Dave Schields
Schields Farm, Goodland
In the Sunflower State, not many know more about Helianthus annuus than Dave Schields. He grows ‘em. Lots of them. He and his wife, Jeannie, have an 8,000-acre farm covering four counties near Goodland, and sunflowers cover a third of those acres. “One of the biggest challenges in growing sunflowers is controlling the weeds,” he says, which may surprise the city folks, who probably don’t know that the sunflower is, basically, a weed itself. “Sunflowers are a good crop since they will root down and go after any available subsoil moisture,” Schields says. That’s ideal in northwest Kansas, which has higher elevation and is drier than the most of the state. Dry conditions mean fewer plant diseases, and the elevation means cooler nights, reducing the need for moisture, which is what makes this land so productive. Born in Goodland, Schields grew up 10 miles north of town and until sixth grade, attended the last functioning one-room country school in the state. His grandfather homesteaded the land, which is about to see a fourth generation of the family as his two sons move into operations with him.
Ed Hammond
Fort Hays State
For decades, Kansas has battled population drain from rural sprawl. Think of Ed Hammond
as a field general in that war. He’s president of Fort Hays State University which has defied demographic odds with 15 straight years of enrollment growth. With a focus on relevant programming and a boost from the Internet, FHSU has succeeded at home and abroad—no other university in the U.S. has a larger enrollment footprint in China, for example. Hammond cites a tech-studies program as an example. That course pits students against peers from MIT, Georgia Tech, Texas A&M and universities known for innovation in a competition where Fort Hays routinely finishes in the top five. This year, it won with a team that in one day designed, built and demonstrated a transmission that could be downshif-ted at 150 mph. Where does that talent come from?
“The judges say that traditional engineering schools tend to solve problems the same way,” he says. “The Fort Hays solution tends to be different,” kids “who have been putting things together on the farm with duct tape and baling wire since they were three feet tall.” That work ethic, and a stripe of tenacity, sets this state apart.
It’s vital that Kansas apply that same tenacity to job creation in its small towns, says Hammond: “We have a high placement rate of our grads who stay in western Kansas; part of the key is to educate them in Hays but return them to Hill City, Atwood or Sharon Springs with the ability and resources to start a business.” The state can harness the talents of farmers who need incomes to stay, “and we can grow these communities back.”
Harry Wigner
Lathrop & Gage, Overland Park
Most people look at the High Plains and see flat. Harry Wigner sees geologic history laid bare. “There are deposits of volcanic ash mined there from when Yellowstone blew up 600,000 years ago,” he says, and it’s typical to find 100 feet of dirt before you hit rock, residue that blew in from Oklahoma during the ice age. An Atwood native who today does development deals for Lathrop & Gage, Wigner says that “if we’re aware of our surroundings, it gives you an awe-inspiring sense of time, and how you are just a little speck.” He can regale you with stories of the hardscrabble existence of the Kansas pioneers who settled that land not so very long ago; his own great-grandparents lived in house made of sod. That kind of grit still defines Kansans today, he says, just as his roots define him. “The partners here give me grief when I say ‘Out home, this is happening.’ ‘You’ve been here 30 years,’ they say, ‘when does this become home?’” Wigner, 57, and his wife of 33 years, Beth, have raised a son and daughter, and he’s been involved in various efforts to support public education. Yet for all the benefits his kids derived in the Shawnee Mission district, he says, “I thought I got a better education” back in his class of 56 students in Atwood. “You could participate in every sport, the band, the choir, the plays—you got a broader experience.”
Marci Penner
Kansas Sampler Foundation, Inman
Lots of young Kansans hear the same siren song that called Marci Penner to Philadelphia. Few come back to the farm the way she did, after a head injury in her adopted city. While recovering, she helped her father produce a guidebook to promote Kansas-made products and businesses, and 1,000 people came to the Penner farm for a celebration of its publication. “We realized people were hungry to know more about what there is to see and do in Kansas,” she recalls. That was the genesis of what is now the Kansas Sampler Foundation Festival, a 23-year-old traveling showcase that draws thousands of people.
That pull says something profound to Penner, who cherishes the ability to teach Kansans more about their own state. “It’s not really about tourism, but about keeping rural communities alive and thriving,” she says. Exhibitors from 150 communities provide samples of what there is to see, do, hear, taste and buy in Kansas. Nearly 8,000 people showed up for the last festival on the farm before it hit the road to towns like Pratt, Ottawa, Independence, Newton, Garden City, Concordia, Leavenworth and this year, Liberal.
“If 8,000 people will come to a farm, they must be hungry for the information,” Penner marvels. Much of the festival’s success, and the successes of businesses that have taken part, can be traced back to that accident with a falling barbell. “The only job I could hold was with my Dad, and that led to all of this!” Penner laughs. It was, she said, the “best blow to the head ever!”
Daryl Rodrock
Rodrock Development, Overland Park
More than 60 years ago, an 8-year-old boy at an orphanage in south-central Kansas first heard the name Jesus, and asked a teacher about him. What Charlotte Tuescher would teach young Darol Rodrock would touch off a wellspring of faith that has guided him throughout his life. And what a life it’s been: High school teacher. State-champion wrestling team coach. Home builder. Residential land developer. He’s even a competitive equestrian.
A tough start in life steered him through the orphanage and a dozen foster homes, but from that, Rodrock learned that hard work would get him where he needed to go. From the farm near Garnett that would became the closest thing he ever knew to a home, “I learned from my foster parents the qualities it takes to overcome any type of adversity you could meet,” he says. He earned two degrees in education, and taught American history and coached wrestling at Shawnee Mission West before taking a new turn to start building homes. “I was taking home $900 a month, with a master’s degree plus 60 hours toward a Ph.D.,” Rodock recalls. “It was time for me to go on and try to make a living for my family.” Mission accomplished: Several years and hundreds of homes later, he founded Rodrock Development and has developed land where thousands of homes have since been built, many in Johnson County, and many at upscale developments with all the amenities. This tells you all you need to know about his inner drive: After all those projects, he says, he’s still looking to build one he considers great. “I’m always looking to do the next one better,” he says.
Roger Neighbors
Neighbors Construction, Shawnee
The Guys had it in—but good—for the boss’s son when Roger Neighbors went to work as a kid at his dad’s construction company. “Being the son of the boss, they gave me so much grief; they really were hard on me,” Neighbors says. “But early on, I said they were not going to break me.” Much of that concrete resolve was passed down from Pat Neighbors. “My dad taught me to work hard, physically—you can’t wait for someone to give you what you want,” Neighbors says, and those are values he’s tried to instill in the third generation of the family-owned business with sons Ryan and Aaron. That Neighbors Construction is still standing five years after the crippling downturn slammed the sector is tribute, Neighbors says, to some of that mental toughness, and to the cohesion it enjoys because of the family dynamic. “I’ve got a great partner in my wife,” he said of his bride, Nancy. “The best thing that ever happened to me was marrying her, and we’ve been side by side through this whole down period.” Away from work, he loves to get to the Lake of the Ozarks—or most any venue for high-performance boat-racing. He’s got a rig of his own, but because it’s mainly for pleasure boating, he doesn’t expose it to the rigors or racing: “These are millionaires with their play toys out there,” he says. “I’m not quite in their league.”
Tim Brush
Brush Art, Downs
The first generation of the Brush family—Doug and Kay—had the vision to start an advertising agency in Lawrence—and the brass to move it in Downs, a town of just 900 people, a year later. That was 50 years ago. The second generation came along right about the time the word “modem” started to enter the popular lexicon. That’s when Brush Art began to soar. “In the pre-Internet years, our rural location limited our ability to grow to opportunities in surrounding states,” says company CEO Tim Brush. With high-speed Internet and online marketing communication, “we’ve been able to rapidly expand the footprint of our current client base.” Brush Art added key accounts in San Antonio, Boston, Milwaukee, Indianapolis—even Anchorage. No longer handicapped by its rural location, Brush Art soared onto the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing U.S. companies as recently as 2007 and 2008—a 15-fold increase, Tim Brush says.
Mark O'Connell
Multi Service, Overland Park
Mark O’Connell knows a little about the reputation for pragmatism in Kansas. In the run-up to the 2010 passage of federal health-care reforms, the president of Multi Service Corp. co-authored a commentary in U.S. News and World Report, addressing a largely overlooked part of the discussion—the need for Americans to take command of their own wellness. His co-author was Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, now U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, a Kansas City native. Kaine is a Democrat. O’Connell is not. The two, said O’Connell, have “known each other since we were six months old” and despite being on opposite sides of the political spectrum, he said, “we began talking about the unfortunate schism that exists in Washington today and recognized that it didn’t have to be that way. We developed the piece showing how a Democrat and Republican could find common ground on something as important has health and wellness.” That kind of pragmatism, along with credibility and integrity, has helped O’Connell build Multi Service a hugely successful global-transaction manager. “I studied ancient languages in college and the 1st century Roman philosopher Seneca said: ‘Luck occurs at that crossroads of preparation and opportunity,’ ” O’Connell said. “That summarizes how we have tried to run Multi Service over the years.” The company has positioned itself to take advantage of emerging opportunities, he said, but “being in the right place at the right time … has to do with giving ourselves the chance to be in that position.”
Gary Morsch
Heart to Heart International, Olathe
A timely phone call by former Sen. Bob Dole helped a fledgling non-profit called Heart to Heart International secure its first C-5 cargo plane from the Air Force, says Gary Morsch, its founder and chairman. So it’s a snap for Morsch to identify his favorite living Kansan. Since it’s start in 1992,
Heart to Heart has become one of the world’s largest medical humanitarian organizations—it delivered more than $1 billion in aid in 2012. Morsch founded another non-profit, Docs Who Care, just so he could schedule emergency-room shifts around Heart to Heart’s missions abroad. Both organizations thrived with a steady application of high expectations: “I’ve challenged each organization to be the best, and not the biggest,” Morsch says. To get there, “you need to know your mission, and stay focused on being the best at it.”
He’s served in Vietnam and in Iraq, and he’s been a volunteer for Mother Teresa in Calcutta. “The more I interact with people across the globe,”he says, “the more convinced I am of the power of service.” Rather than with bombs and bullets, “it is only when we literally and tangibly put our love into action that we will change the world.”
Anthony Hensley
State Senate, Topeka
In one of the reddest of red states, the longest-serving member in the history of its Legislature is a Democrat: Anthony Hensley, who this month begins his 37th year in the Capitol. That’s a long time to be outnumbered, but he’s proof that Kansans are a persistent lot: “One of the greatest virtues in politics is patience,” he says. “Your time will arrive.” Despite the imbalance, “I feel like I’ve had pretty good deal of influence on the process,” Hensley says. “You pick and choose your fights.” A teacher by trade, most recently at his alma mater, Highland Park High, Hensley has long been at the fore of legislative battles over school finance, a constant in a state where much of the wealth is concentrated in a handful of counties. He’s been married for 35 years to “the best door to door campaigner you’ll ever know,” and with Deborah has raised a daughter who’s also a teacher. His willingness to make deals with centrist Republicans has resonated with voters for 13 straight elections. Last fall, as conservatives romped to victory statewide, Hensley won re-election by a 58-42 margin. “And that,” he says, “was about as serious a challenge as I’ve ever had.”
