Growing Up Wichita
?It was fall 1957 when Bana Kartasasmita '62, then a college sophomore and recipient of a Smith-Mundt scholarship to study in the United States, arrived in Wichita, a place he knew about only in the vaguest of ways. He remembers being surprised by the Kansas cold and struck by the friendliness of the people. He was, he says, the first Indonesian to attend the University of Wichita.
Then, the population of international students was not what it is today, although Kartasasmita points out ther...
Regarding Thomas
Published last fall by Holiday House, Grasslands is Debra Seely's first novel for young adults. Set in Kansas during the 1880s, the novel covers the life and times of 13-year-old Thomas.
Influenced by such Great Plains authors as Willa Cather, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Mari Sandoz, Seely '97 was wellread in terms of place and time when she began writing Grasslands while a graduate student at WSU. And she had the added benefit of her own family history: Thomas is based on her great-grandf...
Lifetime Squared
Willa S. McLean '33 has packed a lot of living into 100 years — and counting.
Leaving her hometown of Larned, Kan., shortly after graduating high school, McLean made her way to Wilberforce University in Ohio, where she studied for two years before returning to Kansas to attend the University of Wichita. While at wu, she founded the city chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and went on to hold every office within the organization.
An education graduate, McLean taught in the Wichi...
