the active age

Downtown Wichita will host its annual Fall Clean-Up tomorrow, Friday, Oct. 9. Individuals, businesses, clubs, and community organizations will work on projects including litter pickup, landscaping and planting, and painting in Gallery Alley. The event takes place from 9 a.m. to noon. Volunteers should check in at Downtown Wichita offices, 501 E. Douglas Ave., before heading out to their assigned projects.

Outside of Miami, Tampa is probably Florida’s most Cuba-centric city, especially when it comes to dining. We enjoyed Cuban espresso, Cuban sandwiches and especially Cuban pizza on a recent trip there. The latter is easy to make with a few store-bought ingredients. Cuban Jamon (Ham) Pizza 1 bag (1 lb.

Kathryn Page Hauptman thought she might have staged her last show for The Forum Theatre when the company’s lease for space in a local church expired last year. The Forum went dark, in theater lingo, and Page Hauptman doubted she could find a suitable replacement space. But this drama has a happy ending. The Forum organization has acquired a space that will allow it to do bigger productions and hopefully create a second revenue stream by renting a spacious lobby for events.

Concluded five years before Wichita was founded, the American Civil War nevertheless influenced our city in ways still evident today. Several thousand Union veterans of the Civil War made their homes in and around Wichita after the war, part of an influx that earned Kansas the nickname of “The Soldier State.” They wasted little time once they reached here, jumping into the building of what eventually became Kansas’ biggest city.

If you’re like a lot of people, you think the best part of exercising is when you’re finished. An hour of exercising can seem like two. But not if you’re in a water aerobics class led by Asa Langenberg. At the East YMCA, he is the instructor and entertainer. Yes, he even tap dances from time to time. For our first class after Dolly Parton passed away, all the music he played was by Dolly, and he wore a big blond wig, a pink outfit and pink cowboy boots.

The Wichita Wurlitzer turns 100 years old this year. I’ve felt a connection to it since its arrival here in 1968, during my senior year of high school. I already played piano, clarinet and saxophone, and I aspired to play the Wurlitzer, which could mimic the sound of an entire orchestra. That year, an arsonist completely destroyed the organ’s keyboard console, setting fire to it in Century II while that building was still under construction.

How does a physician and surgeon from India end up practicing in a small town like Hill City, Kansas? One patient at a time. That’s the story for Dr. P.J. Reddy, who practiced in that Kansas town for 41 years before retiring to Wichita in 2014. Born in Andhra Pradesh, India, in 1942, Reddy was the son of a doctor of Ayurvedic medicine (a traditional, holistic healing system from India that uses herbs, diet and lifestyle changes to balance the mind and body).

PITTSBURG — Looking up at a machine that stands 160 feet tall and weighs 9.3 million pounds, one realizes that calling it Big Brutus is inadequate. And that’s why people still drive to the southeast corner of Kansas, in what was once King Coal Country, to see the gigantic powered shovel. It’s the centerpiece of the Big Brutus Museum in West Mineral, about 20 miles southwest of Pittsburg. Big Brutus didn’t actually mine coal.

Most of our mothers probably taught us the value of sending thank you notes and remembering people’s birthdays with cards, but as with most lessons, some children took to that advice a little better than others. There’s probably no one who outdoes Sharon West, who sends at least 750 cards a year, each with a comic strip — or two or three or four — that matches the personality or interests of the cards’ recipients. “They don’t know I’ve saved them maybe for three years,” West said of the comics.

Wichita State University enrolled the largest freshman class in its 131-year history for fall 2026 but saw graduate enrollment fall dramatically due to fewer international students attending. Overall, WSU’s main campus enrollment dropped by 444 students, or 2.5 percent. Additionally, overall student credit-hour production fell 1.5 percent from 170,521 to 167,899. “This year’s enrollment reflects both the opportunities and challenges facing higher education,” said Wichita State President Rick Muma.