Iola joins in state birthday activities

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January 6, 2011 - 12:00 AM

Kansas will celebrate its 150th birthday Jan. 29, and we’ll have a week-long party in Iola to celebrate.
A series of state sesquicentennial events starts Sunday, Jan. 23, and will culminate with what Jeff Kluever, Allen County Historical Society director, is billing as the “150th Birthday Party for Kansas” at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 29.
The end-of-celebration-week party will feature two new exhibits at ACHS’s museum in downtown Iola.
Also, that day prizes will be awarded to those who have special cards punched at two or more of the week-long events. Prizes haven’t been decided, but will be soon, Kluever said earlier this week at a meeting attended by Leah Oswald and Becky Nilges, representatives of Iola Public Library, and Susan Raines, executive director of the Bowlus Fine Arts Center.
The sesquicentennial exhibits, arranged by Donna Houser, will feature photographs, artifacts and information about early Allen County residents.
In addition to the punch cards, 50 sets of 20 trading cards having to do with early Allen County history will be given away to youngsters attending the events. The cards will have pictures on one side and information on the other.

THE INITIAL event will be an exhibit in the Bowlus’ Mary L. Martin Gallery, “Fabrication: Textile Art,” by artist Ada Niedenthal of Olathe.
The show will continue through March 9 and have a variety of fabric art, much of which Niedenthal created from plain white cloth that she dyed before cutting and arranging in patterns.
Niedenthal’s show will open at 2 p.m., Jan. 23. Admission throughout its run and for all other events will be free.
Jan. 25, starting at 7 p.m. in the Creitz Recital Hall at the Bowlus Center, Iolan Max Snodgrass, who years ago took on the mission of photographing Iola’s business houses and other structures, will give “A View of Iola: 1925 to 1990.”
Aug. 26, again starting at 7 p.m., Kluever will delve into “History’s Mysteries” at ACHS’s quarterly meeting at the Funston Meeting Hall, 207 N. Jefferson Ave.
Aug. 26, Oswald, the children’s librarian, will lead a special storytime starting at 3 p.m. in the library. “Kansas — One State, Many Stories” will be the theme.
Jan. 27, adults — kids, too, if they like — are invited to the library for five special book discussions starting at 7 p.m.
Topics and leaders are: “James Naismith,” Ray Houser; “Amelia Earhart,” Charlene Levans; “The Wizard of Oz,” Susan Lynn; “Charlatan,” Roger Carswell; and “Desert Gold: The Legend of Chinook,” Donna Regehr, who also is the book’s author.
Jan. 28, starting at 7 p.m. at the Dale P. Creitz Recital Hall in the Bowlus Center, the Lyric Arts Trio will present “Ad Astra Kansas 150.”
Local recognition of Kansas’ 150th birthday will be capped off with a party at the Allen County Historical Society museum and drawings for punch card prizes on Jan. 29, the day in 1860 when Kansas became the nation’s 34th state.

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