1986, to lieutenant general. He was Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, VA in July 1988 when he retired.
Gwendolyn Brooks, born June 7, 1917 in Topeka, Kansas, was an American poet and author. She won the Pulitzer Prize Prize for Poetry in May 1950 for her book Annie Allen, making her the first African-American to win the Pulitzer Prize.
Her first book of poetry, A Street in Bronzeville, was published in 1945. It gained instant critical acclaim. It was her second book Annie Allen, about the life of a young black girl growing up in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago.
She won many awards for her poetry over her lifetime. She passed away in December 2000.
It isn't usual to wish someone happy birthday while they are in space at the time, but today is Nick Hague's birthday. He is currently aboard the International Space Station as part of Expedition 59. Hague was born September 24, 1975 in Belleville, Kansas. He graduated from the US Air Force Academy. After he joined the Air Force, he was commissioned as Second Lieutenant in May 1998 and promoted to Colonel in 2016,
Hague's first trip into space aboard Soyuz MS-10 was aborted shortly after take-off. He and fellow astronaut Aleksey Ovchinin escaped safely.
Hague's second trip into space was aboard Soyuz MS-12, which was successfully launched March 2019, with Ovchinin and Christina Koch to the ISS. They are scheduled to return to Earth in October 2019.
Joe Engle, born August 26, 1932 in Chapman, Kansas, was chosen by NASA as an astronaut in 1966. He was the backup pilot for the Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 14. He was originally scheduled as Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 17 but NASA selected Harrison Schmitt instead.
His first mission into space was aboard Columbia (STS-2) as commander with pilot Richard Truly in November 1981. The mission was intended to reboot the Skylab space station but due to development delays and the Skylab's deteriorating orbit, Skylab was de-orbited in July 1979.
His second and final mission was as commander of Discovery (STS-51-I) in August-September 1985. He spent just over 7 days in space.
Steven Hawley, born December 12, 1951 in Ottawa, Kansas, is a veteran of 5 space shuttle flights, logging over 770 hours in space.
His first mission was aboard the maiden voyage of Discovery (STS-41-D) as mission specialist August-September 1984. Portions of the mission were filmed for the IMAX motion picture The Dream is Alive.
His second flight was aboard Columbia (STS-61-C) in January 1986 as mission specialist. It was the last successful space shuttle flight before the Challenger disaster, which occurred only 10 days after Columbia landed.
Hawley's third flight was on Discovery (STS-31) in April 1990. During this flight, the Hubble Space Telescope was deployed.
His fourth flight was on Discovery(!) (STS-82) in February 1997. His primary role was to operate the Discovery's robotic arm to retrieve and redeploy the Hubble Telescope after upgrades and repairs.
Hawley's fifth and final flight was on Columbia (STS-93) in July 1999 as flight engineer. The Chandra X-ray Observatory was deployed during the mission.
Ronald Ellwin Evans, Jr., born November 10, 1933 in St. Francis, Kansas, walked on the moon as part of the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the last trip to the moon. Harrison Schmidte and Gene Cernan took the last steps on the lunar surface while Evans orbited above as the Command Module Pilot.
On the trip back to Earth, Evans completed an EVA for one hour and 6 minutes to retrieve some cameras and an inspection of the equipment bay area. This was his only trip into space.
He passed away in Scottsdale, Arizona of a heart attack April 7, 1990.
I started reading this twice before but always got
side-tracked or some other excuse, and put it aside. So after reading two previous non-fiction
books which take place during the same generation. I decided to tackle Timothy Egan’s The Worst Hard Time. This work centers on the 1930’s Dust Bowl,
where over-plowing and careless use of resources created one of the biggest man-made
environmental disasters ever.
In the late 1920’s and early 30’s, people swarmed to the
Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles, northeast New Mexico, southwest Kansas and
southeast Colorado. The native Americans
had been routed from the area (again) and “great American hunters” had
decimated the bison almost to extinction.
The path was paved for white farmers to make their way to endless free
land, grasslands for miles with no trees in sight.
It seemed like a boon to anyone trying to get rich and
establish a huge farm spread. Then acres
of land were being plowed and turned over by the millions. An area half the size of England had been
turned into wheat farms.
It was good while it lasted, maybe two years. Then the rains stopped and the stock market
crashed. All of a sudden, wheat sold at
a fraction of its cost to harvest it.
Bumper crops in Russia and elsewhere helped drive the price down as
well. At the start of the 1930’s, people
in the northeast starved while tons of grain rotted on the ground in Oklahoma.
This was just the beginning of the Dust Bowl. The destruction of the top soil and the
hearty grasses that could withstand extremes in weather holding it in place
left soil open to the wind and elements.
Egan’s description of the years of drought, frequent sandstorms that
blotted out the sun, and the desperation of the people as they watched family
members suffer and die from dust pneumonia is heart-wrenching and the reader
can almost feel grit between his teeth.
Egan’s book is also a testament to the human spirit,
determined to go on, not letting the fury of Mother Nature’s revenge run them
out of their homestead. He took first-hand
accounts from the survivors of the Dust Bowl who remember those terrible years
as if they were last week.
George Washington Carver, born into slavery in the early
1860’s (exact date unknown), rewrote the book on alternative crops, such as
peanuts and sweet potatoes. Actually, he
wrote the book. He managed to obtain an
education by attending a series of high schools before earning his diploma from
Minneapolis High School in Minneapolis, Kansas.
He found it difficult to get into college because of his
race, so he traveled to Ness County, Kansas where he maintained a small
laboratory with plants and flowers. He
also grew rice, corn and various fruit trees, earning money by performing odd
jobs around town. Carver took out a loan and began studying at Simpson College,
Indianola, Iowa. A teacher encouraged
him to study botany at Iowa State Agricultural College in Ames. In 1891, he was their first black student. He continued on until he got his master’s
degree.
He developed many agriculture techniques such as crop
rotation and developed many recipes for sweet potatoes and peanuts. He published bulletins to distribute his
agricultural information.
Carver was invited to speak at the United Peanut
Associations of America’s convention in 1920.
His testimony before Congress helped establish the Fordney-McCumber Tariff
in 1922 which included imported peanuts.
It helped American peanut farmers be more competitive with Chinese
imports.
In January 1943, Carver fell down a flight of stairs and
died from complications from the fall.
He was approximately 78.
Lewis Lowell Wagoner was a 20 year-old sailor serving on the USS Oklahoma when the Japanese attacked December 7, 1941. He was last seen by a shipmate when they jumped off the capsizing ship, into flames on the surface of water from leaking fuel and oil. It took the Navy 2 years to retrieve all the bodies from the USS Oklahoma, most of them unidentified and laid in a mass grave.
In 2015, the Pentagon's Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency started exhuming bodies from grave sites and caskets. Wagoner was identified from DNA samples submitted by surviving family members and his remains will be shipped home to Kansas.
The agency expects to identify 80% of the Oklahoma's unknown sailors by 2020.
