It's time for Positively Kansas.

Coming up, we'll show you what's growing in the urban jungle.

A new kind of farm is helping redefine what's possible in downtown Wichita.

Also, we'll tie one on.

And Barbara County.

This is a kind of business you might not expect to find in a tiny Kansas town.

Plus, we'll visit the matchstick man of Heston.

He found a creative way to help cope with a difficult period in life and discovered a talent he never knew he had.

Plus, it takes a village to save the planet.

You'll see how one man overtook an ambitious effort to remake a landscape for wildlife.

I'm Sierra Scott.

A half hour of information and inspiration is cued up and ready to roll in this edition of 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 Douglass 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's Kansas.

Program support provided by the F Price Cossman Memorial Trust and Trust Bank Trustee.

Bringing you that Kansas Wild Edge segments on positively Kansas.

It's one of the world's oldest professions, and it's happening in broad daylight in downtown Wichita.

Of course, you know, I'm talking about farming.

Vegetables are sprouting up in a rather unlikely location, as Jim Grawe shows us.

This is the city, Wichita, Kansas, a thriving American metropolis with a downtown that's on the rebound.

And amidst the offices and apartments that are commonplace in many urban centers is something that's far from common that is only visible from above.

We've explored lots of options for bringing fresh food to downtown Wichita, which is a food desert.

And this is the first one that we felt was a viable opportunity to do that.

Rice Farm sits five stories above the ground atop the new Fidelity Bank parking ramp that is managed by Vice President Melissa Cannava.

Nobody else has this.

This is something that sets us apart from anybody else.

And it's pretty cool to be able to say we have the largest urban farm in the Midwest.

Tomatoes, squash, greens.

And just about every other vegetable and herb that will grow in Kansas is grown here.

Leah Danner Garcia, who runs Firefly Farm east of Wichita, is the owner operator.

Her partnership with Fidelity Bank is A for profit enterprise that takes the concept of locally grown food to new heights.

Our mission is to be good for the planet, the people, and to make a fair profit.

90% of everything we grow in the state of Kansas is exported.

And I believe 93% of all of our food is imported.

So we'd like to change that statistic.

And one of the ways we think we do that is making people aware of local agriculture.

And I think this helps to accomplish that.

The idea was born of the fact that the bank didn't have a use for the top floor of the garage.

We realized quickly that we didn't need all of the spaces right off the bat.

So the fifth floor is open to the sky.

We weren't going to use that anyway.

And a developer in town said, What about putting a farm up there?

And our president CEO looked at me and said, Hey, I want to do some research on that.

And I thought, Oh, maybe.

She got Garcia on board.

Together they did the research and figured out how to make this work.

It's so far so good.

This farm has exceeded my every expectation.

That said, I've never grown on a rooftop before.

So we don't know what we don't know.

Some things are even grown during the winter, making fresh, locally grown produce available year round.

We look at food security as a strategic endeavor.

What's grown here is served at local restaurants and sold at Fidelity Banks monthly downtown Farmer's Market, along with some local stores.

We would love to have others learn from us and do this elsewhere in our city.

Potential for many of these across Wichita.

It would be great if we could be the leader.

In.

Rooftop farms and set the precedent for the rest of the Midwest.

Covering concrete with green space also has the potential of cooling the air temperature on hot summer days.

There are a lot of reasons why rooftop farming could blossom into something big.

At least the seeds are planted in Wichita.

Five stories up for Positively Kansas.

I'm Jim Greenway.

More than 30 local restaurants are serving fruits and vegetables grown at the rooftop farm.

It's a family business that dates back to biblical times as long as there have been things to pull or lift up or tie up.

There have been ropes and a small town Kansas Company makes some of the best in the world.

Chris Frank weaves the facts together in this story from Kiawah.

This is the custom rope factory in Kiawah.

Now, this building might not look like much, but believe me, the rope that is manufactured here is sold all around the world.

The custom rope factory operates in the oldest, still standing storefront in Kiawah.

The building looks like it survived the 1800s, along with its boardwalk in front.

But inside is where the magic happens.

Now, one doesn't need the fanciest of buildings to make an up to date version of an ancient tool that sold around the world.

J. Oklahoma.

J. I started in rope making if.

You can find Buddy Williams, better known as the rope man in this front office when not watching the guys next door or making this custom rope.

And you'll almost always find him under his signature black top hat.

Williams was born in Chautauqua County, near the town of Elgin on the Kansas Oklahoma State line.

Elgin, now a fading ghost town, had several hundred living there when Williams grew up in the area.

He was named Sylvester Gustavo's Williams, but goes by buddy in Elgin.

The family business was tree trimming, which requires ropes, of course.

So his dad taught young buddy rope, making a man doing it since was eight years old.

It didn't take very long to figure he could make money making rope.

Out of making a lot of times.

On a weekend.

More than a lot of guys made working for a ranch or something.

To feed the family.

And I used to kid eight, nine years old that I knew all I had to do is learn and make money and make and rope with money.

For many years.

Rope making was something Buddy did on the side while he was doing other things, including being a racehorse jockey.

A road race, horses that locations in 17.

States.

And when each race was over, he took orders for rope.

I could make law.

Riding horses and getting off and then making rope themselves of the ranchers up on the horses.

And they'd come to me and say.

Make me three.

Rebuilds, boy, you get that done quick.

And they would.

Violent lawn.

Elgin isn't far from Pawhuska, Oklahoma, a cattle ranching area.

Williams would go to Pawhuska as cattle sell barn to sell ropes, sell.

Rope to the cattle sale on the weekends.

Then Johnson would come home.

That's Ben Johnson, actor, stuntman and world champion rodeo cowboy.

Johnson would return to Oklahoma when not working in Hollywood, and he'd always buy everything.

He had left.

That's just part of the man's colorful history.

History is still being made as these strands of twine are pulled along the track, then twirled to make new ropes and new stories.

Even before rope runners like Juan Archuleta were making ropes here.

Williams was demonstrating rope making and entertaining crowds at the state fair in Hutchinson.

But he started to.

Making rope at the Kansas State Fair before we even moved here.

And it was a huge success with the antique machines where people could actually make something themselves on the rope.

But he also entertained crowds at Dollywood in Tennessee.

He would combine rope tricks and storytelling that further sold his brand.

Now, entertaining crowds is one thing building a viable, long lasting business is another.

Williams had a commercial rope making operation in Eldorado, but he sold.

It took a five year non-compete break, then moved to Kiawah.

Now, family members like son in law John Fogerty, work in the manufactory.

Archuleta is lining up and preparing the strands of trying to be wound into a custom made rope.

The process is called spinning.

The rope is spinning the rope up to get it tight, raise it up off the ground.

That way we can see if there's any loops that need to be tucked in so there's no imperfections in the rope.

It's £12,500 tensile strength rope for like a small car or SUV type thing.

The way we string these up is we do three ropes at a time.

We basically pull them out to make a 66, 68 foot rope, and then we'll cut it into thirds to make three individual 20 foot ropes.

That's our standard length.

They're building doesn't need to be wide.

It's narrow for a plant site, but it needs to be long enough for the rope being made.

Their rope is made from polypropylene twine known for its strength and durability.

The birth of the rope starts in this rack with stacks of twine balls.

On a really good day.

Once we get really busy, we'll probably go through 100 balls of twine a day, sometimes a little bit more than that.

And there are 10,000 foot rolled balls.

More than 160 individual strands of twine can be pulled through these feeding holes at a time to be spun into a rope.

Once the rope is cut to a standard 20 foot length.

Workers braid the ends.

They use a torch to melt the ends so the rope doesn't fray.

And then they connect.

A hook or a frame is.

Basically melting them together.

So that tape was there ever come down?

Individual strands would come apart at very apart.

Now check out the orange hooks on the rack.

Those are for some heavy duty ropes to pull very heavy machinery.

That on the 11th ton hook will stick them on a £125,000 of strength rope.

It is pretty good size.

Rockets are most common like a road grader.

Size of rope.

Just think we're road graders.

Bulldozers and tractors in general have to work.

The equipment's work surface may turn from dry to muddy conditions, bringing the powerful and heavy machines to a halt.

It takes a strong rope to pull the machines out and the rope factory makes even stronger ropes.

That's actually £125,000 tensile strength is just under four times smaller than the largest rope that we make.

The largest rope made.

We make is £600,000 constraint.

He says those largest of ropes are capable of pulling or trucks out of the mining pit with a bulldozer.

So to give you a size comparison here, this is our 20 foot, £25,000 tensile strength rope for a half ton truck.

It's just a little bit larger than the ring that we put on the £200,000 tents, strength rope.

Williams says even if the polypropylene rope breaks, it won't snap back and hurt anyone.

He says the company has never had a liability suit.

The business has custom in its name, so the factory also takes special order requests for odd sizes.

For example, they made a 100 foot rope for a church camp that needed it for a tug of war competition.

But their main business is making vehicle tug ropes.

Daughter Tamara Bogota shows all the stores across the country where the Kiawah made rope sales at.

The yellow.

Ones have multiple.

And as you zoom in it's that's all of the dealers.

Across the country.

The rope is sold at farm stores, auto parts stores and the like.

It is also sold in several foreign countries, including Canada and European countries.

Investors have offered to buy Williams out, but at least for now.

But he doesn't want to see the family cut ties with the multigenerational tradition of making rope in Kiawah.

This is Kris Frank for Positively Kansas.

Buddy the rope man.

Williams says rope making goes back at least nine generations in his family.

Now we go to Heston, where current Gingrich needed a distraction during a very painful period in his life.

He found something that not only distracted him, but amazed just about everybody who knew him.

Anthony Bell has his story.

The Taj Mahal, one of the seven wonders of the world, a must see for anyone traveling in India.

The moon was shining on that.

And we just sat.

And we just looked.

It was just beautiful to behold.

Although it's been decades curved, Gingrich of Hesston, Kansas will never forget the first time he and his wife, Clay Deane, laid eyes on the Taj Mahal.

The couple and their two small children moved from Hesston, where Kirkham was the middle school principal to India, where Kirkham also worked for a school.

Growing up he had an aunt and uncle who told fascinating tales of living in India.

Kerman Clay Deen thought it would be a great adventure.

So off they went.

Every day was something different.

You learn something different.

The family went back and forth between India and Houston for the next several years.

They eventually moved to Seoul, South Korea and then back to the states where Kerman Clay Deen retired.

But Clay Deen got dementia and KIRN became her caregiver.

When I was caring for her, that's it can feel your whole life.

COLMES Daughter Kim became concerned about him, thought he needed a distraction from the stresses of caregiving, knowing how much India and the Taj Mahal meant to her dad.

This is a picture of Kirby Kim and her daughter, Rachel in India.

Kim had an idea.

She sent her dad a kit comprised of matchsticks and glue that when finished, would become a replica of the Taj Mahal.

But initially, Khurram wasn't so sure about tackling the project.

It was overwhelming, especially when I started looking at some of these little tiny piece.

I said, Kim, I'm not going to start on that.

I don't know where to start.

But Khurram decided to give it a try and says building the matchstick Taj Mahal was the perfect therapy.

I get up in the morning and the first thing I do was come out and start on it.

Yeah, it was.

It was kind of a kind of a job of being in love with something.

It was also challenging.

The kit contained 2000 matchsticks.

The tough part is there are so probably 80% of it is things are current angles.

But Kurram persevered, finishing the project in two years.

He'll always remember the joy his creation brought Clay Deen even in her compromised state.

She'd say, Oh, this, that's really nice.

How can you do all this little find work and this kind of stuff?

So.

So it was good for her.

It was good for her, too.

But after Clyde Deen passed away and he was done with his matchstick creation, loneliness consumed come.

Little did he know his life would change in a way he never could have imagined.

This is Kirkham and his new wife, Verna Bell.

They were married in 2021.

After meeting in a grief support group to try and woo Verna Bell, Croom shared a passage from one of his favorite books, The Gift of Years.

Don't let the memories of a previous year being good or bad keep the years ahead from being the best ones in your life.

The couple used those words for their wedding invitation, and they continue to use the passage as inspiration to live every moment together to the fullest.

And we remark every morning, we don't have anything to worry about right now.

Let's just have fun and do things.

So whether it's working on a project you never thought you'd be able to finish or finding love a second time.

In his eighties, Curb Gingrich is proof you're never too old.

In Houston, I'm Anthony Powell for Positively Kansas.

Kermit says the biggest reason he's giving up matchstick projects is he's too busy with his new marriage.

He met his new wife in a support group for widowed spouses.

They married in 2021.

Now to the great outdoors, where a south central Kansas man is proving the old adage If you build it, they will come.

Here's this week's Kansas Wild Edge Report with Mike Blair Bruce Davidson as a man of the land.

I met him more than 40 years ago when he shared his dream of turning a newly acquired Kansas ranch into a wildlife mecca.

Then a nationally known trapper and fur buyer, he's passed two decades as a cattleman and farmer, never overlooking his quest to improve Nisga'a wetland habitat.

And now, a lifetime later, his legacy has changed.

The Central Flyway.

Most wetland improvements involve just a few acres, mostly accomplished through government cost share and advice.

The Davidson has planned and funded his own hopes until now, 100 acres of remote and permanent water landmark a trail of ancient migration.

His daily walks through continuing work, inspect his lifelong effort and rising clouds of birds and waterfowl color his days with reward.

Such things aren't easy.

Where annual rainfall averages 27 inches.

Dry pasture is more the norm.

But extensive dirt work combined with springs and captured precipitation every silted and lush wetlands with aquatic plants and foods.

The local wildlife community has responded and grown, and now a host of surprising species are found here.

Bald eagles, hind and nest in the provisions in deer and coyotes are common residents, snakes and frogs.

Fish and turtles are at home in a checklist of Kansas.

Birds are always present in spring, and fall are the real months of splendor when migrants fill the marsh.

And Davidson's work as a welcome stop for winged travelers passing through Kansas is lucky for those with such vision and purpose.

The land is a far better place when guys like Bruce, private and hidden away from the limelight, commit to their dreams and stewardship.

I'm Mike Blair.

Four Positively Kansas.

The practice of baby wearing goes back centuries, once considered a practice limited to primitive cultures.

It's now gaining acceptance here in the United States.

Chris Frank brings us the story of a McPherson woman who advocates for baby wearing and the benefits it provides.

Okay, it's a half priced clothing now.

Of course, it's a winter day in McPherson.

And Alicia Allen is clothes shopping for 14 month old son Silas.

Sure, it's quicker for a parent to hoist their baby into their arms and just start walking with them or use a baby stroller.

It takes about an extra, I don't know, 30 seconds to a minute at the car.

Some.

Some days are quicker than others.

But Allen says she'll most often secure Silas into a sling instead of putting them into a shopping cart.

The first thing it's called baby wearing.

And Allen likes to point out the benefits of it.

It's convenient to to be able to shop hands free, not have to hold your baby, but still have them close enough so they're there.

They're secure, they're bonding.

They have that touch of their parents and you're still hands free.

They you can feed them like if they're breastfeeding, mother, you can do that while shopping, which is really convenient.

Allen says baby wearing has been around since ancient times.

Native Americans were known to carry their babies and wraps next to their bodies.

In other countries like Africa and Europe, and they've all had some form of baby wearing.

It's becoming more common in the industrialized world in recent decades.

Popularized by some pediatricians, as Allen wishes she had known more about baby wearing when her teenagers were babies.

She says it would have made carrying them so much easier.

I heard of them, but not very common.

And so I didn't do it then.

Allen says often, while out in public, other moms will approach your saying how they wish they had known about baby wearing.

I get a lot of wish they had that when my kids were young.

You know, they just weren't very common.

Say hi to everybody.

Say hi.

He loves attention and he's a social guy.

So Allen wants to introduce others to baby wearing.

So she held this show until class at her church to introduce other parents to the practice.

Why not help other people?

And I know when I go out and about in the store, I often see parents struggling with the car seat carriers, and I know how heavy those things can be.

Allen has experimented with many as a baby wearing products on the market.

What do you guys have the most interest in seeing slings or carriers?

She points out the benefits and drawbacks of each.

I have a little baby here, and I know you have a little baby, too.

Oh, for some of the parents, this is new.

While for others, baby wearing has been their practice.

I don't see a lot of people baby wearing.

No.

I do not.

I moved down from Montana and pretty much everyone up there baby wears.

So I didn't realize it was that uncommon here.

Some of the moms say baby worry helps them to multitask.

Not have to carry them on.

My arms at having free hands because I have other.

Two kids I have to chase around.

So I can carry her and still chase me either to other directions.

I recommend it to every mom.

Missy do seem to year carried all three of her babies.

Absolutely.

Yes.

My husband, even he used a sling for my babies.

I have found baby wearing to be.

I'm hands free and it's it's really helpful.

He can sleep while I grocery shop.

He can nurse while I grocery shop.

He's cozy.

He's more patient.

By the time we get through grocery shopping with him sitting in the buggy.

He's upset his arch and his twist.

And he's wanting now when I have him in a carrier.

He's happy through the whole trip, no matter how long we're in there.

And so I thought, let's see if I can spread a little bit of this.

I didn't realize it was a half price clothing day, so not serious.

So it's always nice to find out.

Out.

Here at.

A good price to begin with.

And then our bargain price.

Alisha and Silas will continue being a walking billboard for Baby wearing every time they go out in public and responding to the curiosity of those they meet That you, Binky.

And McPherson Chris Frink for positively Kansas.

Well we're out of time.

positivelykansas@kpts.org is our email address if you have a story idea.

Until next time.

I'm Sierra Scott.

See you later.

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 and independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association proudly supports PBS's 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.