WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - State Facts: Kansas

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

Nate is joined by Paden Hughes to talk all about Kansas.

You're listening to State Facts on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm your host, Nate Gallagher, and I'm joined by Hillsdale's resident Kansan, Peyton Hughes. How are you today, Peyton? I'm doing rather well. How are you, Nate? I'm pretty good. So where are you from in Kansas? I'm from Salina, Kansas. It's center east of the state, a town of about 50,000 people. The last big city before you go really far west, you know. What is the capital of Kansas?

Capital of Kansas. It's Topeka, Kansas. which is actually kind of annoying because no one goes there. No one lives there, and it's kind of just this place that exists. And when you go by, you're only on your way to, like, Kansas City. And so you're just driving through. And it actually has the worst, the worst highway period. Because the interstate just turns into a one-lane road for like a mile and a half as you go through the city. And so these multiple lane interstate has turned into one lane,

and what should take five minutes is going to take you a half hour. And the speed limit drops to 45. Disgusting. It really is. I hate driving through Topeka. When was Kansas admitted to the Union? I think like 1865 or something like that. 1861.

1861. See, that's actually kind of embarrassing because I did just write a paper on Kansas. on Kansas. And the time before the war, I wrote this little piece on right before bleeding Kansas on the origins of Lawrence, Kansas, which is the home of the Kansas University Jayhawks.

But it's actually super interesting because in Lawrence, you had this kind of first step west from Kansas City as settlers moved west. So you're not quite far into Topeka, but you're not south. You're not going north. into Atchison, you're kind of just 30, 40 miles west of Kansas City, and it's this first

settlement where everybody kind of met together. Kansas was the blank state admitted to the union. 32nd? 34th. Wow. You were so close on all of these. Okay. I know something, maybe.

How about the population? Population. We've got to be, what, 2.9 million? About 3 million, yeah. See, that checks out, and it's, that's what's really interesting. interesting is, I mean, everything, of course, conglomerates in the cities. That's what most states are. But Kansas, I mean, what is it? Like over a third of the population is just in the cities. And then in like three major cities in Topeka, Kansas City, and Wichita. And then outside of that,

everybody kind of just is rural. It's weird because, like, my brother is in medical school and he wants to be a doctor. And so obviously. But every hospital that's not in Wichita or Kansas City is considered a rural hospital, and there are cities of like 50,000, 70,000, but that's still considered rural. It's kind of interesting. How about the nickname of the state? Are we the wheat state? The sunflower state.

The sunflower state, of course. I love sunflowers. That's actually a really fun thing that I love to do come August. And come mid-August, I live about a mile outside of Salina. And so if I move roughly two, three miles northeast, I'd just. I drive north, I can get into like several fields and just watch the sunflowers in full bloom as they just follow the sun all day long. Because sunflowers always face east rising with the sun.

That's why they're called a sunflower. It's so beautiful to see miles of sunflowers. See the yellow just glow. How about the state motto? The motto. Oh, adastra paraspora. Or in English, to the stars through difficulty. And it's glorious.

And that's something special about, I mean, not Kansas, I guess, in place. particular, but the Midwest. And being kind of in the middle of nowhere is that you can just look up at the stars. So it's kind of gorgeous. I can, even though I'm only a mile outside of town, I can still see a crap ton of stars. And then if you move about, I want to say three miles north of Salina, you get to Fallon, Kansas, which is, I don't know, a town of a hundred people, if. And that spot is actually a total dark location. so you can get a complete view of the night sky from Fallon, Kansas. Well, I think that's all the time we have today.

Thanks for coming on on the show, Peyton. Thank you, Nate. Appreciate it. I've been Nate Gallagher with State Facts on Radio for Hillsdale 101.7 FM. See you next time.