Kansas turns 150, and doesn't have money to celebrate

[unhappycamper]

Kansas turns 150, and doesn't have money to celebrate
By Rick Montgomery | Kansas City Star
Posted on Wednesday, January 26, 2011

TOPEKA — Surrender, Dorothy! Your state turns 150 this week but hasn't the money to roll out a celebration.

It's crunch time at the Kansas Museum of History. As a staff reduced by budget cuts hurried to set up an 11-month exhibit, "150 Things I Love About Kansas," Rebecca Martin stepped around a shop vacuum near the planned Oz section to point out the only finished display — souvenirs from the 1961 Kansas centennial.

~snip~

Saturday will be Kansas Day, the anniversary of statehood. Other states have shown, with mixed success, how to stretch out these parties for months. Kansas aims to try, but with a legislative allotment of zero.

To quote the legendary editor William Allen White, a Kansan: "When anything is going to happen in this country, it happens first in Kansas." Welcome, then, to the first statewide birthday bash beset by the Great Recession.

It comes about four years after Oklahoma plowed $20 million in public monies into its centennial, and two years after Oregon's sesquicentennial — which spanned eight months, spawned new parks and cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands just to pay the people who planned it all.

[liberal N proud]

1. Why does a celebration have to cost $20 Million

They have a state fair, each county has a fair, incorporate the celebration into the themes of those events and you have a Centennial Celebration without the added expense.

There are other events as well that the Centennial can be celebrated at. This nation has lost its creativity.

[Silent3]

2. Maybe Kansas can make itself a nice home-made birthday card

And surely some Kansan can donate Kansas a cake, maybe even a little ice cream to go with it.

[cbdo2007]

3. Really what all is there to celebrate about Kansas anyways??

(I'm in Kansas City on the MISSOURI side of the border) ha hahahahahahaa

[david13]

4. They don't need to 'celebrate'. dc

[Blue_Tires]

5. I remember that quote

The school of journalism at the University of Kansas is named after William Allen White...