She's also very busy at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church and its outreach through Venture House. There she is a representative payee for people required to have someone responsible for their finances. Like WRRS, it is a program near and dear to her heart.

She has also flown off to distant points for the American Red Cross. She helps victims through the complexities of reclaiming their lives after disasters.

She brings a wry wit to every aspect of her life, personal and professional. She spent a long career writing commercials for radio and television and print. The list of past employers includes KAKE TV and Radio, KAKZ AM, KIRL (owned by Buddy Rodgers and Mary Pickford, the girl with the curls) KFDI, KPTS, and Quillen Elsea Advertising. She made the obscure famous and the famous her friends. She said that such a long list made it appear she couldn't hold a job, but in fact she always did the job to the nth degree with professional good humor.

Her family includes Susan, an Ohio lawyer with two children. Patrick has two children currently at Wichita State University, and Daniel has remained single and serene. Her late husband, Deke, was a Marine and Kansas highway patrolman.

Her family also includes the hundred of WRRS listeners who have heard her familiar voice for a quarter century. "I'll keep reading until they say, Betsy, go home." But seriously, she declares she gets so much out of reading and thinks anyone with the time and dedication to-do it will also. "It will certainly improve your reading skills."

Meet Roger Klingman

Wichita Radio Reading Service volunteer Roger Klingman is an avid collector of military radios. In his collection, he has virtually all of the infantry radios from World War II, and infantry walkie talkies from the Korean Conflict. He also has some WWII aircraft radios and submarine radios. Recently, he has added backpack radios from the war in Vietnam.

Each year on Veterans’ Day, Nov. 11, he organizes a display of his radios "…as a tribute to the RTOS (radio telephone operators) who fought in the various conflicts," he says.

For WRRS, Klingman has read U.S. News and World Report each Monday afternoon for the past 15+ years. "I especially like the history articles," he says, "but I see the value in the political and business features as well." Klingman especially remembers an issue where he was able to read a lost letter from Abraham Lincoln printed in the magazine.

A graduate of Phillips University, Enid, Okla., Klingman has put his interest in history to good use in his career. He currently teaches history, government and geography for Butler Community College on McConnell Air Force Base. He has retired from a career of teaching social studies at Wichita’s South and East High Schools, Hadley Middle School and Metro Midtown High School. In 1974, he was cited as the district’s Outstanding Young Educator.

Klingman feels a strong attachment to his listeners. When the 9/11 commission report came out, he purchased a copy and made arrangements for extra time to read the report on WRRS.

"Everyone on the commercial media was talking about how great the report was," Klingman said, "and I felt that our listeners needed to be familiar with the information as well, so I bought the book and read it.

"I want to make sure that our listeners feel included in what’s going on in the world," he concluded.

An accomplished public speaker, Klingman has also established a commendable reputation over the last few years as a leader with the Toastmasters (the public speaking group; not the electrical appliances). He is hoping to affiliate with a group that meets at McConnell.

Klingman and his wife, Linda, have been married for some 17 years. They have a dog, Orwell, "…who looks just like the RCA Victor dog," he concluded.

Meet Jeff Koch

Jeff Koch (pronounced Cook) is embarking on a second career, this time in elementary education. The Wichita native earned a law degree at Kansas University and actually practiced four years in the wilds of Billings, Montana. He decided after two years of clerking for a judge and two years of civil litigation, his temperament was not well suited to the law.

Now back at Wichita State University he is about to complete his elementary education degree and teach fourth graders, an ideal age for learning he believes. "They have that built-in desire to learn." He should know-- his mother is a teacher. His father is a CPA. He also has a younger brother and sister.

Before law, he was a music major in Texas and still sings bass in a local church choir. He sang with the symphony chorale in Billings. He is one of the youngest, as well as newest readers for WRRS. But he's not new to reading for the print and vision impaired. While at KU in law school he read for their Audio Reader service, and did the same in Billings.

He is reading biographies... so far, William Wallace, Braveheart, and then David Breshears, Mount Everest climber and producer of the IMAX film on the climb. His hour plays back on Sunday afternoons. Jeff sees it as another opportunity to give back to his community and he's really proud to do it for those who can't do it for themselves.

Meet Kathy Kolarik

"I love to read. I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t read."

It is this love of the written word that has led Kathy Kolarik to become a volunteer with the Wichita Radio Reading Service. Kolarik records western novels aired on the service at 5 p.m. Saturdays. She especially likes Zane Gray and Louis L’Amour, but enjoys reading a wide variety of literature.

A WRRS volunteer for the past 2½ -3 years, Kolarik is very high on the services provided on the air. "Being able to share something I can do with someone who can’t is very gratifying," Kolarik says. "If I were unable to read, I would really appreciate it if someone would read to me."

In addition to her regular program on westerns, she is also happy to fill in with other programs when a substitute is needed.

While the focus of WRRS is on the vision-impaired, Kolarik is well aware of its value in other areas. "I have a friend with a disability that doesn’t allow her to turn pages of a book," she says, "and she really appreciates being able to listen to the books, magazines, and newspapers that come to her over the radio."

A graduate of Ark City High School, Kolarik has lived her entire life within 70 miles of Wichita. She is a volunteer for the election board and an RSVP volunteer in addition to her work with WRRS. Hobbies include gardening, crocheting and cross stitch. For her personal reading, she enjoys medical articles, devotionals, the Reader’s Digest, and Capper’s Weekly.

Along with her work with WRRS, Kolarik read for Envision for a while and has recorded books on tape for the Caldwell school system.

Kolarik lives in Wichita with her daughter, Mary Kolarik, and two rescued cats, Gidget and Grumph.

As for her weekly stints into the Old West, Kolarik says, "I hope they enjoy listening half as much as I enjoy doing it for them."

Meet Edith Knox

Edith Knox describes herself as coming from a family of all females. As the mother of three daughters, she didn't expend a lot of energy learning about sports in her younger years, so it is especially interesting that, in addition to reading the "Wichitalk" section of The Wichita Eagle, she spends the rest of her volunteer time engrossed in the sports section of the paper, bringing the exploits of the Shockers, Wranglers, Royals, et al, alive for her listeners. She's been a WRRS volunteer for almost a year.

"Sports gives me a lot of information I probably otherwise would not know," she says.

A native or rural Virginia, Knox graduated from Virginia State College (now University) with a degree in elementary education. She spent 25 years as a teacher, much of that time at Dunbar and Price elementary schools in Wichita. The same desire to help out other people is what led her to WRRS. "I'm a reader," she said, "and I'm always looking for opportunities to read and to help others The Radio Reading Service is a good way to do both."

Like many other things, WRRS' good fortune came as a result of a family tragedy. "My older sister went blind from glaucoma," she said," and I was looking for ways to help her out. I didn't find the service in time to help her, but it's giving me an opportunity to help others with the same condition."

Knox also keeps busy with her other "career," the Knox Center, an alcoholic treatment center for African Americans here in Wichita. "My late husband discovered he had a problem in this area, and there was no treatment facility available to help him. We went to work and established one, with the help of the Governor of Kansas, who made this a priority."

Knox subsequently went on to receive a master's degree in counseling and school psychology from Wichita State University, left teaching, and went to work for the center, formerly known as NEDA, the Northeast Drug Alcohol Referral and Tracking Station.

In addition to volunteering for WRRS, Knox is active in her church, St. Albans Episcopal, the NAACP, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.  She is also part of the McAdams Golden Age Group and a member of the Wichita Council of Elders.

Knox is the mother of three daughters, two of whom are twins.  She also has three granddaughters, and three great-granddaughters, two of whom are also twins.

Meet Jim Linder

Jim Linder is funny-- whether reading USA Today on WRRS or in person. And, the personable Okie from Waynoka has always been at ease wherever he is. . . in class, on a pitcher's mound in college, and especially on the golf course where his handicap is now "being old."

Jim came to Wichita in 1950 "with $12.50 and my new bride." He started Linder and Associates ("Always have associates!") in 1962. He retired in 1993, but is still chairman of the board, "which is like being a potted plant in the lobby, but no one dusts you." Jim's company is in the heavy industrial electrical field where there "is less competition" and they could prosper. Their work spreads from Arizona to Florida.

Jim learned his alphabet and phonics at age four so he was able to read to his grandmother when her eyesight failed. He spelled the words and she put the words together. His wife suggested he do it again after retirement for WRRS. He finds USA Today more colorful literally than the Wall Street Journal he previously read for three years.

His son James followed in his dad's field and now lives in St. Louis. Amy is raising her children in Andover, Massachusetts and the other two daughters, Cynthia and Barbara live in Wichita.

Jim Linder always loved graphing, scaling and number crunching. Today he spends a lot of time with computers "pretending to manage my portfolio."

Meet Shannon Littlejohn

Chances are that brochure, newsletter, small newspaper, or proposal you are reading, Shannon Littlejohn read it first.

She works at her favorite jobs of editing, proof-reading, writing original articles. She also uses these skills as a WRRS board member.

Journalism is the family business. Her father, Paul Dannelley, was a reporter for the Wichita Eagle; later, he ran a PR firm, and his last 20 years he was a college professor teaching the next generation. Her mother was a reporter on the competing Wichita Beacon.

Shannon spent 12 years on the Wichita Eagle's op-ed page, "the best job in the building." She read the reams of letters to the editor and selected them, edited and proofread and enjoyed her work and made lots of friends.

She now works from home, still editing, proofing, writing and herding two cats, Max and Murphy. She and husband, Jess, have been married 22 years. He is her financial wizard and computer guru, stepping in when she needs tech support.

They own a vintage VW camper that they set up annually at Winfield for the bluegrass festival. They look for other excuses to drive the van as well.

Working for herself gives her flexibility to do volunteer work and get involved in projects. Her five years on the WRRS board have been fun and productive. She's worked on the miniature golf tournament that has raised awareness of the reading service, its mission and scope, and also some money for the vital receivers. The receivers are special fixed-tuned radios which are loaned to print of visually-impaired people in a sixty-mile radius of Wichita.

She keeps very busy with other people's writing, but writes essays and poetry occasionally to share with her writers' group. The hope is she'll someday immortalize the adventures of Max and Murphy and maybe the adventure of the Margie A (a boat), but those are her stories to tell.

Meet Melody Manlove

"I wouldn't know what to do if I weren't living in plaster dust," Melody Manlove admits. She and husband Eric restored an 1886 Riverside Victorian. Now they are gutting and replumbing and wiring Eric's childhood home while simultaneously raising a college student, a high school student and a toddler.

Children are second nature to her. She and Eric were instrumental in designing the magnet school curriculum for Riverside School. Then she worked in it for eight years.

Currently she is in her fifth year as talented utility player at Maude Carpenter's Children's Home. "Originally I was hired as campus ministry director, but my job description has changed every year." She is now in charge of special events and fund raising while still concerning herself with the lives of the children at the home.

She also is the sign language interpreter at Central Church of Christ where Eric is children's minister and minister of music. Sign language is one of those many challenges she has accepted over the years and learned to enjoy with the accomplishment. Music, church and family are three important bonds in their marriage. They will celebrate twenty-five years in September.

Last fall her schedule finally allowed her to start reading USA Today for Wichita Radio Reading Service. USA Today is a new experience to her. She picks and chooses articles to fill the hour on Wednesday. She is hoping to add serializing a novel to the WRRS programming. She loves the Mitford series.

Meet John Madden

John Madden is ebullient, peripatetic, effusive, and pronounces them all with an engaging Dublin accent.  In the past two years he has exercised his vocal talents as a substitute reader for the Wichita Radio Reading Service. In his professional life he is a professional, motivational speaker who is on the go coast to coast and overseas addressing conventions, associations, corporate in house groups, and more. This then is the reason for his substitute position at WRRS.

He's lived in Wichita for 12 years, "the longest I've lived in any U.S. city." In the 20 years since a New Jersey based time-management company spirited him across the pond from England, John Madden has lived in eight U.S. cities including Boston, Orlando and Osage Beach, Mo. "Osage Beach was my conduit to Wichita," he laughs.

Wichita is his conduit to the motivational speaking world at large. Unlike that other John Madden of football, TV and commercial spokesman fame, WRRS' reader has no qualms about flying. Good thing, too, because in his professional life he has managed hotels in England, Amsterdam, Paris, and the United States.  But his bread and butter these days is motivating others in person, as an occasional actor in interactive DVDs and CD-ROMs made here in Wichita, and as an author of the book, "Leap, Don't Sleep."

John has also acted in Wichita and in Virginia in local theatre productions. But he is on the move much of the time and rehearsals and performances don't bend well around out of town engagements. He jokingly tells people that for some of his topical humor, "I use the same writers Jay Leno does," but goes on to give it the additional Madden touch.

He and his former wife became U.S. citizens in 2001. Their daughter is a New York based flight attendant and their son is in restaurant and catering management in Kansas City. When asked why he is still in Wichita, where he came years ago to work for a local hotel management chain, he explains, "At five-six, Wichita's short trees make me look taller."

Wichita is a far cry from his childhood in an Irish orphanage, Rescued and put to work by an aunt in her Dublin hotel, he and his brother have succeeded quite well. It's the message of success he takes out tinged with humor and energy in hotel ballrooms, corporate boardrooms and on people's bookshelves, PC's and TV screens. And, oh, yes, now and then on those all-important WRRS special receivers all over south central Kansas.



Meet Kathy Massey

Kathy Massey is an entertainer.  She holds a bachelor’s degree in music performance from Chapman University, Orange, California, and feels that performing in public is really great.

“What I enjoy the most is being able to perform and knowing that someone gets a chance to experience something they wouldn’t have otherwise,” she said.

Last February, her husband, Rainer, noticed an announcement that the Wichita Radio Reading Service was adding volunteers and suggested she look into volunteering.  She went to the internet and has spent the last few months as a substitute, reading mostly The Wichita Eagle so far, although she has also used her talents with Entertainment Weekly as well.

“I’m lucky that I have a day job that gives me the flexibility to come to the station for gigs during the day,” she says.

Interestingly enough, that day job is not in entertainment.  Massey began a master’s degree in mechanical engineering at Cal State Fullerton and completed it at Wichita State.  Today, she is employed by Boeing, and has been for the past 11 years.

“Eventually, I would like to begin reading books,” she says.  “But for now I’m happy as a substitute.  I think the service is marvelous.  The strength of the program is its consistency—it’s user friendly, something the listeners can depend on week after week.”

“I’m really glad we have the service,” she concluded, “both for people like me who like to read and for those who need to hear.  I’m happy to be involved.  Bridget and the staff have gone out of their way to make me—a newcomer—feel welcome.”

Massey is originally from Phoenix, Arizona.  She and Rainer, an Airbus engineer, live in Wichita with two dogs and two horses.

Meet Betty Marshall

Betty Marshall enjoys reading classic literature and modern mysteries. Sue Grafton, a popular writer of the latter, is one of her big favorites. In her early days with the Wichita Radio Reading Service, she also kept listeners up to date with current events by reading Newsweek magazine.

Westerns?
"I’d never read a western novel in my life…" she says.

So – naturally -- for WRRS, she now reads the Great Western Series, Saturdays at 5:30 p.m.

"My listeners have been great about giving me suggestions for novels they would like read," Marshall says, "so I’m never at a loss for material. Also, if I finish a novel with time left, rather than starting something new, I’ll fill out the hour with selections from a book I have by the cowboy poet, Baxter Black."

Marshall grew up in western Kansas "…during the Dust Bowl days." Following World War II, she attended Fort Hays State University as part of a PHT (‘putting hubby through’) program.

She established a career in property/casualty insurance, coming to Wichita in 1976 and working here until she retired.
In the 1990’s, she brought her vision-impaired mother from western Kansas to live with her in Wichita. "I had heard about the service and got my mother a receiver so that she could keep in touch with what was going on in the world," Marshall said. "I decided it was a great program and became a volunteer in 1996."

In addition to reading for WRRS, Marshall has another passion – quilting. "I quilt every day," she says, "and have done quite well in competitions." A member of the Prairie Quilt Guild and the Kansas Quilters organization, she has submitted three entries for the quilt show scheduled at Botanica in June.

A proud grandmother, she is happy to brag about her grandson and granddaughter, both of whom received appointments to the United States Military Academy at West Point. "As far as anyone can tell," Marshall concluded, "this is the first time a brother-sister team has ever attended the academy at the same time."

Meet Mike Mawhirter

People ask him, "Been flying all your life?" Mike Mawhirter grins and replies, "Nope, not yet." But he is still a semi retired professional pilot who enjoys the freedom as well as responsibility of flying, mostly in Cessna's Citation business jet. The Stafford, Kansas native has been a professional flier for 37 years and lived in Oklahoma, Louisiana, California. After four years in the Air Force running a flight simulator he opted for the real thing in the air as a civilian trainer of new pilots. He's also been in charter work and leasing of corporate planes.

Instead of becoming an airline pilot, he and his wife Ann returned to Kansas in 1972. Their son Sean, a musician, lives in Lawrence. After 12 years in Wichita, they moved to Derby, "into an established neighborhood." They still commute to downtown Wichita to the Church of Christ. They've been married 34 years.

Working for Cessna he belonged to the Cessna Flying Club and the family flew Cessna 210s a lot, visiting his younger brother and sister in Seattle and Montana. On the job he's been to Europe and South America often. They also love to ski and use their timeshare in Colorado.

As a new volunteer at the Wichita Radio Reading Service, Mike pre-records science fiction which is then played back for listeners on Saturdays. It's a fairly new venture that he hopes is going well. He's enjoying it anyway. For himself he reads techno-thrillers and Louis Lamour. Ann is a mystery fan. He also drives his 55 Olds Holiday and 50 Ford Crestliner in parades.

He emphasizes that an old car should be driven often to keep it in shape. He intends to do the same for his pilot skills "as long as the good Lord allows me to do it safely."

Meet Misty Maynard

Readers of a certain age will recall movies where Judy Garland turns to Mickey Rooney and says, "Let’s do a show!" Pop’s barn is immediately transformed into Radio City Music Hall, and a heartbeat later, the proverbial "cast of thousands" is presenting a song and dance production worthy of Busby Berkeley to a huge audience applauding vigorously.

According to Wichita Radio Reading Service volunteer Misty Maynard, that isn’t exactly the way it happens.
In 1983, Maynard, a native Kansan with drama degrees from Southwestern College and the University of Kansas, purchased an old church building in Kechi, KS with the intention of establishing a summer theatre. This summer, the Kechi Playhouse is celebrating 25 years of operations.

Maynard’s association with WRRS goes back almost as far. In 1987, when WRRS was located on 17th St., adjacent to the KMUW studios, she had a small part in a radio drama about the Flint Hills being recorded at the radio station. As she was killing time between takes, someone from WRRS happened by, struck up a conversation and mentioned that the service needed readers as well.

Since then, she has substituted for regular readers, mostly reading the Wichita Eagle and recording books.
"I enjoy the variety," she says. "I like to feel like I’m doing something really important.
"Then, too, as a theatre person, I enjoy the live performance aspect. I like knowing there’s another person at the other end listening," she concluded.

Maynard does not take a salary from the theatre. Instead, she supports herself as a teacher at Cowley County Community College and other institutions. She teaches speech and humanities and general psychology at the 47th Street South facility and occasionally on the Mulvane campus. She has also taught English and theatre courses.
   
 Meet Jo Ellen McPheeters

One of the cheeriest voices on WRRS, the Wichita Radio Reading Service, belongs to Jo Ellen McPheeters (nee Hutchens) who records an hour each week of gleanings from Good Old Days and Reminiscence magazines. "The older I get the more my voice fits the topics. I am even seeing things I remember." Despite hat, she isn't that old. Jo Ellen Hutchens graduated from East High School in 1966 and Friends University in 1970 with a degree in speech and drama. "So I immediately became an English teacher."

For the last 14 years she has taught vocational needs to special education children. Currently she spreads her days in each of five districts, including Goddard day school, Cheney, Maize, Valley Center and Sedgwick. The latter two are closest to home.  She listens to a lot of books on tape during the week. Her husband Jim, however, commuted for years between his job in McPherson's school district (from which he retired) and their home outside Valley Center where they have lived for 19 years.

She is a mother of three, Clayton, daughter Colonsay and Casey, grandmother of four (two of each kind). She is proud owner of Peanuts, a 14-year-old Missouri fox trotter gelding "who gets lots of riding time on holidays." She waited 40 years for a horse of his gentle qualities. The two horses she had as a teenager were "willful" to say the least.

Jo Ellen and Jim have been to Europe three times. "Once I got to use my high school and college French. They were very longsuffering with me." On an earlier trip they chaperoned the Marion, Kansas German Club to Germany where "they were all too shy to speak to Germans so I let them translate to me" and they made out with a few phrases.

The third trip with family was to Great Britain with only minimal language difficulties. They took the twice-weekly ferry to the island for which their daughter Colonsay is named. "It's the most out of the way place in the British Isles, near the island of Iona." With the Gulf Stream's influence it was a temperate place to bike and visit with the island's hundred people. The McPheeters' ancestral roots are supposedly there as well.

So the city girl lives on five country acres. The drama major teaches special education students, and uses her speech skills to entertain and inform WRRS' print impaired listenership. She finally has a horse to ride and spoil and a family whose members seem happy and unspoiled. All in all, pretty good old days to reminisce about.

Rick Milhon's affable voice is back on WRRS, recapping the Eagle on Thursday afternoons. He's comfortable in front of a microphone . . . as a musician, choir director at St. Alban's Episcopal Church (since 1990), and a radio announcer at KAKE radio in Wichita and KKOY in El Dorado.

The Emporia State College speech graduate minored in music and the U.S. Navy. Rick played clarinet and alto saxophone in a college sponsored band-- The Pastels-- before he served three years as a navy ensign and LTJG in the early sixties. He spent the rest of that decade spinning records at KAKE radio.

His interesting career path has taken him through broadcasting, insurance, banking and public relations. He and his wife Marilyn now reside in Bel Aire after twenty-five years living in El Dorado. They have two grown children--a son and daughter.

Marilyn is an antique dealer and Rick helps her set up for the various shows where she displays her finds. They've toured England for antiques to bring back to Kansas. On one of their trips he took a side trip to Ireland while she bought her wares in England.

This quietly exuberant man enjoys sharing his talents and love of music and reading. He originally came to WRRS after a number of years away from radio "to keep my pipes working and maintain my reading skills." He did and then parlayed that into a stint at Brite Voice Systems, reading news, sports and commercials on a national circuit and always with that characteristic smile in his voice. We're happy to have Rick back as a volunteer reader at WRRS.

Maxine Moore

When Wichita Radio Reading Service volunteer Maxine Moore was a young child, she developed a love of reading, largely due to her grandmother, who read the daily newspaper religiously.  When Moore became a teenager, and her grandmother's vision failed and she was no longer able to turn newspaper pages by herself, Moore went over to her house each day to read the newspaper to her.

It is a simple progression, then, to find Moore reading the Local and State sections of The Wichita Eagle on the air each Friday.  She has been reading for 26 years, beginning in 1981.

“This fits in with what I enjoy doing,” Moore says. “My family used to read to me when I was growing up.  Now, I can return the favor for people who can really benefit from the service.

“I find it very fulfilling,” she concluded.

For WRRS, Moore covers local news and information, and, especially, the obituaries.  “We get phone calls if we don't include the obits,” Moore said.  “We generally avoid editing stories, but since there are so many obits, we can't read them totally.  We do make sure that we cover name, time and place of service and any memorials.”

Originally from Madison, WI, Moore began her college studies at the University of Wisconsin.  Later, she met and married Bob Moore, and traveled extensively as he pursued a career with Trane Air Conditioning.  The couple, married for 60 years now, has four children, ten grandchildren, and “the first great-grandchild due literally at any moment.”

When the family settled in Wichita, Moore completed her degree at Wichita State.  Following graduation, Moore went to work for the university in continuing education, developing seminars especially for women.  Later, she devoted time to organizing courses for nontraditional students who were returning to school to complete their degrees.  She retired in 1980.

Recently, she and her husband have been very active in taking advantage of the free tuition in non-credit courses WSU offers for seniors.  “I took those classes that I never had time for before,” she said.  “I began with an exercise class, then took philosophy, music and several others.”

Moore and her husband used to travel extensively, visiting almost all of the 48 continental United States and Mexico.  That may go on hold now as they sold their Airstream trailer last year.

Despite being one of the senior readers for WRRS, Moore plans to continue.  “I really enjoy working with the people – the staff (especially Bridget who's great) and the other volunteers.  This has proven to be a great experience all the way around,” she concluded.


Loren Pack

Loren Pack is another volunteer who has literally come "up through the ranks" of the Wichita Radio Reading Service. Since he began in 1988, he has read the Wednesday afternoon grocery ads and the Wichita Eagle recap prior to finding his present niche a few years ago – hosting the "Mystery Hour" broadcast on Saturday afternoons.

Pack enjoys reading in general and especially for WRRS. "It’s an interesting connection with your audience you feel reading into a microphone," he says. "It’s like reading one-on-one with another person." Although he has read the works of a number of authors, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a particular favorite. "I really enjoy Sherlock Holmes," he says," and I am also especially fond of Lillian Jackson Braun, author of ‘The Cat Who…’ series."

Pack was born in Salina, Kansas, and came to Wichita some 30 years ago to attend Wichita State University. In addition to earning a bachelor’s degree from WSU, he also earned a Master of Social Work (MSW) from the University of Kansas. He is employed as social work coordinator for the Wichita Public Schools.

Not surprisingly, like many WRRS volunteers, Pack enjoys reading as a hobby. A resident of Riverside, he also devotes free time to taking long walks in his neighborhood. "I’m a people watcher," he said. "If I’m not walking, I enjoy swinging on my front porch swing and talking to passers-by. It’s a great way to interact with my neighbors."
Recently, Pack has also gotten into collecting antiques. "I really like arts and craft items from the early 1900s to the 1920s," he said.

Pack is married. His wife, Leslie, is also employed by Wichita Public Schools. The couple has three children: a daughter, Lindsay, who is a student at the University of Kansas, and two sons enrolled in locals schools: Alex, a seventh grader, and Caleb, a fourth grader.

Meet Jan Payne

Jan Payne took a year off and moved to Eugene Oregon to be with her daughter and grandchildren in Eugene, Oregon. Except for the year away, she's been reading faithfully for the Wichita Radio Reading Service.  Because a friend of a friend was reading for a similar service in Florida, Jan found WRRS.  She began volunteering at the reading service in 1991 and for most of those years read National Geographic and loved it. After a one year hiatus in Eugene, Oregon, to be with her daughter's family of three flame-haired grandchildren, she returned to Wichita and now reads biographies. Her latest project was Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Her reading aloud dates back to her rural Sedgwick County childhood reading to her blind grandmother. It's where she also developed her love of the great outdoors. So much so she is on the executive committee of the Southwind chapter of the Sierra Club.

She found Eugene to be bicycle-friendly, voted best in the country by Bicycling magazine. Here in Wichita she bicycle-commutes to work at the Wichita Clinic where she works in the recovery room of the day surgery area.

Locally her family consists of a rag doll cat and a real dog named George. But there's a larger family out there listening an hour each week as she reads to them from the latest biography she's chosen to share.If someone you know is print handicapped, contact WRRS for the use of a special fixed-tuned receiver. They might benefit from Jan's long experience enthusiastically reading aloud.

Meet Bill Pearce

A very upbeat Bill Pearce and microphones are not strangers. He worked in radio in college in Indianola, Iowa, many years ago and later was the first full time employee at KSOF FM, the former radio station of Friends University. It was a great place to use his music degree from Simpson College.

So, when Bill looked around for a volunteer opportunity he selected WRRS. He does two hours a week, reading Sports Illustrated on tape for later broadcast and then does an hour live from Entertainment Weekly. It is far different than announcing classical or jazz selections where talking is separated by long music interludes. Reading for two hours is intoxicating to say the least. This is especially true for trying to correctly pronounce names of many tennis, baseball and soccer players.

Bill also took up photography in college and it has been a mainstay of employment, income and satisfaction. He takes the pictures to illustrate his own articles for model railroad magazines, often using his own layout to illustrate a point.

He also edits an employee newsletter and shoots industrial photos. "No portraits, no weddings." His industrial subjects don't talk back. He and his wife, Sue, travel as often as possible. They prefer setting their own agendas and staying long enough to get acquainted with towns in Italy, Portugal and Spain.

Bill prefers fiction for reading, leaning toward mysteries. He relaxes with model trains that he began building 14 years ago. He is a fourth generation Kansan with interesting relatives in local history. Sue is locating some of these connections in her genealogical searches.

His WRRS career began last fall, and it's one of those things Bill Pearce hopes to continue. His professional background is a good one for this important activity for our listeners.

Meet Katie Pott

In the beginning of WRRS there was Katie Pott. Well, almost the beginning, "Within the first year I think," as she admits to being the oldest remaining pioneer still reading for the print handicapped at the Wichita Radio Reading Service. That goes back about 20 some years-- Wednesday after Wednesday reading the front section news and the opinion and editorial pages of The Wichita Eagle.

"I would be home reading it for myself, I might as well be reading it for someone else as well." Her children had outgrown being read to and so she found WRRS. "It was just a short walk across campus and very handy."

Katie Pott is a jayhawker through and through. Born in Salina, she moved to Wichita at age ten with her parents and got her history degree at Kansas University. Much later, while working at WSU, she earned a Master's degree in anthropology.

Katie then raised a son and daughter who both live now in the Kansas City metropolitan area with her three grandchildren. Her daughter lives in Overland Park, her son on the Missouri side. Supervising grandchildren while her children are out of town is a delightful diversion.

Her part time diversion puts her history degree to work at St. John's Episcopal Church, the city's' oldest. Many of the church's founders were also instrumental in founding and growing the city including, James R. Mead and Nathaniel English whose properties abutted at Douglas, east of Broadway.

She spends many hours eking out tidbits from the microfilm of Wichita's early newspapers at the public library. She has written two histories of the church's earliest decades, the 1870's and 1880's and has begun on the next volume. The work delights and intrigues her wondering what significant events or minutiae will turn up next.

In the meantime each Wednesday she turns her interest to the current headlines and opinions and editorials in the modern newspaper for WRRS. She still wears her crown of longevity without pretension and with tongue in cheek.

Meet Angie Prather

As a student at WSU, Angie Prather volunteered as a WRRS reader for several years. Then she graduated and left the area for several years. When she returned, time constraints meant she wouldn’t be able to read regularly, but she maintained her connection to the service by serving on the WRRS Development Board, which is where she is today.

"I was exposed to WRRS as a college freshman," Prather said. "My sorority, Delta Gamma, had aid to the blind as its philanthropy, and I was able to join WRRS as my contribution to the project."

"I love being able to read," she continued. "It brings a great deal of joy and really opens up my world. WRRS provides an incredible service for those who don’t have the ability to do it for themselves."

Prather was born in Wichita but moved around quite a lot as a youngster. Following her graduation from WSU in 1981, she was on the road again, this time as a result of her husband’s job. She moved back permanently in 1985.

She is currently working as the marketing manager for the Wichita Clinic and is very pleased with her company’s support of the reading service. "The Clinic has made several financial contributions to support WRRS, and both physicians and staff played in the recent Mini-Masters Golf Tournament," she said. "It’s great to work for a company that supports both its staff and its clients like this," she concluded.

Prather’s husband, Brett is a local architect who has formed his own company, Architectural Innovations. They have three children, Erica and Garret, who are attending the University of Kansas, and Kelsey, who is in high school. Kibblez, a soft-coated Wheaten terrier, and a cat, Mr. Pickles, complete the family unit.

Prather is proud of her work with WRRS. "I’m grateful to all of the volunteers who have worked so long and so hard to provide the service," she said. "It is so valuable to those who use it."
           

Meet Dolores Rensel

Dolores Rensel, her husband, Daniel, and their three sons are all certified river rats, avid back packers and veterans of the Al-Can highway. When Dolores and Daniel met on a backpacking trip in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming they were in their mid-thirties.

"We were compatible enough we figured we would have no problem vacationing together." In fact, they honeymooned river rafting on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. After quickly having three boys, as soon as the youngest was five, the whole family went down the Colorado again on rafts. This past summer two of the boys went rafting in Colorado and still love it.

Dolores, now retired from teaching, has been reading USA Today for two years of Tuesdays for Wichita Radio Reading Service listeners.

When they met Daniel, an industrial engineer, lived in Dallas. Dolores was principal of a Chicago suburban elementary school. They raised the boys in both metro areas before moving to Wichita with Rent-A-Center. Dolores was delighted to find such affordable housing in Wichita's suburbs and the boys all graduated from Valley Center High School. One son has graduated K-State, one from Wichita State, and the last is still at K-State.

Dolores took time off from her career to raise the boys and then went back to teaching at Butler County Community College. She finally retired a few years after her husband and now they can travel, tent camp and backpack or river raft.

They have graduated to an inflatable mattress with a battery powered pump. "It's tough at our age to be blowing up air mattresses with your lungs at 10,000 feet." They also have a larger tent now to accommodate the comfort and convenience of the mattress. But the wilderness, its challenge and joy still keep them on the same trails they were on when they met . . . three sons and many rivers ago.

Meet Fred Romereim

One characteristic of the best volunteers is that they seldom are content to serve just one organization. Fred Romereim has read for the Wichita Radio Reading Service since about 1990. He began as a substitute reading the daily newspaper. Today, he reads "…anything about Kansas history – tales of what happened in and around Kansas and the Great Plains," each Wednesday afternoon.

Certainly a commendable record, but, he has been active as a medical driver for the Red Cross for a half century as well, earning "Volunteer of the Year" honors in 2006. He has also just (September 2007) received his 50-Year pin from the Masons. Last year, he served as president of the Wichita West Lions Club, topping off a career in the organization whose motto is "We Serve."

In addition, although he now calls himself "just a regular attender," Romereim has served on "just about every board and committee for his church, New Covenant Methodist Church (formerly known as St. Luke’s Methodist).
"When someone asks me about volunteering for WRRS, I say ‘Go for it!,’" Romereim said. "It is very enjoyable to do, and it doesn’t take a lot of time. Most of all, it brings a lot of comfort to those who might not have the opportunity to keep up on the news and entertainment otherwise."

Romereim enjoyed reading to his children when they were younger, and he is selective about material. "I really don’t handle the heavy philosophical stuff real well," he said, "but I do enjoy reading aloud."

A North Dakota native, Romereim moved to Kansas in 1954. He is a graduate of Baker University who earned a master’s degree from Then Emporia State Teachers College (now ESU). He completed additional studies at Northern State University, Aberdeen, S.D., and the University of Kansas. He also completed class work at Land Institute seminars at the University of Oklahoma, the University of North Dakota School of Mines at Rapid City, N.D., and at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Ill.

"Although I was a social science major as an undergraduate," Romereim said, "I took enough courses that I was able to teach science courses at Horace Mann Middle School in Wichita." He also made use of the WRRS receivers in special education classes at Lawrence Elementary School, prior to retiring from teaching in 1989.

While many things remain the same with reading for WRRS, he notes one major policy difference: "When I was first starting out, we had the chance to deliver radio receivers to some of our clients," Romereim said. "That gave us a chance to meet and get to know some of our listeners."

Romereim and his wife, Lucille, have two grown sons and two grown daughters. They are grandparents to ten, and have welcomed two great-grandchildren into the family.
               
Meet Cynthia Rutherford

Cynthia Rutherford is currently reading Amy Tan's "The Kitchen God's Wife" to WRRS listeners. She also reads National Geographic to her audience. She began reading for the service five years ago while still teaching at Newman University. Cynthia has since "aged out" and retired from sharing her many years of education experience with aspiring teachers.

She came to Wichita with her husband Bill "shortly after the schools were integrated" and taught eighth grade English for 13 years. Along the way she earned her master's degree and by the time she was ready to earn her doctorate, she was also ready to retire from USD 259 and move over to Newman University.

She did stay with the district long enough to see the middle school concept take hold under Stuart Berger. Working on her master's degree she had become convinced that the middle school was the proper break out for shepherding developing students.

She and husband Bill will celebrate 50 years of marriage on December 20th, probably somewhere south and warm like Mexico. They are fascinated with the indigenous ruins of pre-Colombian civilizations.

She and her sculptor husband have traveled extensively. This past summer they returned to their Chicago area roots. "I landed there in high school after attending about 13 other schools." She explains," My parents moved a lot." Although they attended the same high school they didn't meet till after . . . when Bill's girl friend suggested he go out with Cynthia Sinclair while she was out of town. It was the right thing to do for Bill and Cynthia and they are still fast friends with Bill's former girl friend.

Their two sons both went into broadcasting. The older son is still in the game in Denver, but the younger son switched to designing eye glass frames in Montgomery, Alabama.

Soon after marrying, Bill went into the army and was stationed in Korea. She joined him shortly after the armistice, possibly the first civilian woman into the country after the armistice. It was an eye opening experience that she still cherishes.

The other thing she cherishes is the ability to read and share it with WRRS listeners, especially, trying to describe the stunning photos National Geographic is noted for. She admits there has been little listener feedback regarding her weekly presentation, "No raves, but no 'get that woman off the air.'" She says that, as she does everything, with a joyful, ebullient expression in her pleasant voice.

Meet Pat Shumard

Pat (Patricia) Shumard has found a lot of ways to spend a fruitful and fun retirement with her husband Jack. One of them is reading the Local State, Obituary and Business and Money sections of the Wichita Eagle for the Wichita Radio Reading Service (WRRS)., She is an eight year veteran of this weekly process.

For 38 years she taught kindergarten and emphasizes with her deep, infectious laugh that she was hardly taller than her charges. For more than 20 years of it she sat on the floor and read and told stories to a parade of children at Jefferson School. She still goes back to her second home and checks books in and out and reshelves them. "I have a pair of jeans with the knees out from shelving books near the floor."

The love she shares with her listeners of all ages she learned in her home town of Triplett, Missouri, a 100 miles east of Kansas City. She was the fifth of five children, three of whom were teenagers when she arrived in the town named for her great-great grandfather.

She earned her teaching credentials at the University of Missouri at Columbia, met and married her first husband, a Wichitan, and they had two sons.Her second husband, Jack Shumard, was the mailman with Jefferson School on his route. She gave him directions his first day on the job and a few years later gave him a second chance at marriage after his divorce. Her first indication of that impending event came from her observant teenage son. "You're going to get a phone call tonight," he told her. And she did. It was the follow up to a flirtatious kiss he asked her for. "I've had a lot of hugs today, but no kisses."

Both sons have families of their own and live in Tulsa and Ft. Worth. They also visit Jack's children. Travel has been a favorite pastime. They used to use a fifth wheel trailer so they were always at home on the roads that took them to forty seven states. Colorado and Arizona remain favorite destinations.

Pat plainly enjoys all that she does. She delivered Meals on Wheels for six years after retiring. Now she looks after several older retirees at a nursing home, writing their checks for bills and other incidental necessities. Her infectious love, laughter and insight make her a favorite there.

She thinks anyone who is looking at retirement needs to look into volunteering. Find something that interests you that helps people and dedicate some time to it. It's been a simple way of life for her and she knows it works.

Meet Christine Schupmann

Each week Christine Schupmann reads Good Housekeeping and Ladies Home Journal for the Wichita Radio Reading Service. Two of her passions are cooking and health so at home she enjoys reading Bon Appetit and Prevention Magazine.
She is proof that romance wins out in the end. Young Christine Brack had a few dates in high school in Winfield with Bob Schupmann. She had a crush on him, but each went their own way for 45 years, working and raising families. Christine had three sons and a daughter.

Bob did not attend the St. John's Academy high school reunion, but Christine saw his address on one of the tables and sent him a Christmas card. Bob was in Chicago living near his daughter. Christine met him in Chicago in February for her own daughter's birthday celebration. Bob and Christine went out on the town. Bob, a world-traveled, retired executive, followed up with a visit to Wichita and soon negotiated a contract that has lasted seven years and counting. Their wedding was in her girlhood church.

Evenings she sews on her annual quilt while Bob reads mysteries aloud to her. She spent 50 years on her feet in ER's and trauma units. For five of her ten "footloose years" between marriages, she was good to herself as a nurse on a cruise ship. "It was, after all, still a job," she recalls, "and people still get sick on a cruise ship."

In retirement she saw a newspaper ad for the Wichita Radio Reading Service. She loves to read aloud and thinks of her listeners as "friends I haven't met yet." She so loves talking on the radio that Christine would like to live her next life as a jazz D.J. She succeeded Maxcene Adams as Executive Director for the Wichita Jazz Festival and served 20 years on its board.

The many famous musicians who ate at her table shared recipes that eventually became Horn of Plenty, a cookbook of the hip and famous that was "a modest fundraiser."

She and her older sister had collaborated before that on a cookbook of old German recipes, with their mother as their star contributor. Also in her next life she would like to be a gourmet chef and run a gourmet cooking school. That's for the next lifetime, this one is pretty well filled with miracles and joy at the moment, thank you.

Meet Ken Short

Ken Short learned about WRRS while answering pledge phones at a KMUW fundraiser almost six years ago. Pat Hayes at KMUW/WRRS encouraged him to audition for the service and he started as a substitute reader for The Wichita Eagle. He read the Wall Street Journal for a while and now is a regular reader of the Monday edition of USA Today.

Ken developed his rounded, full friendly voice in the United Methodist pulpit. He graduated with a Master of Theology from Southern Methodist University in Dallas in the mid-fifties and preached steadily with a seven year break for forty two years. He had a church in Hoxie where his car broke down.

To pay the bill for the car repair he was sent to a church in Norwich, where he met and married Lois, and they stayed seven years.

He was at three churches in Wichita: First United Methodist, Pleasant Valley U.M. and Aldersgate U.M., and five years in Salina. He finished his pastoral service in 1996 in Newton.

He has also been a teacher, a professional mediator, chairman of many non profit steering committees and one county election committee for Nancy Kasebaum's U.S. senate race.He is current president now of the University Club. It's been a busy and fulfilling life and he isn't slowing down all that much.

His wife Lois, in addition to being a pastor's wife, put her University of Kansas nursing degree to work in teaching at several schools. They met while she was still in college and he was a brand new preacher. She had started at Southwestern College in Winfield the year after he graduated. One conversation led to another and eventually to a family of three daughters and six grandchildren. The eldest daughter teaches at Kansas Newman and volunteer's summers in Mexico. The middle daughter is in marketing at Sprint's Kansas City headquarters. The youngest directs Presbyterian Manor's health care center.

Among the social services that have had Ken Short's hand on them are Senior Services and Active Aging in Wichita. He was there when they started. It gratifies him that they continue so robustly to serve the city's needs. He also founded a prostate cancer surveyors' group and is advising on another cancer survivors group forming.

It's been a busy and productive life and he plans to keep doing and advising and mediating and substituting in Sunday school when needed.

Meet Charles Simon

Charles Simon has had a number of interesting careers on his way to being a reader for the Wichita Radio Reading Service (WRRS). He went from fresh faced East High School graduate in 1957 to army veteran 11 years later. His second career was drumming in house bands in Las Vegas, Nevada. ("When I left there in 1974 the population was only 110,000 for the entire county.") Some nights he played in three shows along the famous strip.

With a London Records recording contract and a continuous gig on the road, opening for the band Rare Earth, Charles was feeling good. Ironically his musical career ended in a blizzard in his home town of Wichita in 1974. Stranded until the money ran out, he enrolled in the Wichita Vocational Technical School's executive chef's program and landed a job at Hutchinson's Prairie Dunes country club. From there he took his developing culinary artistry to Charter Hospital where "we had to study almost to the point of being dietitians." From that job he landed his longest lasting professional stay as executive chef at the Broadview Hotel in Wichita, serving under several ownerships of the venerable hostelry for ten years.

His other long term commitments are to his eight grown children and seventeen grandchildren and his "beautiful wife, Barbara," of thirteen years. Poor health forced him into an early retirement, but one of the new highlights is his chance to read the newspaper on WRRS three days a week. He is hoping to clock more hours doing this enjoyable service. "At my age you need to keep your brain active. It helps me with my enunciation and pronunciation. It keeps people's names in my mind and it makes a learner out of you."

WRRS Assist Coordinator, Michele Heflin says, "He is a natural at it." His mellow voice has a smile in every syllable and warmth in every word. He might entertain a drumming gig again, too. One last thing, when you meet Charles, ask him. "What it was like in 1969 to be at the original Woodstock --- on stage?"

Meet Bill Stengel

Bill Stengel is having more fun than the law allows in his retirement...which includes reading for WRRS. The Ohio transplant moved to Wichita from hometown Dayton with National Cash Register (also know as NCR), his employer for 35 years. "The next 10 years I worked for the same company . . . but under four different names." He retired from LSI Logic.

So after 45 years as a "mechanical engineer in an electronics company" Bill Stengel retired in 2000. He and his second wife have moved from the west side to the east side, planted a garden, and taken a few cruises, including one to Alaska.

He took his joy of reading one step further and he records textbooks for the visually impaired for WSU. In six years he has recorded six textbooks. He has a recording setup in his own basement where he records for thirty minutes, takes a break and records another half hour of complicated science texts--"but no mathematics," he chuckles.

In real life he is the distinguished grandfather to five grandchildren of his own and two of his wife's. Bill is father of four grown children, three sons and a daughter. His daughter has taken up the theatrical life in Kansas City prompted by her father's retirement fun.  The Stengels have season tickets to Chamber Music at the Barn at Prairie Pines, Wichita Symphony, and Music Theatre of Wichita. "We love live performances." And they support them.

The well-traveled Susan Tull and her husband "Barney" have found a home in Wichita after 21 years of travel in the U.S. Army Posts as disparate as Germany, North Carolina, ArizonaFt. Leavenworth. "We spent five years there," (pause) "outside the gates." Then Barney came to work at Boeing after the army service (where the teacher and army officer met and married) and

"Basically our two sons grew up in Kansas." Both of them now live in Portland, Oregon, pursuing careers of their own.

Susan used to volunteer at the Ronald MacDonald House family room at St. Joseph Hospital. When it closed she found "another notice in the paper" for volunteers at WRRS (Wichita Radio Reading Service) and her pleasant "teacher" voice landed her the role of reader of romances. She records an hour at a time and in romance novel terms that's about 40 pages. She varies the time line from the Rennaisance to the American west to contemporary love stories. She hopes she has a fan base despite the good-natured ribbing from family. "Oh, yeah, mom's reading soft porn on the radio." But she makes certain her readings don't get too spicy or steamy.

She retired from teaching special education years ago to be a fulltime mom. "We went to Germany with a toddler and came back with a bigger toddler and a newborn. They always warn you in the army: if you go to Germany, you come back with a cuckoo clock and a baby." She still doesn't have the cuckoo clock.

But a clock is unnecessary in the easier, no hassle lifestyle they love here in Wichita. She cooks, gardens, reads and surfs the Internet "for travel deals that I don't get to take advantage of often enough." 

 When they do travel, they're always happy to get back "home" to Wichita. "We may not have a mountain or ocean to look at, but it's so much easier to live here."

Her greatest traveling last summer was daily laps in the pool. She is trying to maintain the discipline of morning swims. She worked her way through college as a lifeguard.

She has been a WRRS volunteer reader for more than a year now. "I think (WRRS) it's a great thing for the community and hope it continues for many years." And with such kind words about the service and Wichita, we hope Susan Tull continues for a long time as well, stirring up historical romance on the special airwaves of WRRS.

Meet Ruth Anne Ellis

Ruth Anne ("with an e") Ellis is an inveterate volunteer. During August and September's Hurricane Katrina disaster, she and her husband Bruce (a retired banker) answered American Red Cross phones for several days, soothing nerves, taking donation information and answering questions. Last year for Hurricane Ivan they flew to South Dakota and drove an Emergency Response Vehicle (ERV) to Florida. They have driven the local ERV to various disaster sites in the past.

They also travel for pleasure. After Ruth Anne retired from 28 years of teaching third, fourth and fifth grades at USD 259 schools, "We bought a van and 'pamper camped' our way to Alaska and back." Then they started at St. Louis when the modern reenactors did and for six weeks they followed the Lewis and Clark expedition's route. They are also now "nifty fifties," meaning that Bruce and Ruth Anne Ellis have been in every state in the Union.

Little Ruth Anne Olive's first big trip, at age one, was from her birthplace, Ft. Lee, Virginia, where her father was stationed in World War II, to Wichita. That's where her mother had taken her nurse training. It's where Ruth Anne grew up to graduate Southeast High and Wichita State University. Oddly both her own daughters now live in suburban Kansas City where their grandmother is from.

Ruth Anne and Bruce both learned to sign when their first daughter, Jodi, was born deaf. Their other daughter, Cindy, married a deaf man and works as an interpreter for the Olathe school system. "So when the families get together, the hands just fly in the air," Ruth Anne laughed. It let her work with deaf children one year at Allen elementary.
There are four grandchildren, two of each gender, who also sign.

She has read for WRRS, the Wichita Radio Reading Service, since about 1992. She used to read catalogue listings for Talking Books. "When I saw something interesting, I went right to the library and borrowed the book. I have always been a reader." To accommodate traveling, she ratcheted back to substitute status and now gets to read a variety of periodicals. Sometimes she gets a couple of weeks' notice, but is willing to be Ruth Anne on the spot in a pinch.

"It's a really good service, and I like the people. They plan such nice get-togethers for volunteers and clients." There is that symbiosis between them that special events allow to flourish one to one. What could replace the opportunity to hold the hand of that cheerful voice that broadens your world by reading to you?

Meet Jane Waldie

Some two decades ago, Jane Waldie began reading The Wichita Eagle for the Wichita Radio Reading Service. She continues today, reading the Eagle’s recap every Wednesday afternoon.

Waldie is a Kansas native, reared in Arkansas City. She is a 1972 graduate of Wichita State University, with a degree in Education. She is also employed part-time as church secretary for the First United Methodist Church in downtown Wichita.

"I really enjoy reading, and I especially look forward to reading the newspaper," she says. "Therefore, it seems like a natural tie that I would read the paper for the reading service."
There is also a practical angle for her interest in reading the Eagle recap: "The time slot fits the best with my job schedule," she says.

"Reading for WRRS is a good volunteer job," she continues. "It can be done without a lot of supervision."
Waldie became interested in the service through her husband, David, a local optometrist. "He was handing out a lot of information about WRRS to his patients, and I became interested," Waldie says. Today, many of Dr. Waldie’s clients are listeners.

Her interest in helping the sight-impaired goes back many years, to a favorite uncle who was blind and enjoyed the opportunities provided through sources like Talking Books, etc. Even though her listeners are blind, she feels "it is important that they are able to keep up on what’s going on in the world," Waldie concluded.

Along with her work with WRRS, Waldie is also a volunteer once a month for the Lord’s Diner. In addition to her husband, a cat, Gus, completes the family unit.

Meet Richard "Dick" Welsbacher

The diversely talented Dick Welsbacher is not only a reader for the Wichita Radio Reading Service, his wife, Betty, is a client. For five years now he has been reading various sections of The Wichita Eagle on Tuesday mornings.

The young Ohio State grad had spent four years teaching in Kearney, Nebraska before returning to Columbus to work on advanced degrees. The couple then came to Wichita in 1958 from Ohio after their son Rick was accepted at the Institute of Logopedics.

Dick found a position in the Municipal University of Wichita's English Department with a good word from Betty's friend, Joan Bryant. Within three years he was part of the reforming theatre division of the Speech Department.  He added directing a play to teaching a few classes along with tech theatre director, Dave Fleming and Wichita Community Theatre's director, Mary Jane Teall.

Advanced to the director of the theatre program headquartered in Wilner Auditorium, he added more productions, an experimental theatre that survives today as Second Stage and Readers' Theatre. His crown jewel of 30 years (1961-1991) was the summer theatre program. Run like a stock company, he and other faculty members put students and professionals into a six-week pressure cooker of performing one play while rehearsing the next one. It tested the mettle and agility of all participants.

Welsbacher also had early radio experience on one of Ohio's very first FM stations in the mid-50s, but learned early on that being an early morning disc jockey doing predictable things everyday as dictated by a program log was not his cup of tea. He has found a greater variety in acting, directing and performing occasionally on commercials. For a number of years he has been the broadcast voice of the New Mexico Highway Patrol as well several local sponsors.

Oddly, in 2004 he returned to radio drama through Stage One Productions when they simulcast on KFDI their holiday offering of "A Country Christmas Carol." He reprised Scrooge as he had done for several years running on KMUW, while performing for a live audience at his beloved Wilner Auditorium.

So a teaching stint that was to last as long as their son was at the Institute of Logopedics has stretched into a career of 33 years. Among his significant memories were costarring in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" a play that hit its peak fifteen minutes in and sustained it another two and a half-hours. What a workout!

The one thing he never accomplished was summed up by former WSU president, Clark Ahlberg who told a Wichita Eagle reporter, "I regret not being able to get Dick a new theatre while I was president."  But Dr. Welsbacher achieved so much for so many in those years without it. And he still perseveres in front of a microphone an hour a week for WRRS.