On Not Becoming a Gas Magnate

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Editor

Dick Snider
May 2001

We were rolling along on a Texas highway, when Wendy Herman of Wichita, at the wheel, suddenly shouted, “Wyatt.” I had to think only a few seconds before I realized what brought on this outburst. “You’re right,” I said. “It’s Wyatt — Oscar Wyatt.”

The day before, we had been pursuing our favorite subject, the gasoline marketing business and the people in it we knew. We were trying to think of the name of the creator of the Coastal Corp., and we couldn’t get past “Oscar.”

Herman obviously had been churning the question long after I had given up on it, and when he remembered he gave me a smug look that said he still had all his marbles, and I obviously didn’t. Continue reading →

Kansas Transplants and Native Sons

Posted on May 28, 2012 by Editor

Dick Snider
Jan. 29, 1999

Kansas Native Sons and Daughters are getting together again this weekend, and it reminds me that I have a lot in common with the man generally considered to be greatest Kansan of all.

For one thing, both Dwight D. Eisenhower and I were in uniform during World War II, and for another, neither of us is a native son of Kansas. I was born in western Oklahoma; he was born in Baja Oklahoma. Also, he probably would share my feelings that it’s no big deal to belong to a club when everyone in it qualified by accident.

I came close to being a native son of Kansas. My dad was born in the state, in Miltonvale, and my mother in Nebraska. If they had met sooner, before both of them drifted into Oklahoma, it is likely I would have been a Jayhawker, rather than an Okie. I’m not sure how I should feel about the way things turned out. Continue reading →

Remembering Peggy of the Flint Hills

Posted on May 28, 2012 by Editor

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.

Continue reading →

ABC College Football Highlights and NCAA Films

Posted on May 28, 2012 by Editor

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

Posted on May 21, 2012 by Editor

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

Posted on May 13, 2012 by Editor

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

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Editor

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

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Editor

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

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Editor

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

Posted on April 29, 2012 by Editor

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.

Continue reading →