It's time for Positively Kansas.

Coming up, it's the 100th anniversary of Walter Beech moving to Wichita.

Former Beechcraft employees reflect upon this turning point in both aviation and Wichita history.

And you'll see how Walter and his wife, Holly, than are portrayed as never before in a new opera titled Stagger Win.

We'll hear from the creators and actors and get a sneak peek at the world premiere.

Also, we'll meet a Wichita musician who's helping give the blues genre a refresh.

Hear from the author of a new book about historic Wichita restaurants and learn about a Kansas butterfly that goes against the grain.

It has a look and lifestyle all its own.

Thanks for joining us.

I'm 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 Douglass CFP Serving our community for over 20 years, providing customized financial solutions that focus on the individual.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas serves more than 930,000 Kansans in various programs, independent member around Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas and independent licensee of Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association supports its.

Programs support provided by the F price customer Memorial Trust and Trust Bank Trustee.

Bringing you the Kansas Wild Ed segments on Positively Kansas.

It was one century ago when noted Wichita aviator Walter Beech landed in the city to work at the Swallow aircraft Company.

Just over a decade later, Walter and Ollivant formed the Beech Aircraft Company.

Chris Frank talks with two Beech retirees about the impact this aviation power couple had on their lives and on the Wichita community.

The story we always heard.

Pat Laman and Judy Pearce have fond memories of their days at Beech Aircraft.

Both started working at Beech in 1965, when very few women worked in the factory.

I was one of the first three women in my apartment.

The other two didn't last, and I did.

Lehmann was the first ever female tool and die maker at Beechcraft guys.

Both say women working in the Beech factory was so rare back in the sixties.

There were restroom facilities for them.

There was no bathroom facilities for women and that whole area that I was in.

So I wound up having to go out to the front office bathrooms.

That's where they told me to go.

Pierson says she didn't have any particular work skills when she started a beach one day after her 18th birthday.

She said Beech taught her while she worked.

I just got out of high school.

I didn't really have any skills, but I told them I was ready to work.

And they said they picked me and they did.

All these in.

Beech was the chief executive of Beechcraft when the two started work there.

This was 15 years after the death of Walter Beech in 1950.

Mrs. Beech was a very good employer.

Yes, she was.

I think we all had tremendous respect for her because she was kind of a pioneer.

She was a lone woman running an international company and running it very successfully.

Lehmann says everyone at the company had a lot of respect for Mrs. Beech.

But she cared a lot about her employees, too.

At one time, you couldn't.

Get fired at at Beech unless it went through.

NASA's Beech and Mr. Beech.

They that's how much they cared about their employees.

She also had the most loyal workforce of any because people knew that about her.

Lehmann's father worked at Beech, so she says she grew up with an appreciation for the planemaker.

Now, something this reporter has often heard about, the original Beech Company is that Beech like to hire relatives of current employees.

The thinking was those relatives applying for a job likely had a favorable view of the company from family members already working there.

The Beech Company had a reputation for keeping work in the family.

So there were a lot of family connections.

My sister worked at Beach.

My nephew worked at Beech.

Her father in law worked at Beech.

My dad worked at Beech.

My husband worked at Beech.

He was all in.

Yeah.

We were all in the family.

Absolutely we were.

And that's what Beech retirees told me for the PBS's Kansas documentary, Wichita, the Air Capital.

Very good company to work for.

It's a Friday morning when Beech retirees meet at a southeast Wichita cafeteria.

They talk about what a family affair it was to work their.

When it was under family management.

I think they made it known that they wanted to hire family members.

Sharon Nichols worked at Beech for 43 years.

Her dad, brother, two sisters, worked at Beech as well as aunts, uncles and cousins.

Lehmann says there were occasions she ran errands for Mrs. Beech, but any time she had to go to all Hasan's office, there was always one thing she did.

Well, you take off your shoes first thing because you didn't want to track all that oil and dirt from the shop onto her carpet.

Mrs. Beech was known as a stickler on that.

And then there were those mood flags Mrs. Beech would post outside of the office door.

There were seven of them.

Employees tread very lightly.

If the whoa flag was posted about those flags.

Well, she had flags on her desk.

And as the oh, happy day flag was raised up, then it was a good day and everybody was getting along fine.

If it was not, you wanted to walk and tread very softly and do whatever you were supposed to do.

These Beechcraft are, say, the company's first lady's style was always impressive.

Mrs. Beech was standing out on the runway by her plane, and I thought she was one of the most elegant people I'd ever seen in my life.

I'll never forget she had on a beautiful outfit.

She always dressed so well.

It was common for the rich and famous, including Hollywood and sports stars, to come to the Wichita plants to pick up their purchased planes.

Layman talks about a funny story when the beer magnate Augie Busch Junior stopped by.

Augie Busch Jr. Bought a staggering.

And when he came out to pick it up, there were people wearing colors caps working on his plane coolers.

And Budweiser, of course, are beer competitors.

And he did not like that at all.

And he went back to Saint Louis and he shipped enough Bud Light caps for everybody every and and was restricted to union members.

And he wanted to see that people were wearing Bud caps, not curse caps working on his plane.

I thought it was interesting because my husband got one of the caps.

Both look back on their work there with pride.

You know, we were proud to work there and proud to do something back for what they did for us.

I'm a big crafter and I always will be.

I'm Beechcraft.

His kid, and I will always be a Beechcraft.

That's an attitude any company would want employees to have.

This is Chris Frank for Positively Kansas.

Lehmann and Peers took breaks from Beach to work at the Machinists Union, which represented plant workers in contract negotiations.

Both became secretary treasurers at the union.

Part of the Beechcraft story is told in a brand new production composed expressly for a local opera company by two New York composers.

The main characters are Walter and all of and Beech and two female aviators they recruited who made history.

Jim Gray has that story.

You get long term payments, but you need cash.

Oh.

Watching a silly TV commercial, maybe the closest a lot of people ever get to experiencing opera.

Opera?

Kansas hopes to break opera's stuffy, antiquated image with more contemporary and relatable stories like Stagger Wings.

One of our major goals is that we want to tell the stories that haven't been told yet.

The stories about the hidden figures.

It is the winner of the latest epic modern opera competition.

I'm going to tell.

For your tonight.

APPLAUSE looked at the proposal and I was like, Oh, this one's going to win.

Because it was a story for Wichita.

It was a story for us.

It was a story about our people, our contributions to the world.

Few opportunities.

Good Stagger Wing is based on the true story of Alvin and Walter Beech and their idea to promote their new C-17 airplane by having two women fly one in the 1936 Bendix Trophy race.

It was the first year that all female teams were able to compete in this race.

These aviation trailblazers, Louise Staden and Blanche Noyes shocked the world by winning the race.

It's inspiring that they had the guts to go against the norm at the time and in such a dangerous field.

It wasn't anything to laugh at.

I mean, flying at that time was extremely dangerous.

Like you could die on takeoff or landing or at any point in the air.

Lisa Despain and Rachel J. Peters from New York City submitted the idea.

In winning the competition, they were commissioned to compose and stage the complete production for a Wichita premiere.

That premiere took place at the Kansas Aviation Museum.

Part of what's so fun about being an artist is a chance to slip on somebody else's shoes and to really learn about, like, Wichita.

We are in love with Wichita.

It has been just a delight to be here.

After we not all or is is.

The actor who played Walter Beech says he had never played a role like this.

Nothing that's so closely tied to the community in which we're performing it.

Nearly everyone in this town has some connection to.

Beechcraft.

And with many of Walter and Sullivan's descendants still alive and wanting to preserve their legacy, we feel the need to do them justice in the way that we're portraying these characters.

Just as Louise Baden, Blanch Noise and the Beaches made history in 1936, Opera Kansas made history in 2021 by telling this story in a way that it had never been told before.

For Positively Kansas.

I'm Jim Gray with.

Ashley Winters of Opera.

Kansas hopes to take stagger wing on the road for performances in other cities across the state in 2022.

Now to a Wichita bandleader who's busy tearing up the blues, bluegrass and folk music scene with not one but two groups he leads.

Anthony Pal caught up with Dustin Arbuckle, who says he's been heavily influenced by another Wichita blues musician.

We featured on a past episode of Positively Kansas.

From building a log cabin on a mountain so high.

On a summer's day.

Dustin Arbuckle and one of its bands, The Haymakers, sizzled on the Brickyard stage.

The Haymakers sound is formed from numerous types of music, attracting fans from Kansas, across America and even overseas.

But it's Wichita, where Dustin was born and raised in still lives that you'll find their most loyal supporters.

I appreciate Dustin's artistry.

He's an amazing talent.

Dustin is thankful for his amazing fans and the place he's always called home.

Well, many musicians flock to bigger cities.

He's always stayed put, too, right here in the air capital.

Wichita, his home.

And to be frank, as a touring musician, the cost of living is low and manageable here.

And being in the middle of the country, you can get anywhere within a day's drive.

Dustin and his bandmates do a lot of driving, performing all over Kansas and the U.S. and occasionally flying for international gigs.

Dustin is the ultimate road warrior.

That's because in addition to The Haymakers, he also leads a band.

Now, since you've bingo.

Called The Damned Nations.

With the Damn Nations, we have sort of this cross-genre electric roots, Americana vibe where it's there's blues there and there's soul music there, and there's kind of alt country and roots rock and even some jazz influence with haymakers.

It's more kind of folk, country, bluegrass, acoustic, you know, string bands, sort of a vibe.

Dustin says leading two bands gives him an incredible opportunity to play different kinds of music and collaborate with many talented musicians.

But as the main scheduler for The Haymakers and the Damned Nations, he says, the logistics can get pretty overwhelming.

But that's not the only thing that makes the music business tough at times.

Unless you get to a certain level, you don't make a ton of money.

It's definitely kind of a labor of love, sort of a situation, and it's hard to be on the road a lot and be away from your family.

The road, though, is what Dustin has known for much of his adult life.

Back in the early 2000, he formed a band called Moreland and Arbuckle bands.

Moreland and Arbuckle had a lot of success, touring extensively all over the world and scoring record deals with several labels.

He's hoping his current groups, the hitmakers in Damn Nations, can reach that level.

So just how did Dustin get so into the blues?

My dad was really into it, but I wasn't that conscious of it until my mid-teens, and then I just kind of started hearing it and becoming conscious of the music.

And it just struck me and and hit me in a way that almost nothing else ever had.

And at that young age, he knew playing music was what he wanted to do for life.

When it comes to musical influences, Dustin lists a number of traditional blues artists, including many Kansans, such as iconic harmonica player Lee McPhee, and which of ten Bill Garrison, who we profiled on an earlier episode of Positively Kansas.

You see Dustin grew up with Phil and credits Garrison for introducing him to the harmonica.

Bill Garrison was a very well-known Wichita blues musician who passed away in 2020 and was honored in early 2021 by the Kansas Senate for his tremendous contribution to this state music scene.

Dustin's dad was good friends with Bill and introduced his son to him.

Bill played me these old blues records and and picked up his his guitar and harmonica and played his songs.

And it was the first time I actually got to really see someone play harmonica in person.

That got Dustin hooked on the harmonica.

And he says he will always be grateful to Bill Garrison for being such an influence and a supporter.

So grateful is the word Dustin would use to describe his life.

He's got a beautiful family and gets to make people feel good.

Even relive happy childhood memories by playing music.

My grandma was on the banjo.

Great grandpa had a fiddle.

Her sister was on the piano.

So they had a family band, right?

All American goes back to the roots.

Of.

American music.

You know, local singers and songwriters.

And they play homage, you know, to a lot of the original people.

Yes.

Whether he's leading the haymakers or the damn nation's, Dustin Arbuckle knows he's one lucky guy making a living at something.

He's always been so passionate.

Thank you all very much for Positively Kansas.

I'm Anthony Powell.

We love feel.

As if Dustin is a busy enough playing with the haymakers and the damn nations.

He's also part of a guitar harmonica blues duo with an Iowa musician friend named Matt Woods.

Now to the great outdoors, where the change of seasons has a life changing consequence for animals of all kinds.

In this week's Kansas Wild Edge report, Mike Blair gives us an up close look at some often overlooked butterflies who prepare for cold weather in a way all their own.

The cool night and hazy days of late summer marked the decline of another growing season.

You see it in the color, the dewy early mornings and the winding down of small creatures whose time is now limited.

And so it is with the second generation of the colorful Kansas butterfly, the girl we leave link.

This pert orange flier is somewhat obscure.

It prefers open fields near its food plant.

Croton, a twig and leafy shrub like plant.

And the butterfly is not easy to spot, despite its bright color.

First generation adults of late spring lived for only about a week while laying eggs when resting their normally folded wings perfectly mimic a dead leaf and not often do their brightly colored upper wings attract attention.

More so, these butterflies don't commonly nectar on flowers.

Their feeding tubes are short and stout, too small to efficiently reach plant sugars.

Instead, in the manner of some other butterflies and insects, they feed on plant sap, fermented fruits and even animal dung.

Here, a leaf Wang feeds on a drying watermelon rind.

I began filming goat weed leaf wings in late July.

New butterflies were then pairing and laying eggs, and I searched acres of scattered plants to find a dozen single eggs deposited on Croton leaves.

It was a waiting game as the tiny larvae grew and fed these caterpillars or easily overlooked, since they blend almost perfectly with the leaves they feed on as they grow.

They often use silk to create tight shelters in which to hide.

The caterpillar stage lasts from 4 to 6 weeks, spanning five inch stars.

Sometimes mature larvae are found with new eggs of a partial third generation.

When larvae are fully mature, they spin up crystal loops that again blend very well among the food plant leaves.

This stage last up to 14 days, and it clears to show the orange butterfly inside about a day before emergence.

When all is ready, the chrysalis splits open and the new butterfly crawls out to dry.

It may stay near the empty chrysalis for half a day, alternately pumping its beautiful wings and excreting excess fluid from this final life change.

Leaf wings found now will live until frost finally crawling deep into thick cover and overwintering as adults.

Unusual in the butterfly world, then in spring that remain and start the process all over again.

Goat weed leaf wings.

Watch for them.

In Kansas, summer fields.

I'm Mike Blair.

Four Positively Kansas.

If you love to eat.

And who doesn't?

The person sitting next to me.

You will definitely recognize her face.

Denise Neal been with the Eagle for a very long time.

We won't say how long.

A very, very dear friend.

You are amazing.

I love watching everything you write.

And now you've written a book and I think that's so cool and I've actually read it.

So I think Sierra, it's could be fun to talk about this book.

First of all, it's about the kind of the history of restaurants in Wichita, right?

Is that a good definition of what we write?

It's kind of a capsule of all the restaurants that opened over the years in our city that people miss and wish.

We're still around.

And the publisher came to me with the idea and I knew that it would work because over the years, as of writing it about restaurants at The Eagle, some of the most popular stories that I write are about when I asked people if you could bring any restaurant back that you remember from your past, which one would it be?

And I would always get tons of views on those stories, but more important, I would get the same answers over and over.

So I knew there was a group of maybe, you know, 100 restaurants that kind of really are iconic in our histories, in our city's past.

I think it is.

And what I love is that you were able to because a lot of these restaurants have extreme amounts of history behind you.

And you kind of boiled down to the most interesting bullet points I want to say.

And they're really interesting to read about.

Well, thanks.

But also to is there one that kind of stands out to you the most or is there one that kind of surprised you, the history of it, you know, tons of them surprised me.

One example I tell people is I was getting close to done with the book and I went to see Tim Curry and Patrick Shibley over at Du Da Diner and I noticed a menu hanging on the wall there.

And I said, Tim, what is this menu from?

And it was from a club called Camille's, which I found out I've known Patrick for years.

His father, Keisha Bailey, started a nightclub called Camille's, which then led on to he hired two guys named Tom and Sonny.

Tom and Sonny up in Tom and Sonny's.

Then Sonny was a Scotch and sirloin.

Tom opened Tommy's, and I had no idea, one, that Patrick came from restaurant royalty or to just the whole, you know, history and progression of one restaurant birthing another one birthing another one.

So just to find out, you know, that I knew people and a friend of ours, Jeanie Robertson.

Yeah.

Her father opened a restaurant called The Old Way Station.

I knew about the Old Way station for a year.

I had no idea it was her father who had opened it.

So just finding out the connections to present day was really interesting to me.

And I agree with you because it is a historical kind of look, which I'm fascinated by as well.

So even to me, people outside Wichita or maybe have never even been to, which are that's still an interesting book.

Yeah.

And there are some restaurants that started here that launched nationally, so you kind of get a look at those as well.

Yes.

I mean, you could not write a story about Wichita's restaurant history without talking about, I would say, our two big E's, which are White Castle.

They had one that really gets under Wichita Skin.

I know people are not happy about White Castle because White Castle started here as a little tiny burger stand.

And then the founder got a partner.

They made more white castles, and then they moved it to they moved the headquarters to Ohio and they sold their Wichita locations to a man named Jimmy King, who went on to start the Kings dynasty, which now has given us Jimmy's Diner and all those things.

So White Castle, people are very upset.

It's not still here, even though it's our place.

And then, of course, Pizza Hut.

Pizza Hut was started here in the fifties by two brothers.

And it made a huge impact on our town and obviously on the nation.

And so the Pizza Hut franchise is one that I obviously got the history of that went into because that's our hometown place.

In fact, I posted about your book, This Is Funny, and I said something specifically about White Castle.

People piled on.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

They're not happy.

They're not happy.

It's not fair.

What's great is this book is already sold out.

You're in the second printing.

Yeah, I'm telling you, this is worth reading.

It was fun.

I couldn't put it down.

I actually read it one night, which is crazy, but I just thought was so interesting.

So if somebody wants to get it, where do they get it?

Well, there's a variety of ways to get it.

It's in stock at Watermark Books.

I think Barnes Noble's restocked.

But if you want an autographed copy, I've got several events coming up.

Yes, you can get it signed for me.

You can look at my Facebook page, classic restaurants of Wichita or you can email me at classic restaurants of Wichita at gmail.com.

And I have been arranging ways to get signed copies to people also.

Well, thank you for doing this book because seriously, even though again, I wasn't here during a lot of this, it was neat to see the history and again, learn about the people whose families have kind of progressed Wichita.

So thank you for writing it.

Thank you for reading.

Absolutely.

Well, it's time to say goodbye and hit the road.

Be sure to jot down this email address.

Positive of Kansas.

It kept story.

We appreciate your comments and story ideas.

We hope you enjoy the show.

I see Prescott.

See you later.

Positively.

Kansas is brought to you in part by program support provided by the F price Kosman Memorial Trust and Trust Bank Trustee bringing you the Kansas Wild Ed segments on Positively Kansas.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas serves more than 930,000 Kansans in various programs.

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

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

Mark Douglass CFP Serving our community for over 20 years, providing customized financial solutions that focus on the individual.