Visitors to the Finney County Historical Museum now have a chance to catch a preview of The Garden City Telegram’s soon-to-be-published book, “Called to Serve,” a tribute to past and present military veterans in southwest Kansas.
Nearly 40 photographs from the book, scheduled for release in late February or early March, are now on display just inside the museum’s front entrance in the Front Door Gallery, 403 S. Fourth St. Like the book, the exhibit is titled “Called to Serve,” and it will remain in place for about two months. Admission is free, and the museum is open 1 to 5 p.m. daily.
Generations of southwest Kansans have served our country, and the sacrifices and experiences of nearly 340 of those veterans will be chronicled in the book, which spans World War II to the present.
Steve Quakenbush, executive director of the Finney County Historical Society, said it was the book’s focus on commemorating and preserving the history of southwest Kansans’ military service over the years that piqued his interest in the project and made it a good fit for the museum’s Front Door Gallery, which rotates exhibits every two or so months.
“We’re always in the business of recording, celebrating and teaching people about history. With this book, The Telegram is also carrying out its obligation to chronicle and record local history, so it just made perfect sense that we would have our first display of the year in the Front Door Gallery involving The Telegram’s new book that salutes southwest Kansas veterans,” he said.
For more than a year, The Telegram has been collecting photos, stories, letters from the front, letters from the homefront, memorabilia and biographical information submitted by veterans, their families and historians from throughout the newspaper’s 12-county circulation area for use in the book. The newspaper has received guidance from a panel of southwest Kansas veterans, including Army veteran Jim Arwine of Garden City, husband and wife Army veterans Ray and Donna Hernandez of Garden City, Marine veteran Leonard Hitz of Garden City, Air Force veteran and former State Sen. Steve Morris of Hugoton, and Marine veteran William Royer of Syracuse.
"The Telegram set out to collect as many profiles of our hometown heroes as possible,” Telegram Editor-Publisher Dena Sattler, a veteran of the U.S. Army Reserve and Iowa National Guard, says in the book’s foreword. She noted that newspapers have a responsibility to chronicle history.
The book, which relies heavily on photos to depict area soldiers’, sailors’ and airmen’s experiences, covers southwest Kansans’ involvement in World War II, the Korean and Vietnam wars, the Gulf and Iraq wars, the War on Terror and peace time in between.
Photos range from combat scenes, to candid photos during a stop in the fighting to veterans enjoying a little rest and relaxation while on leave. Other images feature southwest Kansas veterans being decorated with medals, participating in military exercises and interacting with civilians while serving overseas.
Several area veterans’ stories, in their own words, are featured in the book. One can read about Garden City Army veteran Stewart Boone’s harrowing escape with the “Lucky Eleven” from the Battle of the Bulge during WWII, Garden City Air Force gunner John Hawk’s memories of his bomber being shot down over Austria in 1944 and the 11 months he spent in a German prison camp, and Garden City Naval officer Burl Loving’s recollections of sweeping mines around the Marshalls and Mariana Islands during WWII.
Other features include re-published articles from past Telegram editions, including stories about local WWII veteran Perry Garten and Kansas National Guard Sgt. First Class Travis Bachman, who was killed by an improvised explosive device while serving in Iraq.
In addition to the photographs from the book, visitors can see about a dozen military artifacts belonging to the museum dating back as far as the 1940s as part of the “Called to Serve” exhibit.
Quakenbush admits that many of the war artifacts belonging to the museum are items servicemen and women brought home with them that belonged to enemy combatants and were retrieved from battlefields around the globe.
“We kind of hope as people come in and see the exhibit, if they have any more American artifacts, we would love to talk to them about possible donations,” Quakenbush said.
The hardbound book is selling for $29.95 plus tax. The book can be shipped for an additional $10.
To purchase a copy of "Called to Serve," call The Telegram at (620) 275-8500 or (800) 475-8600, or stop by the Telegram office at 310 N. Seventh St. in Garden City.
For more information on the book, call Telegram Managing Editor Brett Riggs at (620) 276-6862 ext. 234, or email veteransbook@gctelegram.com.
Contact Brett Riggs at briggs@gctelegram.com.