Kansas

1. This is the state’s flag here. Kansas This here is the state’s shape. By : Dalton Dickson

2. State Motto and Nickname • The state of Kansas’ motto is “To the stars through difficulty ” and the nicknames are“The Sunflower State” and “The Jayhawk State.”

3. State Governor ,Mark Parkinson Mark Parkinson became Kansas’ 45th Governor. A successful businessman and former Governor on April 28, 2009.Legislator, Governor Parkinson is a native Kansan and was born in Scott City, where the Parkinsons still own the family farm. Born in Wichita, Governor Parkinson attended Wichita Public Schools and graduated from Wichita Heights High School before going on to graduate from Wichita State University in 1980. He graduated first in his class from the University of Kansas School of Law in 1984. Governor Parkinson was elected to the Kansas House of Representatives in 1990. Two years later, he was elected to the Kansas Senate. While in the Legislature, Governor Parkinson was known as someone who bridged party lines. He worked to strengthen Kansas schools and enhance local control. In 1996, Governor Parkinson’s career path focused on a new passion: helping enhance older Kansans’ quality of life through first-class elder-care retirement facilities. One of his assisted living facilities received national recognition for its design and his company was named as an outstanding business in Northeast Johnson County. Governor Parkinson served as chairman of the Shawnee Area Chamber of Commerce board in 2004, and in 2005 was the “Chair of the Chairs” of the nine Chambers of Commerce in Johnson County. In 2006, he joined Governor Kathleen Sebelius as her Lt. Governor. Under Governor Parkinson’s leadership, Kansas has a balanced budget which protects our schools and our communities; our state’s economy is continuing on the road to recovery; Kansas now has a comprehensive energy policy and a new ten-year transportation plan to maintain their strong infrastructure.

4. State Capital • The capital city of Kansas is the city of Topeka. Most people think it would be Kansas City, but really Kansas City is located on the border of Missouri.

5. State Landmarks • He Killed Lincoln's Killer, Then Lived In A Hole • Concordia, Kansas • Boston Corbett was a wacko. He was also a soldier, and was assigned to the Federal Army unit that was ordered to track down (but not kill) John Wilkes Booth, who had just assassinated President Lincoln. Booth was soon cornered in a barn. Corbett shot (and killed) him through a crack in the barn wall. Corbett alternately claimed that Booth had made threatening moves, or that he was acting on personal orders from God. • Boston Corbett had a history of unorthodox actions. He wore his hair long in imitation of Jesus, changed his name from Thomas to "Boston" because he once lived in Boston, and castrated himself with a pair of scissors to avoid temptation from prostitutes. • He moved to this spot on the Kansas prairie in 1878 and lived in a hole that he had dug into the ground. Apologists call this a "dugout" -- as does his memorial here -- but it was just a hole in the ground. Corbett was still a good shot, and was known for his ability to kill birds on the fly and for threatening the locals with his gun when he felt that they were disobeying God's will. • Corbett was later thrown into an insane asylum in Topeka, escaped, and disappeared. Some say that he died in the great fire of Neodesha, Wisconsin, in 1894, but no one knows for sure. • Boston Corbett's monument was built by Boy Scout Troop 31 of Concordia in 1958, which was roughly the centennial of Corbett's rendezvous with the scissors. The monument once had two six-shooters mortared into it, but they have been stolen. Sixty yards away, a small wood sign marks the spot where Corbett's hole used to be.

6. State Landmarks • In the 19th century Americans wanted more land, and settlement moved west. As white settlers satisfied a thirst for land, countless American Indians faced the end of a traditional way of life. Shawnee Mission was one of many established as a manual training school attended by boys and girls (like Sallie Bluejacket, pictured at left) from Shawnee, Delaware, and other Indian nations from 1839 to 1862. Visit this 12-acre National Historic Landmark and learn the stories of those who lived there. • Shawnee Indian Mission received a 2010 Johnson County Heritage Trust Fund grant.

7. Kansas Underground Salt Museum • Hutchinson, Kansas 4 • If ever there was a mine tour designed for Mr. and Mrs. Armchair American, this is it. The Kansas Underground Salt Museum doesn't even have the word "mine" in its title, and that's no accident. There are no claustrophobic squeezes here, no deadly gasses, not even any dirt. A tour here is like a drive inside a parking garage -- except that it's 67 miles long and sealed inside of a 400-foot-thick block of salt. • We understand why. The elevator ride down is a pitch-black descent, clanging, banging, and rattling inside a bare metal box that sounds as if it's being whacked with a sledgehammer. Anyone who's been silently whisked below the surface in a place like Carlsbad Caverns will get the heebie-jeebies here. The guide is sympathetic, but says that this is the best that the Museum could manage, given that it had to drill through 222 feet of rock, 128 feet of aquifer (which first had to be frozen), and another 300 feet of salt, which is so hard that you can't even drive a nail into it. • Once in the mine, however, everything is spacious, comfortable, and very quiet. • The tunnels go on for miles, and you could supposedly burrow all the way into New Mexico and never run out of salt. The Museum has developed only 100,000 square feet of this, but it's still big enough to get lost in. Fences around the underground periphery ensure that visitors can't wander off and disappear forever. "Once you get out of this museum area," Linda tells us, "it all looks alike." • The mine is one, endless room, with a floor and ceiling as flat as a Kansas prairie, broken into identical squares by columns of un-mined salt that support the roof. A map of the mine resembles the precise street grid of midtown Manhattan. There are no twisty tunnels or deadly floor shafts. You could drive a truck down here for miles and never hit anything. • Visitors get most of their tour on an electric-powered tram. The museum calls it "The Dark Ride." Our overactive brains imagined it careening around unseen pillars and down endless corridors in total darkness, ending in a squeaking stop as the guide announces that everyone had to find their own way back. Instead, it's a gentle, headlight-lit excursion that makes frequent stops at exhibits that illuminate as you approach. • One reason that the pace is so placid is that pulverized salt is sharp. "If you fall on it, it can really cut you up," Linda cautions, which is why there are no BMX bike races down here. (The museum did briefly consider staging one.) • The tour winds its way past a wall made of old dynamite cases (empty) and a sinkhole that formed when water got into the mine (The mine would melt if it ever got wet). A life-size photo of a miner next to a giant ruler shows the constricting effect of Floor Heave and Ceiling Sag. Linda tells us that "salt is very plastic" and that "it's like Playdoh," but assures us these processes are too slow to swallow us alive. • Another exhibit is a stripped-down, post-Apocalyptic Road Warrior-type car that's typical of what the miners still drive down here. It's over 70 years old. Linda said that the salt preserved it, but at a price. "Everything that comes down here, stays down here," she said. "You can never take it back up. If you did (she snaps her finger) it would instantly corrode." Fortunately, tourists and their cameras are exposed too briefly to disintegrate when they exit. • The nearest working face of the mine is several miles from the museum, and blasting is restricted until late at night. Overall, the Kansas Underground Salt Museum seems like a perfectly happy habitat for the new millennium, even with its Elevator of Terror. We asked Linda, with all of the missile silos in Kansas, if the town had ever considered using the mine as a municipal nuclear bomb shelter.

8. State Song • Original" text by Dr. Brewster Higley (1876) Oh, give me a home where the Buffalo roam Where the Deer and the Antelope play; Where never is heard a discouraging word, And the sky is not clouded all day. • CHORUS A home! A home! Where the Deer and the Antelope play, Where seldom is heard a discouraging word, And the sky is not clouded all day. • Oh! give me a land where the bright diamond sand Throws its light from the glittering streams, Where glideth along the graceful white swan, Like the maid in her heavenly dreams. • Oh! give me a gale of the Solomon vale, Where the life streams with buoyancy flow; On the banks of the Beaver, where seldom if ever, Any poisonous herbage doth grow. • How often at night, when the heavens were bright, With the light of the twinkling stars Have I stood here amazed, and asked as I gazed, If their glory exceed that of ours. • I love the wild flowers in this bright land of ours, I love the wild curlew's shrill scream; The bluffs and white rocks, and antelope flocks That graze on the mountains so green. • The air is so pure and the breezes so fine, The zephyrs so balmy and light, That I would not exchange my home here to range Forever in azures so bright.

9. License Plate

10. Major Industries or Exports • The major industries or exports of Kansas are agriculture ,airport manufacturing, and automobile manufacturing.

11. Major Universities and Logos