“Above all else guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Proverbs 4:25

“Oceans of Grass” was shown at the Plains Theatre three times last week. Monday, students from Plainview and Eads saw this documentary of four generations of a Nebraska family. It was so amazing to see in detail the round ups of herds of Black Angus cattle on their huge ranch. It showed brandings in summer and winter, and related the history of the community and the schools playing football in communities much like the size of ours. The aerial photography displayed the vastness of the long tall grasses of that land. I told my brothers, I am glad “they can round-up their cattle on comparatively flat lands of Colorado.”

Monday morning the FFA chapter had their Barnyard Day. It was educational for each grade of elementary students to walk out and around the animals and machinery. When I was there, Junior Morgyn Johnson was walking her two horses so they kept limbered up. She told me about the small animals that were there and some of the classroom experiments and educational displays inside. Well done, Miss Todd and students.

Tuesday afternoon was fairly warm to watch the baseball game versus Holly from a car. Friday afternoon, there was another game in Eads with Granada. This week, Coach Chad Rouse, will be taking his team to Hugo and Manzanola. It is good to see the fans of Plainview’s Alex Schmidt and Kit Carson’s Sullivan Farmer, T. J. Conoway, Jayden McCombs Farmer, David Arnold, and Cordell Farmer, who all play on the Eads Eagle team. It is advantageous to these young men that their schools allow them to co-op so that they can have the experience of playing high school baseball. Thank you to those three school boards!

Mrs. Dawn James had some really eye-opening learning experiences for her students in her social studies classroom lately. Last week, a gentleman from Las Animas came to tell them about the horrific happenings of the Holocaust in Germany and, last Thursday, she took the juniors and seniors to the state capitol to hear the legislature. They were there when they heard the count that 18 to 17 that the “red flag” bill passed. Maybe you can imagine some emotions of some of our students?

Liz Hulteen, our Hebrew teacher, pleased the students with several kinds of Gheiba cookies from Moroccan recipes that she learned to bake when she lived in Israel next door to some families who were from Morocco. She served them with hand squeezed lemons in crushed ice like a slushy with a stem of mint.

Linda Hopkins has come out of retirement to help some hours in the Weisbrod Activity Department. We enjoyed visiting with her during the Thursday coffee hour and welcomed Betty Crow home. She has returned from wintering in Arizona. Her grandson, Weston Crow, also returned to Eads from working in the Denver area. He is working nights at Weisbrod and doing college studies in the medical field. Afterward, some of us went to listen to the state of the senior center on the County Commissioner’s agenda. Architect Belinda Zink was there to answer questions, and Jan Richards of the Kiowa County Economic Development Foundation to explain tax credits and how she could work with and for the Commissioners and administrator, Tina Adamson, and for the benefit of the senior citizens. We left with some clarification and a sense of hope, finally.

A large group of people attended the lecture by lawyer Walter Echo-Hawk of the Pawnee Indian tribe of Oklahoma last Thursday at the Plains Theatre. This tall man with long silver braids had such an interesting story. He was very well educated and had a long biography of work and service in the court system and other achievements. He researched the story of his people and wrote a book about their lives here on the plains. Alexa Roberts returned to New Mexico last week, but came back to Eads to hear this speaker in the series arranged by the Sand Creek National Historic Site staff. Her friends, Professor Ed and Clair Stafford from La Junta, were there, too. They remembered me from the days I used to take my students and their artwork to art shows at Otero Junior College.

Robin Musgrave and I took a little road trip to La Junta to see the Eads students in the track meet at their stadium, which is really attractively designed. At the track meets in Lamar and La Junta, we were surprised to see that many schools from the mountains and most plains schools compete. Next week, the track team will compete in Limon at Warren Mitchell Stadium. Mr. Mitchell was our Eads high school teacher and coach in the 1950’s. We talked to Mike and Shelly (Crawford) Hines in Lamar. Their son and daughter both participate in track for Limon.

In Las Animas, we saw our former sheriff, Forrest Frazee, who now works for the Bent County Sheriff’s department. He said, “Jake Six is doing well. The people like him a lot.” And we do, too, like our former Kiowa County Undersheriff.

Dora Pearcy is doing well in Windsor, as are Joe and Kaye Kasza of McClave. They all say they enjoy reading the Kiowa County newspaper. 

It is quite common to hear the sound of the air ambulance helicopter fly onto the pad west of Prairie Pines Assisted Living Center. We are blessed to have this service and benefit for our people.