Tonight, scores of people who went on bus trips with Iolans Bill and Marjorie Mentzer will gather at Community National Bank to bid them farewell as occasional hosts.
They’ll have plenty to talk about and Marjorie, to no one’s surprise, will have a treat for each. For several days she has pored over photographs taken during the trips and will give out duplicates as remembrances.
For the past 10 years the Mentzers have organized 87 dinner theater trips and journeys to Branson and elsewhere. They worked out the details so thoroughly that passengers’ first step onto the bus was into a worry-free world.
Having Don Wilmoth, former USD 257 administrator, in the driver’s seat also has been a smoothing influence.
“Don likes to drive buses and he’s always gotten us where we needed to go,” said Bill Mentzer, 79.
Wilmoth and wife Kathy will host trips to Branson in September and December.
“We’re trying to get them to continue beyond that,” Bill said of his good friends, who were out of town this week and couldn’t speak for themselves.
“WHEN WE started in 2000 we thought we’d do it for just awhile,” said Marjorie Mentzer, 78.
The project was such a good fit for the giving couple that they kept at it.
Some years the Menzers would sponsor monthly cruises. More recently “mystery trips” have been a popular feature for the mainly senior citizen clientele.
“On those trips we’d take out with no one other than Marjorie and I knowing where we were going,” Bill said.
“On a recent one, we went south of Iola to Ken Groves’ home to see his model train collection. Everyone liked that.”
Afterward, the bus went on to Kansas City for a dinner theater presentation.
On the last trip, July 21, the mystery destination was Kansas City’s Municipal Airport Museum, followed by “The Buddy Holly Story” at a dinner theater.
That last foray showed how accommodating the Mentzers have been in their planning and execution.
“We had a full bus (56 passengers) when we got a call from six women in Humboldt who have gone with us for years,” Bill said.
The women, understanding the situation, said they could stay home. Bill wouldn’t have it.
“They’ve been faithful and we wanted them along,” he said.
Two cancellations occurred which freed up two seats on the bus. For the others, Bill called on son Craig, who farms northwest of town. Cut from the same cloth as his father, Craig drove the women.
TIMES HAVE changed in the 10 years the Mentzers have sponsored the bus trips.
At the start they had a contract with Goodwill Tours in Erie for buses that accommodated 40 people. That wasn’t long before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, which put the travel agency on hard times.
“They had two busloads of people scheduled for a trip to New York City, which was canceled by 9/11,” Bill said.
The company never fully recovered from that financial hit, as well as the ensuing reluctance of people to travel. By 2004, the Mentzers were looking for new transportation. They found it through Crossroads, a tour company in Olathe that provided 56-passenger buses.
All along the trips have been about 200 miles or less and only those to Branson involved overnight stays. At the start, a typical cost for a dinner theater trip to Kansas City, including a shopping stop at Oak Park Mall afterward, was $41. Today the cost is $60.
Hometown boosters that they are, Marjorie allowed the mall stops were made only because “there are some things ladies can’t find in Iola.”
Some trips haven’t been as smooth as cream, but no serious problems have surfaced.
Once, prompted by several passengers’ needs to get home because of prescription medicine requirements, Wilmoth plowed through deep snow, arriving in Iola from Kansas City at 1:30 in the morning.
“When people went to get in their cars, many couldn’t because their doors had frozen shut from freezing rain that came before the snow,” Bill said. “We were up until 4:30 that morning making sure everyone got home.”
IS RETIREMENT finally in the Mentzers’ future?
“Until he finds something else to do,” said Marjorie.
“I want to go see some Army buddies and we have 14 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren,” Bill said. He served in the Korean War.
The Mentzers also plan more visits with friends in nursing homes, spending time “helping people who need help” and they will greet people from Sam Brownback’s booth at the Kansas State Fair in September.
“We’ve known Sam’s parents for years and he and Craig were in the same fraternity at Kansas State,” Bill said.
Brownback, one of Kansas’ two U.S. senators, is seeking the Republican gubernatorial nomination.
Service beyond self and family is nothing new for the Mentzers.
They farmed in the Neosho Falls area early in their married life and he was in banking for 18 years. When efforts were made to turn the old Allen County farm into a boys’ home, Marjorie was on its board of directors. It eventually was absorbed by Youthville in Newton.
One day after that occurred Lanny Lind, a former Iolan and director of Youthville, called the Mentzers to see if they’d be interested in helping out at the Newton facility.
“I’ve always loved working with kids,” Marjorie said.
“I asked when they needed us,” Bill added.
Lind’s reply: “How about tomorrow?”
They didn’t answer the call quite that quickly, but the Mentzers did spend three years at the Newton facility.
