The tapes are cued up and the boys in the control room are ready to hit play, get set for another half hour of Hattebergs people.

Yeah.

Coming up.

It's an opportunity for us to to be with him so he can see the life here in America and to be with his grandkids.

Ricardo Gozo divided his time between his family in the Philippines and his family in Kansas.

You'll see why his transcontinental lifestyle was so important to his daughter and her family.

Plus, and when the terrific.

Next time you complain that your home isn't an open concept or that the backsplash in your kitchen doesn't bring you enough excitement, think about Floyd, hard grader.

If there ever was a home in need of a makeover, it was his.

But you'll see how we got along just fine and didn't complain.

It is a story that may help the rest of us get a little bit of perspective on what really matters.

Also.

This is my not the only thing I can really do.

Carbon Bill Kraft was blind, but he could still create amazing pieces of art for other people to look at and enjoy.

You'll see how he did it and how faith and life experience were his guides.

We'll also have this.

Someone sent me on a card saying The reward of doing something well is to have done it.

Lois Crane put service ahead of personal profit.

She devoted her skills to something she loved and considered it important for the public to enjoy.

Larry shares her story as she was finishing up her career volunteering at the Wichita Art Museum.

Hello, I'm Susan Peters.

And I'm Larry Hatteberg.

Join us for those stories and more on this edition of Hattebergs People.

These stories are like old friends.

Their lives radiate from the screen, like prophets of the past.

They were teachers, but not in a classroom.

Instead, they taught about life to those around them who cared to listen.

And I was their student.

We all live in an interconnected world where people and countries are digitally united.

But nothing takes the place of being with the ones you love.

In 2009, I met a man who led two different lives one in the Philippines and one in McPherson, Kansas.

They were different in the sense of culture and surroundings, but also similar in that each place he was surrounded by people he loved.

And first, some Kansas is about as middle America as you can get.

And nothing says Kansas, like a great vegetable garden.

On this evening, as the sun disappears over a fence, the rising tomato vines tend to glow with pride.

Ricardo Gozo.

And that's him over there, peering around that green, tangled jungle of veggies.

Now he's from the Philippines.

Doesn't speak much English.

Lives six months out of the year with his daughter and son in law, Don and Clarice.

Hobson and MacPherson, they have a seven year old daughter, Elise.

It's an opportunity for us to to be with him so he can see the life here in America.

He can't stay in the Philippines longer than six months without losing his United States residency.

Now, his wife is still there.

She can't travel because of health reasons.

It's really special because I had my dad here, although I don't have anybody here like my family, all of them are in the Philippines.

So it's really special for me to see him, even if this was six months.

So this in-between garden keeps him busy and involved in his two different worlds.

It's an opportunity for us to to be with him so he can see the life here in America and to be with his grandkids.

You only have one here, but a bunch in the Philippines.

In the Philippines, he is a fisherman.

But in Kansas his hands are rooted with the soil.

And he really likes it here with this is said this good people here.

His daughter became an American citizen in 2005 in a ceremony much like this one.

He knows that during the World War Two, he knows how America played an important role in the you know, in liberating the Philippines.

In World War two, when he was a child, he helped the Philippine resistance and the U.S. overcome the Japanese invasion.

Japanese will stop him and tell him what's in your bags and he will tell them.

It's just we just harvested a peanut, but it's actually a rifle.

So in a lush little garden in McPherson lies stories of the past.

While Ricardo produces food for the future.

He continues the example that will be passed on to his granddaughter.

Hard work and family is key.

No matter what country you call home.

Ricardo is now in his late eighties, and he's doing just fine.

However, his family says the regular trips back and forth to the Philippines, well, it became way too challenging.

So now Ricardo stays there.

And his Kansas family does the traveling to see him.

What a what a great excuse to go to the Philippines.

It is a great.

Excitement to go see Daddy.

Exactly.

But it was so nice that he could come over here for a while and now they get to go back and forth.

We're really living in those two different worlds, both cultures.

Yep.

Now, back to 1984 and a man who lived like it was 1884.

Floyd hard grader likes to keep things simple, as Larry explains.

Well, finally, we're getting a break in the weather.

The snow is beginning to thaw a little bit, but we're all probably looking forward to some pretty hefty utility bills for last month's record cold.

But interestingly enough, there's a man near Lyons, Kansas, who's not worried about his utility bill.

Why?

Well, the reason is simple.

He has no utilities.

Floyd hard grader, is a 19th century man in a 20th century world.

He is a man whose lifestyle is basic.

Floyd lives here in a dilapidated homestead near Lyons.

And no one here.

1900 is at the ready as he can.

Lot of water on the bridge.

That his only heat comes from this old wood stove.

He lives without electricity, without gas or propane, without running water, without a telephone.

Floyd has no sink, no bathtub.

His barn is falling down and birds roost in his windows.

Yet he seldom complains.

He has what he can afford and says at least he doesn't have to worry about a wife.

And see if you have kids to feed.

And this one hell of a lot of debt this year.

The price of these groceries on.

His friend is his dog, Marley.

His foe has been the relentless winter.

Both are constants in his life.

And that when the terrific.

Inside Floyd's house is difficult to describe, his life is hidden in boxes, cans and gunny sacks.

He eats here.

His place marked by a paper napkin and an alarm clock.

His kitchen utensils spread out neatly on a box below a charred ceiling and burn papers, remnants of a fire that started from a lantern next to the stove.

Amid the clutter, he sleeps now assembling.

Whose tables will you hand and take?

Only sacks of corn and put it over there?

And then when I flip, boom.

Floyd lives this way out of necessity, but he's not bitter.

He has his self-respect.

He doesn't dwell over what might have been or what will be.

He is too caught up in what some call the now ness of life.

This is what I had.

It's fascinating to find people who really don't need anything that we in the other world think we need.

He didn't need anything.

He was perfectly fine living on his own in that old, old, rickety house.

And that was cool.

I mean, that's he was living the way he wanted to exact.

Exactly.

And you said something very important.

What we think we need.

Yeah, not what we need, but what we think we need, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Oh, okay.

Well, life is full of all kinds of challenges, and as you get older, you realize they just keep coming at you.

So by the time you reach 86 years old, chances are you've dealt with a lot.

Yeah.

The next story is about a man named Bill Kraft.

He was an artist, perhaps a most unlikely artist, given the major obstacle he faced late in life.

In his Hutchinson home, World War Two veteran Bill Kraft uses his hands and not his eyes to hone his craft.

This is but not the only thing I can really do.

Currently, he makes religious images with copper tooling, spending hours in his downstairs workroom with a wooden dowel going over and over a copper plate to create the image.

Much of his work he can't see due to glaucoma dimming his eyesight.

But I just keep going.

His wife, Merle assists, but she makes sure I know it is.

Bill does the work.

Now he does the pictures.

I help with part of it, but he does the pictures himself.

People are very surprised because I know for myself there's no way I can do work like this.

Much of the copper art sold at Sarah's Catholic bookstore in downtown Hutchinson.

Everyone who sees the pieces is amazed at how detailed they are, and especially when they hear of Mr. Krauss health issues with his eyes and what have you.

They're just extremely interested.

As Bill crafts his art.

He knows he's had rich life experience.

It was a war that took him from the Kansas Prairie in World War Two and placed him in the Navy on the USS Alabama.

He and his brother were drafted just weeks before the end of the 1943 school year.

He was half a credit short in history so he couldn't graduate.

That is until May of this year.

Mr. Kraft is a World War Two veteran.

He entered the war to help defend our country.

He finished his high school requirements by correspondence, but he never received his diploma.

That is until last May, when Kinsley High School awarded him that diploma 66 years after he left to fight for his country.

Today, the battle is different, but the fight goes on.

Now this Navy veteran is content to serve through his art.

Now, remember, he can't see what he creates.

The Last Supper, the praying hands and the Christ knocking.

Today, he and his wife endure, just as they have together for the past 63 years.

He needs.

Needs to be busy.

Yeah, well, Bill passed away.

A year later, his wife, Merle died in 2015, and the Catholic bookstore has gone out of business.

Time marches on.

But Bill's copper art will continue to bring joy and inspiration for general Jones to come.

You know, no matter what handicap one gets in life, there's always a way to overcome it.

And he.

Did.

And he had a lot of inspiration from up above.

He did, for sure he did.

Well, the art world was also lucky to have Lois Crane be a part of it.

For 31 years, she volunteered at the Wichita Art Museum.

Where Lois's work was seldom seen.

She worked in the art library where few visitors ever go.

But she left a legacy of volunteerism that has provided the museum with the type of quality assistance that is typical of those whose goals are not money.

It's just kind of a part of me and always like art.

Lois Crane has been among the great painters for years now.

She's not an artist, really.

She can't draw at all.

Her power has been in this room, a room seldom visited except by art students and art historians.

And I've always liked library work anywhere.

I worked in the school libraries, special libraries, public libraries, academic libraries.

Lois is the librarian at the Wichita Art Museum, a job she's loved for 31 years.

It's just kind of a part of me and always like art.

In this quiet room among the art books.

This woman has organized, categorized and surrounded her life with the beauty of art.

All these 31 years, her pay has been zeroed.

Out from Emerson that someone sent me on a card saying the reward of of doing something well is to have done it.

And Lois has done for over three decades a volunteer whose dedication has helped shape the Wichita Art Museum.

As my husband says, my car is trained to go from home to here.

But not everyone takes advantage of a resource that is right under their nose.

And Lois believes it is their loss, having priceless treasures at their fingertips.

Yet never entering the building.

I'm constantly running into people and asking if they've been to the art museum.

Well, no, they haven't.

And the people who come in for the first time and and are so amazed by what we have here, they just never realized it.

Often, Lois visits the galleries just to look at the artwork, to see the subtleties that she may have missed before.

This painting is one of her favorites.

Yes, it is.

It looks like my grandfather.

Big ears and all.

It's every man are all our grandfathers who are here to show they made it.

And so has Lois.

31 years of volunteering.

Among the things she loves.

It's a marvelous resource, and I can just be satisfied and go on from there.

Of the entire tapestry.

Lois lived another 13 years before passing away in 2022 at age 88.

Every organization needs people like her, and they volunteer quietly and silently behind the scenes.

You never know they're there.

But without them, without them, an organization suffers.

I'm so glad you did a story on her, because we would have never known Lois existed unless you had done that story.

But yet she gave so much to our community.

She cared.

That's so important.

Well, nowadays, when something breaks, we usually just throw it away and go buy a new one.

Yeah, but in 2001, there was a guy in Newton named John King.

Well, he liked to fix things in.

In a roundabout way.

It's home with the sun high matching the temperature.

It is John King's garage that beckons.

A mass of mass.

I guess Geiger says it's in my blood, I guess.

Since the thirties, he's been involved in the appliance business, owned a store in Newton, sold it, and for years has worked out of this garage fixing little stuff there.

That's what the little jewel looks like when you give the park a little one man business.

And I do it as I like and operate as I like.

And when you do things as you like, sometimes clutter is just part of the charm.

Then I'll get it picked up and straightened out.

One of these days they can come in and ask me for something and I can usually find it right quick when I make up my mind to get started on.

It won't take too long to start cleaning it out.

Everywhere you look are spare parts tools handle.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Everything a guy could want is somewhere.

More than there should be.

But probably never enough.

Well, I've probably got tools that I have never used.

I had this place back here about, I guess, maybe 23 years.

Folks like John fill a community void.

His call right there is a wonderful van.

Fixing stuff that makes most of us just scratch our heads.

Other than that, I can't see anything wrong with it.

The door's open.

You get a little air circulating through there, and it helps a lot.

Like they call it a day, huh?

John kept up the repair business as long as he could.

He passed away ten years after that interview, and he died at age 95.

Probably really wasn't anything he couldn't fix.

You know?

And he was once again one of those important people in the community when people needed stuff repaired.

He was there.

Well, it's a lost art, too, because often things break around our houses and we go, okay, I need a repairman.

I need a handyman.

There's nothing to be found.

No, you're.

Right.

It's a dying art.

So I'm glad he did that.

And I'm glad you recognized him.

And thank.

You.

It's just the way it works.

Most of us who live in large cities are small fish in big ponds, and it's easy to get lost in the crowd or never get noticed in the first place.

But in small towns, it takes just about everybody to make things work, no matter how humble or unassuming they may be.

Take, for instance, Arnie Webster in.

The no country like this country.

I'm proud of this country.

Yes.

Yes, I'm proud of it.

When the flag is up, you know, Arnie Westergren is at work.

Arnie is a handyman for the Havilland Telephone Company in Conway Springs.

He repairs phones, flips the hedge, keeps inventory and even cleans the toilet.

Some would feel that it is beneath the dignity to do something like this.

I don't see that it is.

Watching Arnie work now, you'd never suspect he was an engineer for Ohio Bell, and once at over a hundred people reporting directly to him.

I have always, regardless of what I have done, I've enjoyed, as you can see, if you want to, you can find something wrong with everything.

In the forties, he was involved in research on beryllium oxide, a radioactive substance used in the production of the fluorescent light and later in the atomic bomb.

But it was his work at Ohio Bell that developed his passion for phones.

Something about it that attracts you.

It hypnotizes one well, you get away from it and still you well, you feel like you've got to get back to it.

Arnie eventually retired from All Bell, fought a serious stroke and finally ended up living in Argon.

Yet a small town near Conway.

It was then he found his current job at the Havilland Phone Company.

And the nice thing about working here also is that I want a day off.

I'll tell how I'd like to have.

They are fine.

Fine.

And it off.

I like to take two weeks to go and see my kids in Arizona.

Fine.

But be sure and come back.

Professionally, Arnie has been to the top.

Now he's content to leave the fast lane to others and to concentrate on a life that he missed during his working years.

The fact that this stuff grows and blossoms just proves the fact that there is a God.

Arnie's career took him to the city.

His retirement brought him to the country.

For some reason or another.

Your system becomes very tense and people aren't aware of it in town, but they're always keyed up.

And after you get out into a peaceful, quiet area, you realize that you have been keyed up and you can relax and it makes life worth living.

Arnie Westergren of the Havilland Phone Company, he's got a direct line to life.

This is Larry Hatteberg.

Arnie's direct line to life remained open for another eight years.

He passed away in 1992 at age 81.

Again, one of those guys was necessary, absolutely necessary in every small community.

There's a theme for this whole show.

Seems to.

Be again, the theme for this week's show is people who should be recognized.

That hadn't been before, but they were by how to Berg's people and they make the world go round.

That's right.

This is a living legacy of the history of people.

Mm hmm.

All right.

Let's do one more story now and end the show on a high note.

Take a look at this one from 1999 and sing along if you'd like.

On the wings of the Snow White that he sang these years.

He loved the song.

None of that On the Wings of the treble behaved song that was in Forgotten.

He sang Then his love.

He sang on the wings of the.

In Hunter, Kansas, at Vera's bar.

There are no strangers.

Yeah.

Liza.

That's my girl.

That's Ron.

And that's Gene.

And got me.

And that's Ron.

And that's when the.

People come here.

Not because the beer is colder.

There comes more boys.

Not because the food is better.

You right there.

But because of this one woman.

Hey, look here.

72 year old Vera Louis.

Like.

Look at that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Keep me on this.

Give me some downs.

You don't come to Vera's just to put your name on the ceiling or to buy a bag of chips on.

No, no, no.

You come because Vera is not only the owner, but also the entertainment.

On the wings of the Snow White.

Dead.

He sang fiercely glad the sign from above on the wings.

It is the only song she sings.

It is the only song she knows.

We love this song.

From the band On the Wings of the Wind travels around this rainy well will come.

The body grows weak body grows weak, mysterious Build them spirits build them trouble be Haynes And that was forgotten.

He sang Danny glad he sang these love on the wings of a that.

You kept create a place like this it just happens.

Yeah how it is when you work together be happy.

In a place where the stools are worn, where each sale is recorded in a spiral notebook.

My name do that.

Vera is not only happy she is beloved.

This time round on the bed On the wings On the wings of a dove On the wings of a dove.

I like it.

Oh, good girl.

That was well, my best Nick the still working is gonna He didn't rest now a little day water.

Well that bar of course is now closed and Vera is no longer with us.

But Vera was one unforgettable character still fondly remembered in the tiny town of Hunter, Kansas, and remembered by Larry, who during the story just said, This was one of my favorite stories.

She was a great human being.

And any time I hear that song on the wings of a Snow White dove, her picture just forms right in my mind.

People who went there, they just had a good time.

They just had a great time with Vera.

Vera was one of those people that if she's in your memory, you never forget her.

You know, we do a lot of these stories on how to voice people.

Some of them you remember.

I remember that story from 1399.

Yeah, I remember her singing.

And so that's just incredible.

Thank God for people like Vera loved her.

Well we are out of time for this week hattebergspeople@kpts.org that's our email address.

If you have a question or comment, we love hearing from you.

For now, thanks for watching.

I'm Susan Peters.

And I'm Larry Hatteberg.

Great to have you with us tonight.

We'll see you again soon.