It's time for Positively Kansas coming up.

It's a story of success that few can match.

We'll find out how this little Kansas burger joint has defied the odds and reached an historic milestone.

We'll also bring you the emotional story of a Wichita native who returned home to make a feature film about his late father.

Plus, in the dear world, it's never love at first sight.

The dough is making the bucks, aren't it?

We'll show you how in our Kansas Wild Edge report.

And we'll examine Wichita's place in history as a driving force in amateur baseball.

Im Sierra Scott, a half hour of information and inspiration is coming your way on Positively Kansas.

Positively, Kansas is brought to you in part by before investing your hard earned money, make sure your financial advisor understands your objectives.

Mark Douglas, CFP Serving our community for over 25 years, providing customized financial solutions that focus on the individual.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas serves more than 900,000 Kansans in various programs.

Independent member owned Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas.

An independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, proudly supports PBS Kansas.

Program support provided by the EF Price Cosby Memorial Trust and Trust Bank Trustee.

Bringing you the Kansas Wild Edge segments on Positively Kansas.

It seems to be a boom or bust industry.

Most of us like to eat at restaurants, but it's still a challenge doing business at which to succeed.

Wichita alone has more than 1200 restaurants.

They're always coming and going.

The average lifespan is five years.

90% of restaurants fail in the first year.

That makes this story from Salina all the more remarkable.

Chris Frank reports.

You know.

You can get a hamburger anywhere, but you can only get a cozy in burger in Salina.

Good morning.

Hi.

I'd like to get a half a dozen with everything, please.

The cozy in his grill.

Several hundred thousand of their burgers over the past century of business.

Year 2022 is set aside for their centennial celebration.

Bingo.

In 100 years, same location.

It's pretty amazing.

It's still going strong, as I'm sure it ever was.

Steve Howard purchased The Cozy Inn in 2007.

By then, Cozy fame had been well established back in 1922.

Bob Kinkel opened the Cozy Inn.

Kinkel was inspired by the White Castle Burgers, which originated in Wichita before the company moved to Ohio.

The cozy sliders were a nickel then they are a 39 now, but most buy them by the sack for six, 12 or many more.

Just like the signs suggest this is your first time.

A cozy pie.

And those who sit down at the counter often keep an open tab until they can't eat anymore.

Okay, so we'll just start doing the hamburgers that she will tell you.

You tell us when you've had enough and then show up when you're done.

There have been a handful of different owners.

Now, Howard and his band of employees carry on the tradition.

It's my kids in the morning.

To go with everything.

That one is just.

On this day, the two.

Andreas, we're working the grill.

Andrea Gonzalez on the right and Andrea Howard windowed the owner's daughter on the left.

Terry Shank takes and delivers orders.

The grilling is nearly nonstop as the late morning turns to the traditional noon lunch hour.

A lot of people here and all day long, it doesn't matter what time of day, as long as they're.

Open, they're here eating cozy and has developed an almost cult like following.

Customers are loyal, constantly returning to the little white building in downtown Salina.

The business has lasted for a century, not only by the repeat customers, but because their customers word of mouth advertising.

Customers become cozy and missionaries evangelizing about cozy taste.

This is my first visit to this town.

I've heard about cozy burgers forever, and I can't wait to try them.

I'm from Olathe, Kansas, and this is my friend from Overland Park, Kansas, who's had these for years.

And we are taking.

Several dozen to Overland Park to my family.

Salinas sits at the crossroads of Interstate 70 and 135.

So the cozy success can also be attributed to all its freeway customers.

I came down from Iowa and I made it to Abilene.

So I thought, I'll just drive 20 miles further over here and get some good, cozy take back up to Iowa and put them.

In the cooler.

They're the best day ever.

And my friends love them.

Yeah, I'm out here on spring break and I heard this is the place to go.

I even got a 100th anniversary T-shirt.

Yeah, we were traveling the interstate I-70, and jumped off to come in here and enjoy some cozy burgers.

People getting off the interstate and travel hundreds of miles just had people on the way to Kansas, Colorado, from Kansas City.

Now, it may seem hard to believe, but the city of Salina wanted to demolish the cozy back in the urban renewal days of the 1980s.

A petition ended that effort.

We survived because of the value and and inexpensive of the burgers that we survived, the Depression and then the thirties, forties, prohibition.

Apparently their stories that there was so much alcohol going out the back door and that's that's in that's in print in some of these stories.

Many of those old print stories are part of the cozy countertop.

Being able to boast of a century in business is something.

It's like the sweet smell of a success.

Hmm.

Sweet smell.

Maybe not the phrase.

Some would say there is an aroma.

A strong aroma.

Some might even say.

And overwhelming aroma.

Some like it.

Some don't.

Because you smell.

You smell like onions when you get out of here.

That's what you like, huh?

Some local offices won't let employees bring these burgers back to work.

Those are onions cooked for 100 years.

Make your smell smell good.

And they.

The secretary complains.

I put the.

The old leftover sack in our trash can.

Wow.

That's a mighty pungent aroma of burgers and onions and aroma that will probably be with me for the rest of the day.

There's no mistaking that you've been to the Cozy Inn when you step inside here.

Right?

My husband sometimes like you steam.

And if you can't get enough of the aroma, you can purchase an air freshener that's hung over the grill and you can take it with you.

We just hang them up.

The more yellow they are, the longer they've been there, the stronger it's going to smell.

Now, many avoid the onion laced aroma by using the walkup window and eating out doors.

This just happened to be a cool spring day.

Otherwise, these tables would be filled with the lunch crowd.

The indoor eating area of the cozy is small by most restaurant standards.

There are only six stools to sit on.

You don't get the full cozy experience unless you come in.

You can see how tight this room.

Is for 40 years.

Burger King had the motto Have it your way.

It was a marketing success, making it a household common phrase.

It generated numerous counter means and scenes of.

This isn't Burger King.

You can't have it your way.

Now you won't find.

Have it your way here.

You have it their way.

And that's worked well for Cozy in all these years.

For example, you don't ask for cheese.

We know it is cheesier.

The cheese is a six letter word we don't use around here.

It reminds me of a decades old Saturday Night Live skit.

In it, customers could only get cheese.

I just want a couple of eggs.

No breakfast.

Cheeseburger, huh?

Why don't you try that?

Come on, come on.

Come on.

Don't give me that.

Come on, let's go.

Let's go.

We're going to throw.

We want a cheeseburger.

Come on.

It really gets you what you like about you.

I want a cheeseburger.

Too early for a cheeseburger.

Cheeseburger?

Look, cheeseburger.

Cheeseburger.

Take a look at cheeseburger.

And these wouldn't be cozies without the onions.

You don't ask for cheese and you don't ask for no onions.

Mike Lieber knows that because he's a regular.

But some newbies unwittingly ask for what they can't get.

Can we get them without onion?

No, sir.

We don't do anything without.

Okay, I'll have onion.

Yeah, everything's cool with that.

You've been doing it for a hundred years.

That way, yes.

No, no, I can't.

Done.

Okay.

I'm sorry.

People want the original.

Howard is really particular about the recipe for success and a simple menu of burgers, bagged chips and canned soda pop.

It's worked for a century, and he says he doesn't want to fix what isn't broken.

Oh, good.

So this is this was ground this morning.

It's inside round.

It's 90% or leaner.

And nobody can say we don't have balls around here.

We're such lean meat.

You can understand why they need the onions to get moisture back into the burger.

A wall map has pins representing cities and countries visitors have come from.

It has to be changed out annually because there are so many who come here.

I just received this today from the state of Kansas.

Not sure what it is.

I just happened to be there when Governor Laura Kelly's office sent Howard this letter on.

Behalf of the state of Kansas, I would like to extend this congratulatory letter recognizing 100 years of service that Cozi and has brought to Kansas.

It is a remarkable achievement for a business to withstand the test of time, and your community is appreciative of the rich traditions you add to the state's cultural fabric.

Now it's an honor to be recognized that such high levels the cozy has been recognized over the years by numerous food critics, including a USA Today selection as the best burger joint in Kansas.

I like to call this the Hershey kiss of hamburgers.

You can get a bigger bite, a burger, but you can't get a bigger taste.

It's a good place to go.

So with a century behind them, they push onward toward serving the generations to come with what they called the best stinking burgers around.

I thought I.

Needed a couple more.

In Salina.

This is Chris Frank from Positively Kansas.

The Cozy and sells about 10,000 burgers a year.

Each week, the place goes through £600 of ground beef and £300 of onions.

Now to the touching story of a native Wichita in who returned to the city in 2022 to make a movie based in part on the life of his late father, a well-known local attorney.

Anthony Powell spoke to Chris lying about the emotional experience of honoring his father through film.

For several weeks in 2022.

Chris Long returned home to Wichita to direct his independent film entitled Penitentia Action.

You'll love this piece.

So Penitentiary is a crime thriller that follows a young attorney as he takes on a pro bono prison rights case.

And as he takes on that case, it really he starts to descend into his own personal journey.

For lying filming in the air.

Capital was a very personal experience.

He grew up in College.

Hill One of our locations just happens.

Dance happened to be two doors down from the house that I grew up in.

And it just it was.

It was a connection of a connection.

So when when that location rolled in, I looked at that address.

I was like, it just had to laugh.

But from the moment the idea for the film came to him through the writing and directing of it, lying also shed a lot of tears.

That's because the film is a tribute to his late father, Jim, who passed away in 2020.

Jim Loring was a well-known attorney and civil rights advocate in Wichita for over half a century.

As I was driving to to Wichita, I was debating whether I was going to speak at his funeral.

And I just just I couldn't do it.

I didn't want to get up in front of people.

And I started to think about what could I do that honors him?

And what better way than to create a film based on the principles his dad lived every day?

Justice and social justice was so important to him, and I wanted to make a film that represented that and communicated that and dedicated that to his memory.

With that in mind, Lloyd knew the only place he could film was the place his father cared so deeply about.

Cause everything about my father was about Wichita.

It had to be filmed here.

But it was also really fantastic filming here because it was like as I'm filming, I'm running into people that random people, you know, Airbnb hosts and say, I knew your father.

And that just was so powerful and gratifying.

His dad even influenced the movie's title because he was a wordsmith and lover of Latin.

Penitentia is Latin for penitents and there's also the base word for penitentiary.

And because the film deals with prison rites, naming the film penitentiary fit perfectly.

The movie, meanwhile, also represents something unique for Wichita.

Having a union or Screen Actors Guild sanctioned film shot in this city.

One of the most important things was to get a really strong, seasoned veteran cast.

And, you know, and we were really fortunate that that we got some some people that have a lot of experience.

I think you should step back.

You think that this scares me?

Like actress Rusty Schwimmer, whose many credits include roles in films such as Twister and The Perfect Storm.

It's a good deal.

Yeah, but take it.

Yeah.

Actress Natasha Coppola Shalom, the niece of Nicolas Cage and grand niece of legendary director Francis Ford Coppola, also stars in penitentiary and she co-produced it.

There are also some, let's say, lesser names in the cast while your junior associate clarifies the case law.

Yes, I was fortunate enough to land a role as a judge.

Portions of Penitentia were shot here at the historic Sedgwick County Courthouse.

As a matter of fact, this is where I shot my role in the film as a judge.

Chris Long, meanwhile, plans to enter penitentiary into several festivals in 2023.

He'll also be looking for streaming and other opportunities.

But that's the business side of things for him.

Nothing can ever replace experiences like directing a film in his childhood city.

What I found was more emotional was that the memories of my father.

And now, thanks to his son, the legacy of such an important Wichita figure will live on through film as well.

For Positively Kansas, I'm Anthony Powell.

It's no secret that making movies is one of the most difficult professions out there.

So to pay the bills, Chris runs a company in Saint Louis that produces corporate videos, commercials and other projects.

But as you can tell, dramatic films are a huge passion of his, and he hopes to do more such movies in the future.

The graceful movements of the white tailed deer always fun to watch, but the action gets even more interesting during mating season.

Mike Blair has the G-rated version in this week's Kansas Wild Edge Report.

You might be a casual but eager observer of white tailed deer.

But if you watch only from roads and windows, much of their story is hidden.

Deer hold secrets easy to discover if you walk their full trails.

The mating rituals seen now are fascinating and perfectly fit.

The autumn color of wild places.

Big bucks goes to night creatures during most of the year.

Come out now in daylight.

They begin rubbing trees with their antlers, creating visual signs that they're setting up shop for business.

Small bugs usually make small rubs.

The larger trees slashed in bark, sometimes up to shoulder high, indicate mature deer with large racks.

They begin searching for those, setting up, meeting places to help do this.

A field edges along fence lines and woodland lanes.

They pop bare spots called scrapes into the earth.

These almost always are found under low hanging limbs, and they serve as deer bulletin boards for community movement.

The scrapes are made by individual bugs that all local deer use and check them.

Scrapes are easy to see.

Usually 2 to 4 feet across.

With all the leaves and grass cleared away, tracks and help marks can be seen in them.

Scrapes are placed along travel ways every hundred yards or so, and bugs run them like trap lines to check for estrus dose.

Part of the ritual is found above the scrapes.

Hanging twigs are usually broken and frayed by teeth and antlers.

Their stand in the scrape off and urinating onto the bare soil to leave their scent.

And then they reach up to chew and rub facial glands on the twigs, leaving their individual calling cards as the mating season or rut reaches full swing.

Scrapes become important staging areas that leads to other ways and wonders of white tailed pairings.

But these ground based rituals add immensely to the allure of watching Autumn Deer.

I'm Mike Blair.

Four Positively Kansas.

Next time, Mike gives us an up close look at another autumn wildlife ritual.

This one takes place out on the Kansas waterways.

Now back to human activity and the kind of action you'll find in a baseball park during the summer.

Chris Frank shows us how one of baseball's most famous summer tournaments has become an annual Wichita tradition.

Once old time local baseball got organized into playing leagues.

Playoffs followed.

Then in 1931, a Whittington by the name of Raymond Hap Dumont is credited with founding the first statewide tournament.

Now we won't talk about those tournaments without also talking about where the games were played.

Island.

Ballpark on Ackerman Island.

Seated fans were tournament minor league and other exhibition games.

The Island Park Stadium was built in 1912 on what was a large sandbar in the Kansas River.

It was north of the Douglas Street Bridge.

The sandbar started to form in the 1870s and grew to several acres.

Now, just think the general location of today's exploration place and its surroundings is about where Ackerman Island, with its ballpark and Wonderland amusement park, including a large roller coaster, used to be.

Today's single Channel River Setting looks a lot different than when baseball was played here.

For the ballpark burned in 19.

33.

Various reasons were given.

I think.

They finally decided somebody carelessly discarded.

A cigaret.

The destruction of that stadium set other things in motion.

The Depression era works.

Progress Administration WPA already wanted to fill in the West River Channel and return the river to one larger channel to help control flooding.

So with the island park gone, Dumont needed a new venue for his games.

He turns to Wichita City leaders for help and makes a promise.

He says if the city builds a new stadium ballpark, Dumont will organize a national tournament to play there.

The Lawrence ballpark also became a WPA project.

It was the start of the National Baseball Congress.

The NBC half was able to convince the city to build a new stadium, and they did that.

And then, of course, in 1935 was the first year for the NBC World Series.

Happ gets a hold of satchel Paige, who one of the most famous pitchers ever to play the game.

And the rest is history, as I say.

Raymond Dumont, with the nickname Hap Short for Happy, was a sports calmness, and he also sold sports equipment and promoted baseball tournaments.

Now, he knew if he could get Satchel Paige to play, fans would fill the new ballpark.

When you think of Kansas baseball, I think everybody's got to know about Satchel Paige and his great performance when he came down to the NBC tournament in 1935.

Some baseball historians say, Leroy, Satchel Paige is the greatest pitcher of all times.

Paige wasn't from Kansas.

He was born in Mobile, Alabama.

Here's what the Great Hall of Fame, Saint Louis Cardinals pitcher Dizzy Dean said about Paige's fastball.

Dizzy Dean saw him and Dizzy Dean looked at Satchel Paige.

He said, Boy, he makes my fastball look like a change.

Of pages forever connected with the beginning of the National Baseball Congress tournament and Kansas baseball history.

So Dumont wanted Paige and the Bismarck, North Dakota Churchills Baseball Club.

Paige pitch four in the tournament that first year in 1935.

Dumont offered Paige $1,000 to play.

Dumont didn't have the money, but expected the tournament's gate receipts to more than cover the expense.

They did.

1000 bucks was a lot of money in those Depression era years at the time.

$1,000 would pay a doctor for three months or a lawyer for four months.

And Paige gets paid that to come in for a two week tournament.

And Satchel Paige, why would she play it?

And the NBC World Series?

Why was he not playing in the Negro Leagues?

Because he could make $1,000 in two weeks at events like the NBC because he was such a great player.

Paige, of course, did play in the Negro Leagues, including for the Kansas City Monarchs and later for the Cleveland Indians once integration came to the majors.

But like Shahade says, Paige did a lot of barnstorming games for pay on the side.

You figure he paid him $2,000?

Actually, he's getting off cheap, guys.

They pack that ballpark every time Satchel pitched.

Paige's pitching, carried the Bismarck team to victory in Wichita's first NBC tournament that kickstarted Wichita's NBC tournament, which continues to thrive decades later.

The NBC history is to me, the leading point of baseball history in Wichita.

I mean, 86 years, there's no other organization that has been here that long playing the sport that we all love.

Well, that's the old ballgame for this week, positivelykansas@kpts.org is our email address.

We love hearing from you and we appreciate watching to see you again next week.

Positively Kansas is brought to you in part by program support provided by the F Price Cossman Memorial Trust and Trust Bank Trustee Bringing you the Kansas Wild Edge segments on Positively Kansas.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas serves more than 900,000 Kansans in various programs.

Independent member owned Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, proudly supports PBS Kansas.

Before investing your hard earned money, make sure your financial advisor understands your objectives.

Mark Douglass CFP Serving our community for over 25 years, providing customized financial solutions that focus on the individual.