It's especially fun for a woman who did her early college work in music many years ago. Gladys cut academics short to marry and raise three children--Phillip Sawatzky, who lives in Wichita and Ken who lives in Lenexa. Their sister, Marcia Nix, resides in California. They've given their mother four grandchildren to visit. Her second husband, Buck, has three children and four grandchildren that give them destinations in Florida and California as well.

After her sons were attending college, Gladys returned to college too. She finished a Bachelor of Science nursing degree and worked for 12 years in medical surgery at Wesley Hospital and six years in the children's psychiatric ward at Charter Hospital. She really enjoyed nursing, but "can't find a cushy job in it these days." So she's settled back into a busy life of volunteering, music and travel. Part of her volunteer-nursing schedule several years ago included Venture House, a very satisfying stint.

She serves in many capacities at Saint James Episcopal Church, served two terms on the Board of Directors of Wichita State University's Alumni Association. That, of course, still includes avid support at home basketball and baseball games. For a number of years she was a chairperson for the Wichita Symphony's showcase homes that raised funds and awareness for the organization. Currently she works in the Discover Shop, an upscale resale shop at Brittany Center that benefits Youthville.

Her late aunt in Topeka had macular degeneration and that was one of the ways Gladys was introduced to a radio reading service. After her aunt's death, she was inspired to follow up and found out she could read regularly at WRRS. Sometimes it's almost as challenging as memorizing the choral parts of Aida . . . since the A section of The Wichita Eagle has all the international news. She's been doing this for about three years now and it's a volunteer effort she enjoys.

Meet Jerry Alter

Ask most Wichita Radio Reading Service volunteers what they do and the answers are fairly mundane: “I read the Eagle food ads ... People Magazine ... western novels, etc.”  Not so for Jerry Alter.  His efforts, aired Friday evenings from 6 to 7 p.m., are titled, “The Book is Better than the Movie.”

“I read novels that have been turned into motion pictures,” Adler said.  “Right now, we're into Stephen King's The Green Mile.”

Alter is a native Wichitan who spent 30 years working in inventory control on the military side of Boeing.  When he retired two years ago, he joined WRRS as a substitute reader. A year ago, after stints reading The Wichita Eagle and USA Today, he began reading novels.

“This is a 'win-win' situation for me,” Alter said. “I enjoy reading anyway, and I'm delighted to be in a position now where I can give something back to the community.” “I'm always thinking ahead,” he continued, “trying to determine where I'm going to go next...what books people might like me to read and then determining what the movie was like.”

Since he tapes his programs on Friday afternoon for broadcast the next week, Alter likes to stay 3-4 weeks ahead, in case he needs to be absent one week.  “I've got about four future programs in the can right now, he said.

Although he does not have a college degree, Alter has attended classes at Friends, Newman and Butler Community College, thanks to Boeing support.  He is also active as a dispatcher for medical drivers for the American Red Cross and as a driver for Meals on Wheels.  In the latter capacity, he has delivered WRRS radios to several meals clients who had vision problems and were happy to avail themselves of the service.

Alter has been married for 41 years.  He and his wife, Judy, who retired last year from Bank of America, have two grown children.  They are active members of Westlink Christian Church.

Meet Barbara Bath

"No one gets an award alone. Someone else helps them get it." Barbara Bath acknowledged her network of high school counseling peers, concerned parents and citizens who were responsible for her being Kansas' Outstanding School Counselor, 1998-99. She was a school counselor for 23 of her 29 years in education. The last nine she spent at Midtown Metro High School helping at risk students "blossom and discover their potentials. They are such terrific kids in a caring learning atmosphere."

She stayed home for ten years for her two daughters' formative years. Jenny is now in management training and Julie teaches computers and graphic design and advises her mother on her visual aides for her prolific speaking schedule.

Now retired, Barbara has switched her prodigious energies to traveling on behalf of the Christian Business and Professional Women's After Five Club. She serves on her own club's board. She and her retired husband, Jim travel a wide radius around Wichita as she speaks on the topic "Calling all Worrywarts." She admits, "I am one."

She and her three older sisters get it from their mother who at age 90 still teaches multiple Bible classes each week and walks each morning back home in Jetmore, Kansas. Their mother married early but never stopped learning. At age 87 she took on a weekly column for the newspaper. So apparently Barbara has a long and productive retirement ahead of her.

Meet Victor Bender

Calling Victor Bender’s employment resume "impressive" involves the classic definition of understatement. The aeronautical engineer has worked at the famous Lockheed "Skunk Works," for McDonnell-Douglas and Lockheed, for the U.S. Air Force Flight Test Center, and for NASA. He is now retired, returning to the city where he began his career as an undergraduate in engineering at Wichita State University.

The Nebraska native completed his degree at WSU following a stint in the U.S. Air Force, flying RB-47 aircraft. He later earned a master’s degree in engineering management from the University of Missouri-Rolla.

Bender has been a volunteer for the Wichita Radio Reading Service for about the last three years. He began reading the front page of The Wichita Eagle and obituaries. Today, he records business news from a variety of sources. The program airs on WRRS Mondays at 3 p.m.

"I try to find articles people might learn something from, using the Eagle, the Wichita Business Journal, and the business magazines," Bender said. "So much of business news is passive in nature that I look for items that have some lasting value for our listeners."

When he is not recording, Bender enjoys woodworking as a hobby. He is a member of the Sunflower Woodworking Guild, making toys to distribute to underprivileged children at Christmas.

He and his wife, Dorothy, are the parents of five grown children and grandparents of three. They continue to support WSU, holding season tickets to women’s basketball games and volleyball games at the university. "We also attend some baseball games," he concludes.


Meet Tammy Breeden

When Tammy Breeden heard the announcement on KMUW that the Wichita Radio Reading Service needed substitute readers for the summer of 1990, she knew that was what she wanted to do. So she began as a substitute that summer and soon moved into her regular time to read The Wichita Eagle every other Saturday.

This Wichita native earned her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Elementary Education from Wichita State University. She also has the Reading Specialist Certificate and the Administrative Certificate.

Tammy has been with the Wichita School Administration for 30 years and currently is the Principal at Cleveland Elementary Traditional Magnet School.

Tammy shares her talents and enthusiasm with her church, St. Christopher Episcopal. She enjoys sewing and made all the costumes for the Parish's Christmas activities. Since St. Christopher's doesn't have a choir, Tammy frequently sings solos during services. Previously she sang with the Wichita Symphony Chorus.

Tammy and her husband are bridge players and they like to travel. They've been to Europe twice and especially enjoyed the city of Warsaw, Poland. Recently they attended the Passion Play at Oberammergau. Since it is only performed once every ten years, they felt fortunate to be there at the right time.

Tammy Breeden, your volunteer service with WRRS enables over 2,000 sight impaired listeners to hear the latest news. Thank you for taking the time to help us help them.
 
Meet Dale Bukaty

Dale Bukaty is one of the veterans among the volunteers who read for the Wichita Radio Reading Service. She has been an active participant for the last 20 years.

"I was having lunch with Betsy Kelly one day, and she said, ‘You know; you ought to be reading for WRRS.’ That was all it took to recruit me," Bukaty says.

She started out as a substitute; then read the ‘Local & State’ section of the Wichita Eagle for several years. Now, each week, she reads the Eagle front section from 9-10 a.m. on Thursdays.

Bukaty has a friend with macular degeneration, which provides an impetus for her to continue volunteering. "I enjoy knowing that I’m providing a service to a number of people, even though they may not be sitting next to me," Bukaty says.

The consummate volunteer, Bukaty also is a driver for Meals on Wheels. "One of the secondary benefits of that is that it gives me another perspective on how other people live. That’s as valuable as reading sections of the newspaper I might otherwise miss," she says.

Now retired, Bukaty came to Wichita from Kansas City in the late 70s. She worked as marketing director for a senior citizens concern and later sold real estate for nine years. She also returned to college as a nontraditional student and earned a degree in gerontology from Wichita State University. She also completed a Master’s degree in business from WSU.

Bukaty and her husband, Mike, president of Wescon Products, enjoy traveling, both in the United States and throughout the world. "Most exciting trip," she says, was when we went back to the Ukraine to trace my husband’s roots."

The couple has three grown children.


Meet Wanna Butts

Wanna Butts (nee Nicholas) has been having fun reading the Tuesday Wichita Eagle on WRRS. She's been doing it for over two and a half years. She loves to read and discovered that reading aloud meant you needed to know how to pronounce those names you skip over when reading to yourself.

Details like that are important to Wanna. She spent many years in data entry processing and office management before retiring. She came to work in Wichita from Miller, Missouri after high school with her future husband's sister. Married during the Korean War she stayed home to raise her four daughters but when they were all in junior high, she went back to work and stayed until a few years ago.

Her four daughters have given her eight grandchildren, scattered from Derby and Wichita to Montana and Oregon. They are great destinations for vacations and reunions.

She and her husband Bob have also been to Hawaii and love bus trips which they have taken to New York, Canada and to see the fall foliage of the Great Smokies.

Among her volunteer activities is sorting and hanging clothes for the Klothes Kloset which provides donated clothing for the needy. She does a lot of knitting and reading and a little gardening. "I have a book going wherever I sit down." She bowls in a seniors' league for exercise. And finally, she fills the corners of her house with estate sale finds, a true joy of hers.

Wanna grew up on a farm and helped milk a small herd of cows everyday. Her mother still lives in Missouri, a good sign of longevity. In October her daughters deluged Wanna with seventy birthday cards, one for each year she's enjoyed. And the past couple of years, WRRS has been a part of that enjoyment.

Meet Bill Calhoun

For about three years, Bill Calhoun has been reading "best sellers" each Friday at noon on the Wichita Radio Reading Service (WRRS). He had been substituting for various other readers for about six months when the "best sellers" slot turned into his own regular assignment for WRRS. He really enjoys selecting the books and reading them, usually live on the air-- unless he and his wife are going to be traveling that Friday.

Both he and his wife have family in Oklahoma and make lots of trips that way. Although born in Marshall and a toddler in Enid, he has lived and worked in Wichita since he was four. He graduated high school the year World War II ended and went on immediately to college at Wichita University "Muni U, we called it." Bill graduated with a business degree with accounting emphasis.

He had a 'ready-made" job in the family women's wear business, Calhoun's. When his father sold that business to partners, they opened Cal's at Hillside and Central and later in Boulevard Plaza. He and his wife retired from that business in the Boulevard Plaza store in 1992.

On turning 62, Bill took his natural curiosity back to what was now Wichita State University and began auditing classes. And not just for the knowledge, but the interaction. He took Political Science classes from Mel Kahn, "all the English literature and writing courses they had," and art history. "I just asked around to find out who the good teachers were and took their courses."

Then Bill found acting, which eventually led him to his WRRS reading gig. "The WRRS assistant coordinator was engaged to a student in the theatre department." Bill has played the ghost of Hamlet's father, and Grandpa in You Can't Take It with You, and also acted in The Crucible and Richard the Third. He's also been the model for makeup students "to study aging."

Currently he is reading a novel by famous novelist and teacher, Wallace Stegner. His own personal choices for reading include Anne Tyler, Ann Patchet and Anna Quinlan. These are apparent outgrowths of those WSU English courses he audited.

Bill admitted knowing about WRRS for many years before volunteering. He knew through former WRRS board member, Charles Pearson. But when the call finally came out of the blue, he jumped at the chance and hasn't been sorry since. "I had an edge, since she already knew what I sounded like."

Let them know what you sound like. Call WRRS Coordinator Bridget Jones at 978-6600 and ask to audition. There is always a need for good substitute readers, and who knows... you may get your own slot one day.

Meet Barbara Carlson

Barbara Carlson has been reading for Wichita Radio Reading Service (WRRS) faithfully Monday mornings for nearly 20 years. Even when she was working in a travel agency office, she told them she would not give up that Monday morning hour reading aloud to the print impaired on WRRS.

Volunteer activities have been a large part of Barbara's life, especially after her two daughters went off to college--one to become an attorney, and the other a CPA.

Her husband to be, James, was stationed at Ft. Riley when she took a teacher's weekend trip to the Eisenhower home in Abilene. He was visiting it as well. They were married after she finished her degree at Bethel College in North Newton. In those days of provisional teaching certificates, she took five years to earn the degree, taking two years out to teach in rural schools.She knew about rural schools. The little one she attended, eight miles off U.S. 81 in southeast South Dakota, had such a small student body that Barbara was the only one in her grade for eight years.

Paradoxically, she was one of ten Preheim children in her own family. She grew up on a working farm with her own share of chores to do each day besides her school work.

She focused, with her master's in elementary education, on library work. As their family took more of her attention, she worked part time as a substitute.

Then she expanded her volunteer activities to encompass the Wichita Symphony and the Music Theatre of Wichita. Though not a musician herself, Barbara has done her share to keep Wichitans entertained.

She and Jim are world travelers and next plan a cruise on the Danube this summer. They've visited all 50 states and most of Europe. They "got rid of the big house" and moved into a condo to facilitate the travel. "Just shut the door and don't even worry about changing outside light bulbs."

Barbara encourages others to volunteer reading for WRRS. It is a very satisfying thing she does for others, virtually anonymous and trouble free. Except for some pronunciations on the sports pages, she breezes right through it. For private reading she is such a people person she prefers stories of human interest and interaction, but prefers to actually be out among people, from her many volunteer and club efforts to her Bible study at University United Methodist Church. She isn't ready to sit down and relax completely yet, not by a long shot. There is, after all, that little matter of travel to see the grandchildren in Colorado.

Meet Regina Carmichael

After 34 years of teaching students at Pleasant Valley and Hadley Middle Schools in the Wichita area, Regina Carmichael had earned her retirement.
 
But she missed the daily organization and her rapport with the students.  So she tried a data entry position at LSI which didn't quite fill her need for the personal contact she had enjoyed with her students.
 
That's when she read about WRRS in The Wichita Eagle in 2005.  After her successful audition, she now reads the re-cap of the entire Eagle from 2 to 3PM on Thursday afternoons.  That's a lot of news to fit into one hour and she does it succinctly.
 
Regina Carmichael also volunteers at the St Francis Hospital gift shop and in the surgery waiting room.  She eases the anxieties of family members who await the outcomes of procedures for their loved ones.
 
And Regina sews 20 to 30 "Linus Blankets" a year for the Wichita Police Department.  Officers give these blankets to comfort children who have suffered traumatic events of all kinds.
 
If and when she has any spare time, Regina likes to spend it with her one-year-old granddaughter.  She walks regularly for exercise and loves to read anything and everything.
 
Although Regina Carmichael has a very busy retirement schedule, we commend her volunteer service to WRRS which benefits more than 3,500 of our sight impaired listeners. 

Meet Kay Carroll

Native Kansan, Kay Carroll, has had a long term connection with WRRS.  It began in El Dorado-- where her family shopped at the local grocery store.  The owners' blind son had a WRRS radio receiver and Kay was impressed with his enjoyment of the broadcast.  But her professional life took her from the University of Kansas to Massachusetts for summer stock productions and then on to New York City for a career in theater management.
 
She returned to El Dorado to care for her Mother who was terminally ill.  At that point Kay realized the need for patient advocates.  So after her Mother died, she attended Wichita State University where she had to design her own program of study in patient advocacy since WSU didn't have that category at that time.
 
During those years Kay worked as a toll collector for the Kansas Turnpike to pay for her education.  The WRRS connection came up again in a speech class she took taught by the late Dr. Frank Kelly and she became a substitute reader for awhile.  In 1982 she graduated from WSU with her BA degree in General Studies.
 
Kay Carroll's interest in helping people became her professional career.  She started with the first Hospice Inc organization and with ConnectCare, a group which helped AIDS patients. She particularly enjoyed working with the Cerebral Palsy Research Foundation and persuaded the Master Gardeners Association to set up a Horticultural Therapy Garden at their Adult Day Care Center.  Kay's most recent involvement is with the Center of Hope which is a homeless prevention program.
 
Kay Carroll has come full circle with her connection to WRRS, currently as a substitute reader.  We are very happy to have her on board as part of our WRRS family.

Meet Don Checots

Don Checots loves education, children, small town living and Public Television and Radio. Recently he began reading Business Week and the Wichita Business Journal each week on the Wichita Radio Reading Service. "We had a service in South Dakota but I never read there. A colleague one day was off to read at WRRS and I decided I could do that." He records an hour each Monday morning that's played back twice during the week.

The native of Reynoldsville, Pa., is "a full blooded Italian" who grew up in "a company town with a company store." He parlayed a high school interest in electronics into Air Force/Army training in personnel and broadcast electronics. In the sixties he helped build radio stations in Southeast Asia.

His civilian broadcast career began near home. His engineering experience took him to Richmond, Va., and an Air Force buddy in Washington, D.C., helped him move into the public broadcast arena with a job in Ypsilanti, Michigan. After a few years in "division management" he became manager of a public TV outlet in Bemidji, Minnesota. He helped with the design and construction and stayed four years. Then off to South Bend, Indiana, for eight years and South Dakota for four. In South Dakota he was responsible for both public radio and television statewide and added several stations.

He has managed KPTS, Channel 8, for seven years. He has increased local programming and is an advocate of education, family togetherness and children's needs. His own 12 year-old son, Matthew, reads to second graders in the RIF (Reading is Fundamental) program, which makes his father very proud. "Children are more attentive to their peers." He is also deeply concerned about repairing the disconnect that occurs as children enter their teens and child rearing falls off the family radar.

Away from broadcasting he and his wife Mary and Matthew live on acreage east of Augusta where they keep horses and their small town values. Despite the serious business of managing and fighting the constant budget crunch, he believes in always bringing a smile into the room. It's something you can hear in his voice as well when he livens up the business stats on his weekly recording for WRRS. Don Checots is an all around broadcaster with a depth of experience that makes him a fine asset in whatever company he keeps.

Meet Tom Clausen

Dr. Tom Clausen brought his fresh PhD to Wichita State University three and a half years ago to teach in the business school. After being on campus about a year, he visited the WRRS Open House and auditioned to read for the Wichita Radio Reading Service. He records articles from each month's Smithsonian Magazine. His program is played back at noon on Mondays to benefit the blind and print impaired with special WRRS receives in their homes.

He admits to a peripatetic upbringing since his father worked for, no pun intended, Mobil Oil. In his parental travels, a young Tom Clausen attended OK Elementary School in Wichita before the family put down roots long enough in Sioux City, Iowa, for Tom to graduate high school. Then it was off on a long trail of college campuses collecting undergraduate and graduate degrees in business.
 
Early on he was headed for a chemical engineering future, but changed later on. His campuses include Arizona State at Tempe, the University of Illinois, and University of Connecticut. While completing his doctorate he spent a year each at Kansas University, Kansas State University, and Mississippi State at Starkville. From that last post he came to Wichita State University.

Despite his early west side routes, he and his adopted poodle mix, Addie, live in College Hill. He even went far afield to find his pet. She's from the animal shelter in Junction City.

Tom Clausen has traveled abroad over the years and taken photos to prove it. Photography is one of his hobbies and he has photos of Venice, Morocco at Christmas, and an extended stay in Thailand.  The camera lay dormant for a few years, but has recently come back into play.

He also loves jazz and rhythm and blues. While at Mississippi State he did a turn on the radio as a jazz d.j. His clear voice is an asset to classroom and to WRRS. His early scientific background also must help in reading the Smithsonian with confidence and clarity.

We can hope that Dr. Tom Clausen will find reason to set roots in Wichita. His sister, her three boys, and his parents all live just up the turnpike in suburban Kansas City. But in typical Clausen fashion, at spring break he has to join them in Palm Springs, California!
   

Meet Gerri Colgan

With the phrase "analyze, scrutinize and use my eyes to locate those best buys at local supermarkets," volunteer Gerri Colgan begins another installment of Wednesday grocery ads for WRRS listeners.

"I want to paint a picture, create enthusiasm," Colgan says. "We all need to eat. I consider it my job to let my listeners know where there are good deals for groceries that week."

Colgan has been a WRRS volunteer for about ten years. She moved to Wichita from Kansas City about 20 years ago, and has been an active volunteer in the community ever since.

Colgan is probably the most visible of the volunteers as well. Along with reading, she has been active in the reading service's speakers' bureau, visiting six-to-eight community organizations each year to spread the word about the program. "I enjoy being able to create an awareness of the wonderful service WRRS provides to a wide host of individuals," she says.

President of the WRRS advisory board (2nd term), Colgan also participates in a list of community activities that make a full-time job pale by comparison. She hosts a show, "G Whiz Kansas," on KTQW-TV 49 Community Television that "showcases people, events and lots of interesting locations right here in Wichita," she says.

She is a docent at the Wichita Art Museum and the Ulrich Museum at Wichita State University. In the summer, she is active in providing trolley tours – both historical and sculpture – throughout the city, and she also works with 9-10 local schools as an art projects facilitator.

In her "free" time, she is "still a ballerina, dancing with the MGM Dance Studio."

Colgan is an Arts and Sciences graduate of Central Michigan University. She and her husband, Michael, share their home with two standard poodles.

"I am a wholehearted supporter of WRRS," she says. "It is most important that we use any and every way possible to create an awareness of the wonderful services provided.
WRRS can't be promoted enough," she concluded.

Meet Faith Coniglio

Faith has returned to WRRS with some changes. Faith Coniglio walks with a purple cane that replaces the wheelchair and walker she had in rehab. Her planned month away for back surgery turned into a year. (The WRRS staff and listeners are happy to have her on air once again!)

She reads health magazines each week, which she started after she and husband Jake retired.

Kansas residents since 1949 after graduate school, the couple spent thirty years in Topeka where they both worked in mental health for the state. She "retired" to raise their children, and that turned out well. The older daughter is a computer graphics specialist in New York and her sister is a librarian at a college in Missouri.

Faith loves their new living arrangements in Georgetown. "Jake doesn't have to cook unless he wants to." His cooking dates to his childhood in an Italian kitchen; made him popular with his college roommates and his family. After his heart attack rehab classes, Faith contends "his cooking only improved, and I've always enjoyed his cooking more than he did mine."

From 1982 until retirement, she worked in Wichita with mental health patients. She accompanied them on recreational jaunts to bowl, attend movies and to eat out. Her professional background and personal outlook made that job fun and interesting and at the microphone at WRRS.

Meet Winton Crown

Winton Crown has been a volunteer for the Wichita Radio Reading Service for more than 20 years. He reads the front page of the Wichita Eagle each Monday and conducts the Literary Hour, noon-1 p.m. Tuesdays. On Mondays, Crown provides the latest news for his listeners and also reads the editorials and the day's op-ed contribution. "That's about all we can get in during the time we have," Crown said.

"I probably enjoy the Literary Hour the most," he continued. "I enjoy short stories and poetry – anything by Edgar Alan Poe, Robert Frost, Longfellow, Walt Whitman, etc." His interests aren't confined to American poets, as he also lists Keats and Shelley among his European favorites.

"I like the classics," he continued. "I really don't like a lot of the modern stuff. While I understand that a poem doesn't have to rhyme, I'd at least like it to have a rhythm to it."

"Much of the new poetry seems more like prose," he concluded.

Crown developed his appreciation of poetry as a schoolteacher. He taught English and literature, as well as history and government prior to entering school administration. He retired as principal of Mayberry Junior High School in 1985. An active member of the Kiwanis Club of West Wichita, Crown became active in WRRS "...when the lady who was in charge of the program at the time came and spoke to our club about the service," he said. "I decided it was something I would like to do."

During his tenure with the reading service, Crown has become acquainted with a lot of people associated with the organization. "I especially enjoy the get-togethers where we meet the people we read to," he said, and he has attended most of them.

Crown continues to serve as the Kiwanis Club secretary and the editor of the club's newsletter. Off the air, he enjoys photography. He doesn't specialize, but enjoys photographing "anything worth taking a picture of." He has been a member of the West Douglas Church of Christ since about 1961.

Crown is married. He and his wife, Colleen, have three daughters and six grandchildren.

Meet Lillian Dickens

Lillian Dickens has several records for longevity. She worked at her professional job for 42 years. She was a sales secretary for The Coleman Company. Lillian has been a weekly reader, a board member and now is a substitute reader for the Wichita Radio Reading Service. She has volunteered at the reading service for almost 30 years. Eight of those years she served on the WRRS board.

Among Lillian's innovations to inform the print-handicapped listeners of WRRS was the program "Meet Your Neighbor." She invited community leaders and activists to the WRRS microphone to explain their interests and take calls from listeners. (On another occasion Lillian continued reading through a tornado alert.)

She has enjoyed performing solo on the radio as a reader or in a group as a singer and musician. Currently she plays a "trombone" composed of PVC pipe with a kazoo in the end of it. "We call it a kitchen band." They also call themselves the Ding-A-Lings and do a lot of performing locally. Their bond is all have lost spouses. Lillian has been playing with them for about eight years.

She sang alto for about ten years with Imogene Fleming's raucous group, The Funtastics. The bond there was enjoying music and sharing it.

Lillian's traveled twice to Europe, once with family, once with friends on a Christmas tour. With family they met family in Yugoslavia when there was still an Iron Curtain. She has also visited relatives stationed in Hong Kong with a side trip to mainland China. Her son's long residence in Hawaii prompted four visits to the islands.

Lillian continues to travel and entertain with the Ding-A-Lings. We don't know if there are openings in that group. But people who read well aloud are encouraged to audition for the Wichita Radio Reading Service. Call 978-6600. As Lillian would say, "there's always room for new blood."

Meet Barbara Fitzpatrick

Barbara Fitzpatrick came to Wichita in 1951 with her parents and older brother. She graduated from the University of Wichita in 1964 and taught elementary school and participated in sit-ins to protest segregation before joining classmates in New York City in shared housing near Columbus Circle and later in Brooklyn.

Barbara started as a demonstrator and became a supervisor for a publisher with an innovative reading program for schools. This work took her to Philadelphia and then to Detroit where she married Alvin Fitzpatrick and had her only child, Erika. As a single mother with a toddler, Barbara returned to Wichita and substituted in the school system. She worked up from Kindergarten to fourth grade before recertifying her credentials to teach. She worked her way up through the grades in a succession of schools until retiring as an eighth grade teacher.

Teaching was a very fulfilling career for her and in retirement she "reads anything," buses to Oklahoma occasionally for bingo and meets lifelong girlfriends in Las Vegas annually for a week of reminiscing and new exploits.

She read about WRRS from a newspaper article and found Michele Heflin, one of her former Robinson middle school students as the assistant coordinator of the program. Barbara has hundreds of students, now adults, who remember fondly their teacher at Earhart, Clark and Sunnyside elementary schools, and Robinson and Truesdell Middle Schools.

"I hope I did something right for them. I was a very strict teacher." She lectures at five o'clock mass at her church where a parishioner complimented her voice and said, "If I ever lose my eyesight, I'd love to have you read to me." So now hers is a welcome voice reading Good Housekeeping and Ladies Home Journal on the special receivers loaned out free of charge to WRRS listeners.

Meet Debra Foster

Born and raised in Ohio, Debra Foster lived in Michigan, Florida, Minnesota, and New Mexico, before settling in Wichita about 11 years ago. After sampling forests, oceans, and high mountain deserts, she's learned to love our Kansas prairies and skyscapes.

After getting a degree in zoology from Michigan State University, Debra was the General Curator at a small zoo in Florida for a couple of years. Managing a Wildlife Rehabilitation program there gave her the opportunity to work with injured birds, including hawks, eagles, pelicans, and herons. Then when the new Minnesota Zoo opened, she moved north, and was a zookeeper and aquarium keeper in the Twin Cities for eight years.

One slight mid-life crisis later, Debra went back to school to get her masters in architecture, from the University of New Mexico. Now she works for Rice Foster Associates, a Wichita landscape architecture and planning firm that has a specialty in zoo design. (No sense wasting all that previous experience!) Working on zoo projects often involves travel, which is one of the things she likes best about her job. Debra's had the chance to work on zoos in cities all around the country, and sometimes beyond, including Toronto, Puerto Rico, and Seoul. Along with zoos, her favorite design projects are parks and streetscapes.

When she's not working, or here at WRRS, Debra volunteers on the GreenWay Alliance, a local nonprofit board that works to support and encourage parks and bike paths. This involves a lot more time spent at Park Board, Planning Commission, and City Council meetings than she originally expected, but if you're going to be an advocate for parks, you've got to go convince the people who make the decisions. When it's time to relax, Debra loves to read, and loves to garden.

She started as a substitute reader at Wichita Radio Reading Service about two years ago. These days, she reads the front page section of the Wichita Eagle on Sunday afternoons.

Debra's mother lost her vision to macular degeneration, and has since become an avid listener to talking books. For Debra, reading for WRRS is not only a pleasure in itself, but is also a way of returning the favor to all those readers who have given her Mom so many wonderful stories.

Meet Rita Foster

Rita Foster's professional career as a banker has taken her to several financial institutions.  But her current position with Intrust Bank is the most satisfying to her.
 
About 14 years ago Rita noticed a WRRS brochure in her eye doctor's office.  She became interested in the service and has been an enthusiastic volunteer reader ever since.
 
Even though she had to take a year's leave of absence from WRRS while she was working in Kansas City, she continued her service to the sight impaired by recording textbooks on tape for WSU blind students.
 
Rita now reads The Wichita Eagle's Local and State section, including the Home and Garden, Sports and the Obituaries on Saturdays at the WRRS Recording Studio in the Hughes Metropolitan Complex at 29th & N. Oliver.
 
Communication has always been an important part of Rita's life.  Currently she keeps in touch with her daughter who is a military wife in Germany where she is expecting the birth of her first child.  Through cell phones, text messaging and web cams, Rita is up-to-date on family events half way around the world.  And, she is enjoying her 12-year-old granddaughter right here in Wichita, while her son attends law school at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.
 
Rita also is a lector at All-Saints Catholic Church and she reads the Catholic Advance Newspaper for the vision impaired there.
 
Rita Foster's communication skills benefit many people from her family, to her church, and to more than 3,500 WRRS sight-impaired listeners within a 60-mile radius of KMUW FM 89 Wichita Public Radio.
 
Thanks, Rita, for being a true news broadcaster in every sense of the word.

Meet Tracy Freeman

Tracy Freeman is enthusiastic about her new reading assignment at Wichita Radio Reading Service: James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small. Since September she records on Friday mornings for playback at noon each week on the service to the print handicapped and visually impaired.

She performed in musical theatre until the children came along, and the oldest of the three is twelve now. They all came from Dayton, Ohio, when husband Dave became chief meteorologist at KSNW, Channel 3. For two years now she has been the outreach director at KPTS, Channel 8, putting expertise and personality to work on behalf of public broadcasting.

Tracy also volunteers at Botanica, in her faith group and with the kids' schools. Her large yard is a challenge in Kansas' unforgiving heat and undependable moisture. "Put a stick in the ground in Dayton and it grows."

Her other challenge is growing the two boys. Since she was the youngest of four sisters, raising a girl is less of a mystery she thinks. They love to get out the `65 Caddy convertible (the second newest family member next to the new puppy), "drop the lid and cruise to Sonic."

Tracy is pleased with the Wichita Radio Reading Service and its mission and is enjoying reading for it. She would love to record a talking book or perform radio drama and comedy. In this modern communications age that might be a possibility as easy as growing sticks in Dayton.


Meet Vallerie Gleason

Vallerie Gleason loves to read aloud and is good at it. "I enjoy the radio reading service. My grand dad had macular degeneration. He listened to the radio a lot in Ohio. It was a great comfort when he could no longer see to read. I had no idea there was one in Wichita and when I found out about it, I thought this is an opportunity to do something to pay back for him."

Sunday afternoons she reads the local/state section of the Wichita Eagle. It is an hour stint with a short break in the middle. She is used to vocal performance. She met her current husband Monty when he saw her in his father's church choir and determined to meet her. They were compatible and joined families, two kids each.

Her son is midway through a lengthy air force enlistment and was recently reassigned after two years in Guam to McConnell Air Force Base. So she is enjoying the duties of a hands-on grandmother to a two-year-old boy. Her daughter is a junior at Kansas University.

Vallerie's own course of study was not a straight line. She has credentials for nursing from the University of Akron plus a WSU bachelor's of business and an MBA. "It has allowed me to move up in the organization and effect change and have some influence."

When she moved here in 1978 with her first husband and a six-month-old son, she worked for Saint Joseph Hospital. Today at Via Christi Riverside she is VP of patient services and chief nursing officer. The education has paid off well. A rewarding part of her job is mentoring nursing students who get part of their training at Via Christi Riverside.

To relax, Vallerie reads and works in the yard. "We are real homebodies." Home is on the west side near the zoo. It's been a comfortable life and place to be. "I never found any reason yet to leave Wichita." And now with a new found outlet of reading on the radio, she has another valued reason to stay and enjoy.

Meet Marilyn Milligan Groves

It's been a long odyssey from growing up in College Hill as Marilyn Lee McKee to living back home in Wichita as Marilyn Milligan Groves. After a trip to Europe in the early fifties she went away to college in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and stayed away almost 40 years.

She came home often to visit, but was busy raising her own family in Massachusetts with husband Tom Milligan. They had met in North Carolina in the mid fifties. He was an audio visual engineer and she was editing college sports film for TV syndication. Furthering his education at MIT took them to Massachusetts. Their family grew to two sons and a daughter.

What brought Marilyn and Tom back in 1990 was her mother's illness. Though her mother died within the year, Marilyn and Tom stayed in Wichita for a new facet of life. In the RV they bought in 1986, they managed to tour 48 states and five Canadian provinces before Tom's death in 1999.

While her mother was still living, Marilyn started reading for WRRS, the Wichita Radio Reading Service. It's been an ongoing weekly event for this radio-TV major for most of the last 13 years. She reads with enthusiasm and interest. "I never was on air before, but I had read news constantly."

She started as a substitute reader for The Wall Street Journal which was okay. Her mother had been secretary-treasurer and a veepee of the Cardwell Manufacturing Company and had also been part of an investment company. So Marilyn was used to reading the stocks. Today it's a little tamer. She reads from USA Today on Fridays.

She remarried several years ago to Loren Groves who has introduced her to country and western music (he's had or been in a band since the 1950s); rodeo-ing (he's been a bronc rider); and new and interesting foods (Loren's been a cook).

Meet Hugh Harding 

The first half of the '70s he became a TV director of newscasts and commercials. From 1976-89 he was in charge of advertising for the Dillon Supermarket chain.

Brite Voice Systems' national advertising was his next challenge. He eventually returned to radio at KFDI in the 1990s and moved behind the scenes in advertising again after the stations were sold. He finally retired in 2004 from Viking Office Products, formerly the nation's largest catalogue office products company.

Today he takes his daily walks in the park, keeps up with is large family of five children, seven grandchildren and three great grandchildren.

He has belonged to IATSE, the theatre and stage employees' union as organizer, shop steward and follow spot operator. As such he has seen many of the premiere rock concerts, circuses, and musical productions from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band to Frank Sinatra. The tall, affable man has found every aspect of his various careers interesting.

Currently at WRRS he is researching and recording biographies of the U.S. presidents.  "The early ones can be done in an hour. The later ones take two."

There are tentative plans to dabble in this and that with old broadcast friends. All in all, it has been a satisfying and interesting journey with many more stops, detours, and even a few ham opportunities over the next horizon.                

Meet Chris Hornbacker

Like to read? Have a close relative who is vision-impaired for whom you would like to do something nice? This "combination of ingredients" could make you an ideal candidate to become a Wichita Radio Reading Service volunteer!

…as was the case with Chris Hornbaker, who has read The Wichita Eagle Monday mornings for the past two years. She also substitutes for other publications on occasions when another reader is unable to perform.
"I knew that when I retired (from a position as a secretary at Cessna), I wanted to do something else. I tried being a hospital volunteer, but that really wasn’t a good fit. Then, I saw an article in the newspaper soliciting volunteers to read for WRRS and decided, ‘That’s for me!’

"I love to read, and I really can’t understand people who don’t – it boggles my mind!"

Another factor that entered into the equation was the fact that Hornbaker had two relatives who couldn’t see.

"How wonderful it was that they had a service where stories could be read to them," she said.

Born in Missouri and reared in Iowa, Hornbaker came to Wichita in the 1960s. She has completed some classwork at Wichita State University.

Although she enjoys reading the newspaper for WRRS, Hornbaker would like to branch out into recording novels for broadcast. "Although recently, I’ve been reading a lot of mysteries," she said, " I will read anything I can get my hands on. James Michener is a favorite author, but people give me a lot of different books, and I trade a lot at local used book stores."

In addition to reading, Hornbaker is an active gardener, tending flower plots around her home. She also participates in archery, including some competition in the sport, and she used to golf some. "I’d really like to travel more as well," she says.

Hornbaker’s husband, Jim, is retired from Boeing. The couple has a grown son, Shawn.                                   

Meet Carmen Hytche

"It sounded like a really good fundraising event. It was really different," Carmen Hytche asserted, speaking of the WRRS Mini Golf tournament. She has gone from playing with a team in the event in 2003 to coordinating it in 2004 and will again this year. She also now sits on the Wichita Radio Reading Development Board to help improve community awareness of the audio service for print impaired.

She joked about having an all Hytche sisters team next time. She is the youngest of five, "on the good side of forty." As such she actually attended East High with a few of her six great nieces and nephews. "Explain that to your peers."

As the current Director of Special Events and Community Relations for Wichita State's Office of University Relations, she does a lot of explaining, coordinating and planning for her alma mater. It's a busy year-round schedule of interesting events and personalities including the Milton and Gladys Glickman Lecture Series of distinguished speakers. Her most recent charge is Mo Rocca of NPR fame. This involved rescheduling his appearance after a family emergency last year.

Carmen worked in customer service for TriCon, before PepsiCo broke up the Pizza Hut group and moved her division to Louisville, Kentucky. She was very close to completing her WSU degree and opted to stay. "Wichita is a great place to live."

Her part time work in the Alumni Association office while an undergraduate, whetted her interest in university relations and when her current position came open in 2000, she applied and won the job. She is currently adding to her original integrated degree in marketing, public relations and journalism with a certification in applied communications.

This pursuit has eclipsed casual or recreational reading "with three text books in one class." But she did find time last year to visit Memphis' many musical icons, museums and blues venues. She's a fan of rhythm and blues and "most music with the exception of heavy metal." She enjoyed a free concert in the park, the W.C. Handy museum, the STAX Music Museum. All in all, a wonderful trip. "I am making notes on place to visit in Chicago next."

Carmen brings this upbeat enthusiasm to every topic from her extensive family relations to her campus work and WRRS. She and WSU President Donald Beggs "came to our jobs at the same time," and she waxes enthusiastically about her ultimate boss' interest in things on and off campus. She feels she has made good choices so far from living in Wichita to serving with WRRS--a great attitude to share with others.

Meet Olivia Jacobs

Olivia Jacobs (nee Snider of Ellis, Kansas) is used to reading aloud. She's been a librarian at Wichita Heights High School since 1991. From 1969-91, she taught English at North High School. "I hear actors say it's wonderful to be paid for something I enjoy doing. I'm surrounded by wonderful young people and get to talk. I still think of myself as a kid. They keep you young."

Last year she read to her late husband John when his vision failed. A friend suggested she continue, and now on WRRS her audience is much larger. Since September she reads Newsweek for an hour a week.

Olivia laughs that her favorite past time is visiting bookstores that accommodate her love of reading and her new interest in tea. She is also new to wine tasting where she has met some interesting people as well as a number of new wines.

The most interesting person she's known was her husband John, an Air Force veteran who worked for Raddison Hotels' Lassen. After he went to Chicago to help open a new hotel, he proposed on the phone, which proves the old saying, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

During their twenty-eight years they traveled to Europe and purchased a VW camper bus to enhance their trips on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State where the primitive beaches and trails were a magnet. At home her idea of the outdoors is Botanica, John's was the golf course. She is also a regular at the Wichita Symphony and Chamber Music at the Barn.

"I spend most of my time reading so the true joy of WRRS is that reading is so central to our needs. Michele (Heflin) is so pleasant and vivacious and accommodating. . . she makes the job (at WRRS) easy."