Historic Beecher Bible and Rifle Church in Wabaunsee

Beecher Bible and Rifle Church emphasizes storied past

By Paula Glover

WABAUNSEE - The Beecher Bible and Rifle Church has a distinguished past, and church members hope that by preserving the past, the future of the church might also be ensured.
Beecher Bible and Rifle was one of the first Congregational churches to be integrated back in the 1950s, and Ada and Don Whitten remember clearly when they moved to Wabaunsee, Ethel Morgan, a well known African-American woman in the area, invited them to church. That was in 1971, and the couple has continued to play an active role in the church ever since.
Don Whitten has a keen interest in the history of the church, which has become non-denominational, served by Rev. Lynn Roth, a retired school teacher.
Roth said he has found no indication that the common understanding of the church’s name as indicating that rifles were shipped west in containers marked as Bibles is true. But the real story is as interesting.
The origins of the church go back to 1854 when the question arose if Kansas would be a free or slave state. Two years later, there were 60 people living in the Wabaunsee area, and it was there that a group of 60 or more men from New Haven, Conn. moved to help Kansas become a free state, sacrificing their comfortable lives for their ideals.
Before the group left, Henry Ward Beecher, then a well-known minister from Brooklyn, N.Y. pledged that his congregation would give money for 25 rifles, if the audience would give money for another 25. Along with the donation, came a gift of 25 Bibles from a parishioner.
Visitors to Wabaunsee can still see the efforts of the organized settlers, in the well-laid out streets. Soon, families joined the men, and of the 28 charter members of the church, nine were women. The church was dedicated in 1862.
Although the church struggled through difficult times beginning in 1927, with the last official entry in the record book, the memory was kept alive with the “Old Settlers Association” in 1932, and the church was renovated in 1948. By 1950, residents formed a new church group, and services resumed. The church was renovated with a modern heating system, new pews and a tile floor. In 1992 the George Thompson Christian Center was built, providing rest rooms and facilities for Sunday School, and other activities.
Today, between 14 and 28 people routinely come to services.
In January, Tina McIntyre and her daughter, Elizabeth, age 10, decided to return to the church where Tina was raised and where she was married 14 years ago.
“When I was a child, we came here, and we came to be part of the community,” McIntyre said on Sept 13. “This church has so much history.”
Ray Songs agreed, and said that “I grew up here and we live close. It is important for us to be here as part of the community.” He has no interest in any “virtual” community on the internet.
Building a sense of community – face to face – an important element in keeping the church alive, said Ada and Don Whitten.
“For families that stay here, it takes involvement in the church community,” Don Whitten said. To that end, the church sponsors a vacation Bible school, “which gets several children from the community” if it isn’t the same week as other churches in the area, Whitten noted. Every month, the church sponsors potluck dinners with no program, just offering a chance for neighbors to come and visit. And the women of the congregation get together with women from other area churches for a monthly program. There’s a Christmas party as well, and historic programs generally draw a full house.
“We want to keep it open for people who want to come here,” Whitten said.
Despite its small size, the congregation helps support a missionary in Japan.
To help with the weekly Sunday services, there is a guest preacher on the second Sunday of each month. On Sept. 13, it was Jason Brent, a graduate of nearby Manhattan Christian College and an associate pastor at a church in Topeka.
“I believe God has a purpose for everyone,” he said, “just because the church is small, doesn’t mean there’s no purpose. The strength is in being connected to a community. I feel when I come here the people are united by their faith.”
Mark Alderman, who teaches Bible at Manhattan Christian College, generally presides on the second Sunday.
“People are proud of the history of the church,” he said. “There is a message in the history of the church, how a handful of pioneers came to make sure Kansas is a free state. That is part of the heritage of the church. They are good people, concerned about their faith,” he added.
“It is a fairly small church and fairly older and people are concerned about the next generation. But it seems like God will always send someone along.” Alderman attributed the smaller size of the congregation, in part, to just that there aren’t a many people in the nearby community.
The aging congregation is a concern, however, said Roth.
He, himself, is age 81, having conducted services in the church for more than 30 years and taught in the Wamego school district from 1973 to 1994.
“Our biggest problem is we’re old,” he said frankly. “We need young people.”
He said in the last year, younger families have joined, but noted that “the historical nature of the church has kept us going.”

This is the article that ran in the Manhattan Mercury today.

John Ebert guides his lawnmower driven, hand-made barrel train for children in front of the historic St. Joseph Church in Flush during the fundraiser to build an elevator, held Sept. 19. The church hosted a silent and live auction, games for children, beer garden and hog roast.

Aaron Jilka, age 8, does his best at the balloon toss, one of the games held for children during the elevator project fundraiser at St. Joseph Church in Flush. The prize for breaking a water balloon in the center of the target was a chance to blow an air horn.

Auctioneer Joe Wilson, directs the attention of the crowd estimated at more than 300 to a drill, held by fellow auctioneer Ron Walsh during the live auction at St. Joseph Church in Flush. The fundraiser netted around $17,000 for the parish's "Lifting All Up
To Share His Cup" project to build an elevator for the church.

Ron Ebert and his wife, Ruth, enjoy the action during the live auction. There were more than 250 items donated for the silent and life auction during the fundraiser.

Carol Lynn Eichman, center, enjoys the live auction with her friends, Glenna Lake, left, and Ellen Wilson, right. Wilson, the wife of the auctioneer, was bidding on an item made by Eichman.

Published in The Leaven, newspaper for the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas

Lifting All Up theme of elevator project at St. Joseph Church, Flush

By Paula Glover
Every Sunday at the small parish of St. Joseph in Flush, older parishioners struggle up the limestone steps leading steeply up to the front doors of the historic church.
“My husband and I both need an elevator,” said Jerry Ebert. “One day, he almost fell over on the steps. We don’t want to fall.”
Ebert made her comments at a fundraiser for that very elevator, held at the rural parish east of Manhattan and west of Wamego. Her son, Dan Ebert, echoed his parents sentiments, “my mom and dad both need it.”
The hog roast, silent and live auction, and beer garden held Sept. 19 raised nearly $17,000, said organizer Dale Magnett. The donation of the hogs and much of the food, made the event even more of a success.
“It was well worth the effort,” Magnett said, even though volunteers cleaned the parish hall until after midnight that night and still attended Mass the following morning. “Everyone had a great time, and it made people more aware of the project.”
More than 325 meals were served. There were 250 donations for the silent and live auction from parishioners and from the surrounding communities. A raffle for a car donated by a local car dealer brought around 600 tickets. A hand-made quilt was also raffled off with far more than 600 tickets sold. Organizers have held other fundraisers, including a garage sale, dinner theater and a softball tournament.
The notion of building an elevator has been discussed in the parish for several years. But beginning early in 2009, a new push was begun to raise the necessary $275,000. The current project includes an elevator with three stops and remodeling bathrooms to accommodate the handicapped. Raising the funds will be no small feat for the registered 128 families.
To date, around 60 percent of the families have pledged to the project, but so have 10 families that used to be parishioners, along with 14 families that are not parishioners, and around $125,000 was pledged prior to the hog roast fundraiser.
The parish is steadily making progress toward the meeting the archdiocesan rule that all the money has to be pledged, with half collected prior to the start of the work.
Deb Jilka, whose son, Brian, is a seminarian at Conception Seminary, said it is important to support the project not only for parishioners, but for people attending weddings or funerals who need to get into the parish.
Father John Pilcher, pastor of St. Joseph, has been a strong advocate of the elevator project, called “Lifting All Up to Share His Cup.” He said his experiences in smaller parishes has been that people are likely to work together and take responsibility for efforts such as the hog roast fundraiser.
“It is our Christian duty to help people who can’t normally get into the church,” Father Pilcher said at the fundraiser. “The people who are doing this work are working very hard and doing a superb job.”
Anyone who would like information on the parish’s fundraising efforts can call Dale Magnett at 785-456-1300.

Wind Turbine on a farm north of Lindsbord generates about half of the farm's electricity.

Farmer Mike Patrick with his daughter as she shows him a kitten.

Mike Patrick can see the meter going backwards in a strong wind.

Published in the Grass and Grain

Wind power energy increasingly affordable

By Paula Glover

The next time you’re outside in a brisk breeze, don’t curse the wind – harness it.
Recent energy legislation brings Kansas in line with the nation in making wind turbines for electric generation more feasible through something called net metering, which allows these who generate their own electricity to receive retail prices for the excess electricity they generate.
Even for members of co-ops, where the rules are sometimes slightly different, it is possible to install a wind turbine on a budget. Co-ops follow a cogeneration and small power production rate schedule, which returns 150 percent of the utility’s monthly system average cost of purchased energy to the individual who produces the electricity.
Mike Patrick, who farms just north of Lindsborg, is one of a new wave of farmers who are installing wind turbines to generate some or all of their farm’s electricity.
“I just like building things,” Patrick said.
With plans from Prairie Turbines, www.prairieturbines.com , he mainly used items “bought off the shelf” and two years ago, he built a turbine on the farm.
He estimated he has $7,000 in the turbine, which he painted to look like a sunflower. At current electric rates, he figures it will take around 10 years to get a pay for itself. It is a 5.5 KW turbine, and if he did it again, he’d put up a 10 KW turbine, he said. It took him about six months of off-and-on work to build it.
The blades are 2x12’s that are more than 9 feet long and the tail is 20 feet long, he said. It is 80 feet tall to the top. One feature of the design is it allows for the structure to be lowered for routine maintenance. He hasn’t had to shut wind generator down due to high wind, which can be a concern to people considering building a turbine.
WIND GENERATION WAVE OF FUTURE
Bruce Graham teaches in the head of the wind energy technology department at Cloud City Community College in Concordia.
“Wind turbines are good for everybody because they help save on the coal that it takes to produce electricity and results in lower carbon dioxide emissions,” Graham said. In the past, people have undersized their turbine, so as not to generate more electricity than needed; but now, with the net metering law, there is an incentive to put back onto the electric grid.
“If you can show it will pay back, is reliable, you can show it is worth looking into,” he added. “If co-ops would join in with net metering, you’d see wind generators all over the state.”
The school has several instructors and teaches instillation and maintenance of turbines.
Cloud College’s web site notes several encouraging facts about Kansas’ potential for wind generation. Kansas is third in the nation for potential energy from wind. There are eight existing large-scale wind “farms” and 51 proposed wind projects. Kansas now has over 1,000 megawatts (MW) of wind-powered energy generation.
Wind energy in Kansas is a growing enterprise. Early in September, state legislators approved $5 million in bonds to help build a wind turbine manufacturing plant in Hutchinson. German-based Siemans Energy chose Hutchinson as the site of it first U.S. factory to produce the electricity generating parts of the turbine.
For the individual interested in wind turbines, there are several sites on the internet, Graham said.
BEGINNING THE PROCESS
Information on wind energy is available through the American Wind Energy Association at www.awea.org and North American Wind Power a www.nawindpower.com
There are companies such as Bergey Wind Power, at www.bergey.com that will sell a landowner full package and come an install it, but the cost is between $45,000 and $58,000. It is also possible to purchase a system and install it as an individual.
There are several issues a landowner must consider when determining the type of system, including whether or not the farm is subject to frequent power outages and would need its own generators and a transfer switch so the landowner doesn’t send electricity down the power grid when maintenance is being done to repair the outage. There are also more expensive alternatives for those who are completely off the power grid and would require a generator and batteries.
There are many possibilities, particularly for a person who just likes to build things, but doesn’t want to scramble for parts.
Don Lott, who farms and operates a sawmill southeast of Minneapolis, recently put in a wind turbine from Prairie Turbines. He bought the entire kit and said it took about a month to build and he’s been hooked up for about three months.
“It seemed like a good idea, with the cost of electricity going up,” he said. “Besides, I like to build things.” He estimated the 10 KW turbine cost about $13,000 and would pay off in about 5 years. Because of the sawmill, it will produce about half of his needs. Normally a 10 KW would produce close to what is needed for a home or small farm.
Prairie Turbines is an independent operation started by two brothers-in-law, Tim McCall and Alan Plunkett. They challenged each other to create a simple, cost-effective homebuilt wind turbine fully capable of completely offsetting the average electric bill. It had to be simple, reliable, low cost, and easy to build and maintain.
“Plunket, who had several years experience with his own large 25 KW wind turbines, challenged that he could build the turbine and structure if I could build an electronic control to manage it. Well, it sounded simple enough,” McCall said on the company’s web site.
“Drawing on experience with his other turbines Alan knew that the cost of rotor blades and other essentials would leave him no option. He would have to build his own rotor blades, mounting structure, and find competitively priced off-the-shelf components if the cost were to remain within reach of a do-it-yourselfer.” The result was the Breezy 5.5. Connected in parallel with the electric utility it produces 5.5 KW with wind speeds of 21-23 mph.
PRACTICAL STEPS TO TAKE
There are steps an individual should go through when considering an individual wind turbine project.
Ken Maginley, general manager of Bluestem Electric Cooperative said the co-op will work the members who want to do wind turbines. Because each unit has different characteristics, the co-op requires an application, which has a fee, from members to make sure it will not impact the system.
“We’ve had very little problems,” he said. In terms of buying the power back, they follow the state of Kansas rules.
“The true payback is avoiding that they would buy in electricity,” he noted.
While net metering sounds like a good deal, many co-ops have concerns. Shana Holsteen, director of communications for the state electric co-op organization, Kansas Electric Cooperatives, Inc. has raised several issues about net metering. The main issue of the co-ops revolves around paying retail prices back to consumers, rather than wholesale prices. This does not allow the co-ops to recover costs for the transmission lines and other fixed costs.
Co-op representatives are careful to note they don’t oppose alternative electrical generation.
Patrick said Don Helwig at DS&O electric was extremely helpful and encouraging during the planning process for his wind turbine. Helwig said that the co-op is glad to work with customers who seek to generate their own power.
Another consideration for landowners would be to contact their local zoning department, said Greg Webster, Pottawatomie County zoning administrator.
“We allow wind generators for personal use, but there are considerations in height limits and property-line setbacks,” he said. A wind farm, however, would require a conditional use permit.
“We want to allow and encourage all types of alternative energy,” he said, “but at the same time, lessen the impacts on neighbors.”
“We’ve had more inquires lately about wind turbines for farm use,” he said.