Author Archives: Editor

Remembering Peggy of the Flint Hills

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Topeka Capital-Journal

June 16, 2000

Zula Bennington Greene never was sure where her given name originated. She would say her best guess was that her mother read a novel that had a character named Zula in it and gave it to her. That was in 1895 when she was born on a farm in Missouri.

Her first name never really mattered, because she became famous all over Kansas and beyond for the “Peggy of the Flint Hills” columns she wrote for the Topeka Daily Capital and The Topeka Capital-Journal. She wrote her first one in 1933 and continued them until her death 12 years ago this week at the age of 93.

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ABC College Football Highlights and NCAA Films

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National Collegiate Athletic Association News

Nov. 1, 1976

Teamwork produces success in athletic competition more perhaps than any other single ingredient, and, likewise, it is this same essence which contributes most to the production of the weekly NCAA College Football Highlights Show.

Just as no superior football team ever won a championship solely on the talent of one superstar, the College Football Highlights Show never could exist without the network of people who form a “team” for the NCAA Film Service, which produces it for ABC Sports. Highlights of each action-packed week of NCAA College Football arc captured by NCAA Films, and within hours, the excitement and drama arc reproduced for the viewing public’s enjoyment over 78 percent of the stations on the ABC television network.

Perhaps never contemplated by the Sunday morning armchair quarterback, who settles back into his easy-chair to review the clashes staged on the nation’s college football battlefields virtually hours before, is the hectic story of one of the most unique film presentations aired on television today. Continue reading →

After a morning in Eskridge, you hate to go home

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Dick Snider
Aug. 27, 1999

I was given the opportunity to volunteer for one of The Topeka Capital-Journal’s weekly small-town, coffee-and-doughnut parties this week, so I did it. Actually, it was volunteer or else, and that’s why Wednesday morning found me in the Eskridge Cafe, doing decaf and doughnuts, plus one butter-soaked cinnamon roll.

It is possible I did the newspaper as much harm as I did my cholesterol count, but I must say I met some nice folks and got caught up on what’s happening in Eskridge, which is quite a lot. Continue reading →

When Radio Ruled

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Dick Snider
Topeka Capital-Journal

Radio ruled the airwaves for 30 years, just as television has reigned for the last 50, but if you weren’t there at the time it may be difficult for you to imagine a family gathered around a talking box, listening to “One Man’s Family,” Fred Allen, Jack Benny or some other top show. If you were there, you remember this Benny classic:

Holdup man: “Your money or your life?”

Benny: (Silence).

Holdup man: “I said, your money or your life?”

Benny: “I’m thinking it over.” Continue reading →

Grandpa was a Kansan

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Dick Snider

One of my brothers, Alfred Courtney Snider of Dallas, became interested in the life and times of our grandfather, Alfred Snider, and particularly in his Civil War record.  He asked the National Archives for help, and what he has turned up so far gives me a Kansas background I never realized I had.

After reading the material, it is obvious I should have run for state office, citing my deep Kansas roots. My ancestors were Jayhawkers long before they were Okies. Continue reading →

Now the Wilkinson Task is to Develop All-America’s Fitness

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Oklahoma Today, Fall 1961

At Oklahoma, Charles B. (Bud) Wilkinson has produced many great athletes. Now, he has taken on an added task that is far more awesome in both responsibility and opportunity. He has been assigned by the President to produce a nation of physically-fit Americans.

It may surprise some to learn the two jobs have little if any, relation to each other. The answer to the physical fitness problem is not more football players. The pressing need is a program that will raise the millions of physically-deficient Americans up to minimum acceptable physical standards.

It is a tribute to Wilkinson, and to the coaching profession, that he was chosen March 23 a Special Consultant to the President on Youth Fitness. His appointment came after several conferences with President Kennedy. Although he is admittedly no expert in the field of physical education, Wilkinson outlined what he thought had to be done. The President told him to get it done. Continue reading →

Kansas Connection on D-Day

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Topeka Capital-Journal
June 4, 1999

This morning I wanted to write a D-Day column about the late Sherman Oyler, a paratrooper from Topeka who jumped into Normandy and helped get the Allied invasion of Europe started. He did it just a few hours after he had a memorable, and embarrassing, meeting with General Dwight D. Eisenhower, another Kansan and the man running the whole show.

My trouble was, the story I wanted to tell came to me from the book “D-Day” by Stephen E. Ambrose, and I couldn’t get permission from the publisher to use it. Not that I didn’t try. Continue reading →

Black History Month perspective

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Topeka Capital-Journal

This being black history month, what follows is some black history from a personal viewpoint:

In Oakwood, Okla., where I was born, and in Veteran, Wyo., where I lived for a time as a very young lad, there were no blacks.  But, in Veteran, we learned something about mixing and getting along.  At sugar beet harvest time, many Mexican families came north to work.  They were called “beet toppers” and they brought along young kids my brothers and I played with as both sides overcame the language barrier.

In Britton, Okla., where I did most of my growing up, I remember hearing black people talked about, and always referred to with the “n” word by young and old alike.

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Welcome

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When friends or colleagues read or hear something about my father, the newspaperman Dick Snider, they ask to read a couple of his columns, ask about my favorites. It’s no clamor, but I decided to post a few of my favorites and some other writing by and about him. It’s partly because I’m asked, partly because I miss him and partly because the best are still so readable. Almost everything here was published first in the Topeka Capital-Journal and the exceptions are noted. Enjoy. Thanks for stopping by.

Steve Snider

Growing Up in Britton, Okla.

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Postcard from Britton

Topeka Capital-Journal

In these times of economic turmoil, stock market calamities and energy crises, I enjoy calling a time-out to remember the simple life in Britton, Okla., where I grew up. Sometimes I think the only person in Britton who ever worried was my mother, who always was worrying about something.

Maybe she had a right to worry.  We moved to Britton in the late 1920s when my dad bought a drug store there. His timing wasn’t exactly ideal. Before he could get established in the town of about 2,000, there was the “Crash of ’29,” when the market collapsed, followed by the Great Depression.

Britton survived both. There were some unemployed men in town, but pretty soon President Roosevelt’s WPA “made work” programs came along, and everyone who wanted to work could, and had a little money to spend. Continue reading →