It's time for Positively Kansas.

Coming up, robots may finally be taking over, at least when it comes to food delivery.

We'll go to Wichita State, where machines packed with pizza and tacos are roaming the campus.

Also, you meet this English cyclist who's pedaling across the state.

We'll get his impressions of the Kansas life and landscape.

Plus, we'll take a trip out west to a gunslingers hideout.

Not much has changed here in 150 years.

And we'll celebrate the timeless joy of dancing and show you how age and disability don't stop these folks from cutting a rug.

I'm Sierra Scott.

Those stories and Kansas Wild Edge are cued up and ready to roll in this edition of Positively Kansas.

Technology continues to change our lives.

We hope for the better.

Now robots are starting to roam the sidewalks, doing jobs that people used to do.

Before you decide whether you like the idea or not, watch this story from reporter Chris Frank.

Hello.

Hello.

Says the robot as delivery customer Bailey Mueler signals with her phone app the code to open the autonomous vehicle so she can get her food.

Mueler says the delivery is a real convenience.

Yeah, I would say it's pretty nice when I've had classes all day and especially on this side of campus, so I dont have to walk back.

Or if I just want to treat myself to something.

A fleet of 13 robots started delivering food on the Wichita State University campus at the beginning of the fall 2023 semester.

The six wheeled vehicles share the pedestrian sidewalks with the students as they make their way to their delivery points.

WSU is the first Kansas campus to get the delivery robots made by the Starship Technologies Company.

We actually started working with Starship Robots about three years ago.

The beginnings of the planning started over this past summer and this past year.

We really picked up momentum with it and that's really when a lot of the legwork began.

Students, staff or faculty remotely order food from the seven campus restaurants.

Robots make their way from the Rhatigan Student Center, where customers food orders are placed inside the box and the vehicles are sent on their way.

WSU Dining Services pays for the use of the robots with Starship maintaining ownership and control of the robots.

Linenberger stresses these are not funded by student tuition.

Customers pay a $2 and 49 cent delivery fee.

The autonomous delivery vehicles are now at work on some 50 American university campuses.

And so college campuses are a great place for the robots to be used for several reasons.

The first being, there's a large population or customers in one general area.

So yeah, a lot of customers.

It's obviously a great, great thing for us.

And the population being mostly students, they embrace technology.

So, you know, 50 years ago, you know, maybe a little different, but nowadays these young young people at these college campuses, they love technology and they love on demand services.

So what do you think of those?

Theyre cute... kind of scary at the same time.

Are you getting used to them?

A little bit, yeah.

But they are still kind of a shock to see around.

A shock perhaps at first.

But most students don't seem to pay them any attention, already seeming to be used to them.

The campus layout of sidewalks and street crossings is programed into the robot's navigation system.

The robots use machine learning, so once the robot learns something about the campus or about the sidewalk or about a crossing, the entire fleet then learns.

So it's pretty interesting how it all works.

The robots, he says, also use a combination of onboard cameras and GPS sensor fusion to know where they're at so they can navigate the campus.

I've seen a couple of them get stuck.

But they seem to be able to know how to get themselves unstuck.

So it's pretty...

Pretty interesting to see.

Here, two bots meet on the sidewalk and though there is plenty of room for the two to pass each other, they freeze.

Now, I don't know if the robots are striking up some kind of a digital conversation or not, but it took them almost 2 minutes before they continued on their delivery routes.

Safety is the number number one priority.

So these two robots came and kind of had a head off to each other.

They were just taking our safety is the number one priority and trying to navigate each other to the best of their ability.

So it's not very common.

Probably if you go on campus today, you won't see that happening.

Its just at first, the robots were just learning the campus and maneuvering and learning, you know, the ways around campus as much as they can.

Starship Technologies got started in 2014.

In 2018, the company launched their first delivery service in the UK.

Since then, Starship has made more than 5 million autonomous deliveries around the world.

Who knows?

This could be a prelude to other autonomous deliveries, perhaps even to our homes doorsteps.

Don't be surprised if you see another another campus in Kansas having some robots do delivery.

The WSU Dining services manager says they are looking at adding more delivery options for campus customers to order right at their fingertips.

Just kind of something new and nice to have on campus.

Still getting used to it.

In the meantime, Bailey Miller says the autonomous delivery saves the time and energy of her having to walk to the student center to pick up food.

On the WSU campus, this is Chris Frank for Positively Kansas.

So far, there are no plans to send the robots off campus to other areas of the city.

Stay tuned.

You never know what's next.

In Europe, bicycling cross-country is more common than here.

So the man in this next story certainly stood out as he pedaled his way from coast to coast.

He's a British journalist investigating America, as Anthony Powell shows us.

When we caught up with Simon Parker in Burton, Kansas.

He was already a month into his journey across America.

After flying from his native England, Parker hopped on a bike in Cape Flattery, Washington, and began a 4500 mile, two month trek ending in Key West, Florida.

A journalist, Parker loves to combine his profession with his passion for travel.

In 2016, I probably went on my biggest ever adventure.

I sailed and cycled halfway around the world, sailed across the Pacific, cycled across America, sailed across the Atlantic, cycled through Europe.

That was for a BBC radio documentary.

This latest journey is for Parker's book entitled Fractured States.

It's based on interviews he's collecting from everyday Americans on hot button issues, including abortion, gun rights and really the overall state of America.

One young man told him apathy and ignorance among his peer group is a concerning issue.

Everybody my age 22 years to 18 and 22 years old.

What, What party is Joe Biden from?

They won't give you the answer.

They don't know the answer.

You ask what a Democrat is.

They don't know the answer to you.

Ask them what a Republican is.

They don't know the answer.

Parker wanted to write Fractured States because of the perception that America is so divided.

While he's found that Americans believe there are many problems facing the country, folks aren't as far apart on issues as it might appear.

What I'm trying to prove with this book is show that social media and rolling news channels have created this very polarized picture of not only American politics, but of the world we live in generally.

You're either on the right or on the left.

But I think the majority of people are actually somewhere in the middle, and they're desperate to have those nuanced conversations.

And that's what I'm trying to do with this book.

As for why he chose to bike, Parker believes the best journalism is spontaneous, at the side of the road, so to speak, something he was reminded of in Kansas.

A bike is that great conversation starter or it's an icebreaker.

Only this morning I was in McPherson and I probably, as I was, stood outside having a soda, just trying to hydrate.

I probably attracted about five or six people who were standing around me just asking me questions, who were just naturally, incredibly intrigued by this journey that I was going on.

Besides doing interviews, Parker documents his trip with YouTube videos, noting his appreciation for different parts of America, including the Midwest.

It's these breadbaskets, its these vast agricultural lands that feed so many hungry mouths.

He also got a taste of Midwest summer weather riding through Nebraska.

This whole area of the Midwest is currently under a severe tornado warning.

But while the weather and geography might be vastly different, depending on what state you're in, again, Simon Parker has found that Americans views really aren't as different as our social media and cable news dominated world leads us to think.

An algorithm is just feeding you more of the opinions that you believe in.

Real life isn't like that.

We're being led to believe that it's like that.

Real life, says Parker, should be about-- Healthy conversation because I think many of us have lost that ability to just have a conversation with people whose opinions we perhaps don't agree with.

And Parker tells us it's the conversations he's had while doing research for his book that has left him feeling uplifted.

He's hoping it will do the same for Americans when Fractured States comes out in Summer 2024.

We have a lot more that we agree with than which separates us apart.

That's the whole notion of this book.

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

Simon says he plans more trips to America for other types of projects.

After all, he says, our country's First Amendment makes it the best place in the world to get an honest picture of how citizens really feel about life in the States.

As uncommon as it is, you're more likely to see someone riding a bicycle across Kansas than riding a horse.

That's a total change from 150 years ago, when cowboys and gunslingers traveled the countryside, raising cane as they tamed the Wild West.

A popular stop in those days was Cimarron, Kansas, and a particular hotel that still stands today.

Jim Grawe has the story.

Out in western Kansas, the ghosts of the Wild West continue to intrigue those who live and visit the town of Cimarron.

Located 20 miles west of Dodge City, Cimarron was a popular hangout in the late 1800s for Ruffians and Cowboys.

When Wyatt Earp said, “It's time for you boys to get out of Dodge, ” it was one Horse Day's ride to the Cimarron Hotel where they could get sober, they could get cleaned up, they could fix their black eyes, and they could go back in a more sensible fashion.

This 32 room, three story hotel hosted such notorious and legendary figures as Gunfighter Luke Short.

Dodge City newspaper publisher Nicholas Klaine built it in 1886.

At the time it was called the New West Hotel, offering first class accommodations and cutting edge design.

Obviously, there were people who understood that Kansas could be as good as any place in the world, maybe even Paris.

The Cimarron Hotel is designed in a style of architecture called Second Empire.

Now, what makes second empire, Second Empire is the roof, and it is that steep pitched initial phase and then it slopes back.

So that's a two stage process with big dormers along it that basically turns attic space into livable, usable space with a high ceiling and windows and so forth.

But it's technically an attic.

It becomes in the 1860s and 70s a very popular, elegant style.

Perhaps not what people expected in a small, dusty, wild cowboy town like Cimarron, which literally went to war with the neighboring town of Ingalls to decide which would be the county seat.

I think about the fact of how much of our history we dismiss, and particularly this corner of Kansas.

We were the last 17 counties to incorporate in Kansas, so we lopped off the territory that became eastern Colorado when our counties formed.

And I think that much of that, particularly that Old West history people, tend to think, well, that was just fictional Hollywood 1950s Westerns history, but this was the real history.

Owner Kathleen Holt has faithfully kept the history of the Cimarron Hotel alive.

She has owned it since 1977.

So I didn't have a dream.

My ex-husband had the dream, so he bought the hotel actually one day over lunch.

And I came sort of kicking and screaming until I did the research to get the hotel listed on the National Register.

And when I realized how few remaining buildings there were of this historical period and sitting in here, I have to tell you, I fell in love with the building.

In addition to some name changes through the years.

Previous owners did some remodeling.

However, much of the hotel was still original when Holt took over, including the rug in the lobby, which has been here since 1886.

Cimarron Hotel.

The most magical place you could ever go into.

When you walk into that front door even before you walk in, you know it's special because here it is, way out in western Kansas.

It's a very big building.

In 1886, nothing was around it.

And then it has this Mansard roof.

Wow.

The first when I looked at that, I thought, it's the Louvre.

We had sophisticated people in Kansas and clear out west of Dodge.

You walk into that foyer.

When I walked into it, I was just hit smack in the face with how much humanity was there.

In every way you looked, it reminded you of a past, that to a certain extent, she has collected herself and put all those photos and those drawings, and she's made those rooms into both rooms that people could use today and rooms that people could have used a hundred years ago.

And I love the hallways, those long hallways and they creak, and they kind of wave.

And she is not going to change anything.

I guess I'm just crazy because I think of what it takes to live in and maintain a hotel.

People have said to me, When did you finish?

Oh, you never finish.

You never finish.

The wallpaper lasts a long time, but the buildings settles.

It's part of the climate of this country.

When you have big droughts, like we have the dirt packs unevenly.

One person described the hotel as the most wonderful place with not a straight line in the building to sit in the lobby in the winter when it's cold out and the radiators clinking a little bit, or even to walk down the halls with the creaky halls, which of course a two, three story building has creaks and things like that.

It just you just think how many creaks?

Over 140 years.

Creaks from the footsteps of a gunslinger or a marshal, a traveling salesman peddling patent medicine, or a dancehall queen spending the night before catching the next stagecoach.

Such characters are all long gone, but the Cimarron Hotel helps keep alive the history of their era, an era that came the Kansas countryside and the American West and still entertains us with bigger than life tales of drama and adventure.

The Cimarron Hotel is one of many buildings featured in the PBS Kansas series Historic Buildings of Kansas.

All three documentaries are available on DVD.

Give us a call here at the station to get your order in.

Now to the great outdoors and a little known but vicious little bug that flies through the Kansas countryside and attacks.

In this week's Kansas Wild Edge report, Mike Blair takes us into the amazing and menacing world of the Kansas Robber Fly.

A day at wildflowers makes a beautiful scene as a hot moth takes its meal.

This snowberry clearwing moves from flower to flower, sipping sweet nectar on the wing.

Its coloration suggestive of a bumblebee, helps protect it from some birds and animals that might avoid stinging insects as a menu item.

But not all predators are impressed.

Among them is the fierce and agile prairie robber fly.

This large insect is a patient hunter.

Scanning its surroundings from a convenient perch, it watches for visitors busy feeding.

With keen eyesight, excellent flight skills and long, powerful legs that can grasp and hold dangerous prey at arm's length while it waits to deliver a killing bite, the robber fly watches.

This common insect is easy to spot by its red color.

Cousin species may be smaller and darker-hued, but they all use the same tactics.

Wait near food and then dash out to catch unsuspecting prey.

Robber flies have long piercing beaks that deliver saliva to instantly disable their prey.

This saliva also liquefies the organs.

The beak acts as a giant hypodermic needle and is huge compared to its victims.

It would be like a traffic cone piercing a deer.

Then rubber flies suck the contents of their victims.

Finally, discarding the empty shells.

Lifecycles are poorly known for robber flies.

Courtship is rarely mentioned, but this sequence shows an interesting behavior.

The male flies in front of the female, hovering face to face, alternately raising and folding its front legs.

This entices the female, and mating occurs.

Eggs are laid in the soil and the larvae take one or more years to mature under ground or in rotting wood, feeding on small arthropods and decaying plant material.

Then they pupate and emerge in mid-summer feeding and mating to repeat the cycle.

Nothing of similar size is safe with these keen hunters.

Wasps, beetles, spiders, even their own kind, are on the menu.

Mostly victims are caught in flight and then taken to purchase where they are eaten.

Even the agile clearwing moth is no match for the rubber fly.

The moth feeds unsuspecting as it's watched.

Then the fly pounces, retiring to leafy cover to eat its meal.

So strong is this predator that it can hang by one leg as it manipulates and eats large prey.

Feeding may take an hour or more.

Robber Flies are easiest to approach at this time, being cautious and skittish under normal conditions.

They can bite painfully when handled, but not without dangers of their own, robber flies are easy prey for birds like scissortails and kingbirds.

But in the insect world, few creatures are as feared as this red assassin.

Robber flies.

Efficient hunters in the arms of nature's flowers.

I'm Mike Blair for Positively Kansas.

Next time, Mike features a kinder and gentler animal, a newborn white tailed deer.

You'll see its first day of life in the rugged Kansas outdoors.

It's a weekly dance party where senior citizens can kick up their heels, enjoy a live band and make friends and lose themselves in the music.

Anna Spencer takes us to a local rec center that magically transforms into a vibrant dance haven for our senior community.

The nostalgia is everywhere.

A dimly lit gymnasium, music blasting from a live band in the background, along with a surge of youthful exuberance.

No, it's not senior prom, but these seniors are no strangers to the dance floor.

Senior citizens from across the Wichita area flock to Orchard Park Recreation Center every Friday night for one of three weekly Golden age dances held around the city.

The events have been around for decades, drawing in crowds ages 50 and up.

Reluctant at first, the event organizers say they were sold almost immediately.

We thought, well, they're not going to give up, so we may as well just go once.

We're not going to like it.

And we don't want to hurt them.

We don't want to hurt their feelings.

So we'll just go and then if we like it well go again.

We like it, fine.

If we don't, we don't have to go back.

But I didn't think we'd like it, though.

We knew neither one Thought we'd like it.

But we came and we just-- hook, line and sinker the very first night we were here.

The Furnishes have been attending for ten years now.

Like their fellow participants, they say the weekly dances are a treasured pastime.

One where friendships are made and community is forged.

The pair have been married for 42 years and they quickly discovered the importance of community events like this, which they credit with helping Larry's recovery following two strokes.

At first we thought, well, we can just-- we can't dance, but we can go enjoy the people and we can just enjoy the music.

So that's how we started back.

And then after he said to the therapist, You know, that we'd like to try to dance, then we did, and we could, and now we can dance to slower waltzes, not the real fast waltzes, but the slower waltzes.

And two steps.

The dances at Orchard Park are structured more like a club with lots of dancing, followed by an intermission for drinks, snacks and group announcements before heading back out to the gymnasium.

The dancers take a break to catch up with one another and to fill out cards for those who are sick or away from the group that night.

Then it's back to the dance floor to kick up their heels again with line dancing, polkas and country western swing.

The Furnishes say it's this kind of family fellowship that can ward off loneliness and isolation.

They credit the weekly dances with getting fellow golden agers like themselves up and active, too.

But that's part of the reason these people are 85 or 95 is because they're there getting together with other people when they get to have community.

They get exercise.

They get lots of mental stimulation.

And people that care about them.

Yeah.

That's a big-- it's a big deal.

All that.

The group averages around 100 people each week and they're looking to add to their numbers following a dip in attendance post-pandemic.

The dance features different live bands each week.

They hope other seniors looking for friendship, encouragement and physical activity will grab their dancing shoes and join in on the fun.

In Wichita, I'm Anna Spencer, for Positively Kansas.

Dances are held at the Minisa community facility on Thursdays, Orchard Park on Fridays and the Linwood Recreation Center on Saturdays.

Well, that's a wrap for this week.

I'm Sierra Scott.

Thanks for watching.

We'll see you again soon.