For God's Sake, Take Cover...

Bill Kurtis’s memoir Whirlwind tells the story of his life, including his start as a broadcaster in Topeka. It’s exactly the right title for a book about a person whose career was forever shaped by his coverage of a Topeka tornado on June 8,1966.

That night, Kurtis was on the air at WIBW, a local television station. He had finished the 6:00 news but had decided to stick around because a tornado had been sighted only 60 miles away in Manhattan. Kurtis thought there was a good chance that he might need to go back on the air. And he did. The tornado was a monster, an F5 (an EF5 in today’s Enhanced Fujita scale), and it was headed right for the capital city.

“For God’s sake, take cover!” Kurtis urged viewers as the tornado reached the edge of town. It tore through Topeka dipping and rising over 22 miles. It spent 30 minutes on the ground, grew to be a half a mile wide at times, flattened 1000 homes, damaged twice as many, and killed 17 people. Kurtis’s instructions saved lives and no one in Topeka has ever forgotten it. 

Kurtis will be the keynote speaker at the Kansas Book Festival at noon on Saturday, September 20 on the campus of Washburn University in Topeka. He’s sure to talk about that fateful day because, as he told a reporter to WIBW during an interview in 2021, “All my career, which involves movies, some 500 documentaries we have done out of Kurtis productions, and 30 years with CBS, it all goes back to the tornado — like a big funnel.” A tornado. A whirlwind.

The Kansas Book Festival is a day filled with activities and discussions that celebrate readers and writers. 50 authors are participating this year with books and sessions covering a variety of themes through poetry, picture books, fiction and non-fiction, including writings on grassland rivers and the natural world, new twists on classics, and creating a new reality through science fiction. Festivalgoers will get the first look at a brand-new anthology about Kansas called “Kansas Matters: 21st-Century Writers on the Sunflower State,” with authors Thomas Fox Averill and Leslie VonHolten.

The enthusiasm for the Kansas Book Festival has roots that extend far into the last century. Kansas has always had an interest in connecting readers with authors. Diana Staresinic-Deane, director of the Franklin County Historical Museum and Old Depot Museum in Ottawa, shared that Susan B. Anthony, Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Booker T. Washington, and William Jennings Bryan all spoke about their books and writings in Ottawa as part of the summer Chautauqua. There was an entire trek of author readings and lectures, and hundreds of people flocked under the tent to hear them. Other authors who spoke were adventurers, reformers, and local gamechangers, like Nellie Kezie Jones, a home economist and author, who spoke on July 15, 1902.  Jones was also the first woman professor to head a department at Kansas State Agricultural College (now Kansas State University).

Chautauqua in Kansas, date unknown. Image courtesy of Franklin County Historical Society.

Humanities Kansas has supported the Kansas Book Festival for the last six years. “The Kansas Book Festival is a terrific opportunity to engage with authors, spark conversations with fellow Kansans, and get inspired,” shared Julie Mulvihill, executive director of Humanities Kansas. “Reading helps us understand the fullness of the human experience and that’s at the very root of the humanities.” 

There will also be 40 outdoors tent exhibitors, musical performances, food trucks, and kid-friendly events. All events are free and open to the public. Parking is also free.

On Sunday, September 21 at 2:30, the Book Festival continues at the Lawrence Public Library with author Kevin Young sharing poems from his new collection, Night Watch. Young is The New Yorker poetry editor and former director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. 

For more information and to see a list of all the terrific authors and books being featured this year, visit www.kansasbookfestival.com

Humanities Kansas has been a major financial supporter of the Kansas Book Festival for the past six years. Future support is in jeopardy due to the termination of HK’s federal operating grant by the Department of Government Efficiency in April. Please let your members of Congress know that this is an event that you value and ask for the restoration of federal funding in support of humanities.

Join the Movement of Ideas

• ATTEND the Kansas Book Festival on September 20 at Washburn University in Topeka and September 21 at the Lawrence Public Library. See the schedule of events. 
• READ about the history of Chautauqua in Kansas in “The Most American Thing in America” on the Kansas Stories blog. Image: 1907 Chautauqua, courtesy of the Franklin County Historical Society.
• ATTEND the Americans Smithsonian traveling exhibition at the Watkins Museum of History, in partnership with Haskell Cultural Center and Museum, in Lawrence through October 5 and the partner site exhibition Camp To-Sha-Ka at NOTO Arts Center through October 25.