Nostalgia & Humor

• Citation: Vol. 92 No. 4 Pg. 22
• Publication year: 2023
• Pages: 22

Nostalgia & Humor 92 J. Kan. Bar Assn 4, 22 (2023) Kansas Bar Journal August, 2023

July, 2023

Dorothy, Toto, Liberal and the Legacy of Frank Baum

By Matt Keenan, Executive Director, Kansas Legal Services

I begin this month's column with a question.

Have you ever been to Liberal?

I mean the one in Kansas, not the towns in Missouri, Oregon, or Indiana.

And if the answer to this question is a resounding yes, I have a second question.

When in Liberal, did you visit Dorothy's house? Yeah, that Dorothy. And if the number of affirmative responses drops dramatically, perhaps after this month's column that might change.

You see, on April 26, at approximately 10:29 a.m., I entered the rarified air of tourists and got the tour of Dorothy's house. And that experience became an instant column that could fill the entirety of this month's Kansas Bar Journal.

This adventure was merely the mid-point of an otherwise fulfilling western Kansas tour that started in Hays on that Monday, continued to Garden City on Tuesday, then Liberal on Wednesday, followed on Thursday in Dodge City, and finished in Salina on that Friday.

Joining me were Joy Springfield, KLS director of pro bono, and Casey Johnson, KLS director of advocacy. In Hays, we met Chief Judge Glenn Braun, District Judge Tom Drees and local attorneys Jenny Walters, Julie Grabbe, and KLS board member Curtis Brown, and Matt Odom, who staffs the KLS office there. In Garden City, we spent time with former Senate President Stephen Morris, who made many introductions for us, including meeting the Shultz Law Office attorneys: Gerry, Zach, Margaret, and Logan.

In Liberal, we paid homage to Kerry McQueen, whose bar number has four digits and IQ has three. In Dodge, we met with Noah Hahs, our local KLS attorney, and then visited the Doll Law Firm and its attorneys Sarah Doll Heeke, and Megan Weddle. Over lunch we connected with 16th Judicial District Chief Judge Laura Lewis and District...