Survey shows students admit to drinking, drug use
Arley Hoskin | Staff Writer
In a survey administered by the Olathe school district, almost 30 percent of last year’s high school seniors admitted to binge drinking.
School board members received the Communities That Care survey results at their Sept. 6 meeting.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Center for Substance Abuse Prevention funded the 126-question survey. Students in sixth and eighth grades, sophomores and seniors responded last school year to questions on substance abuse, community involvement and social concerns.
The Shawnee Mission and De Soto school districts have not released their results.
The CTC survey revealed that Olathe students say they drink and use drugs less than Johnson County and Kansas students reported.
About 46 percent of seniors, 32 percent of sophomores and 16 percent of eighth-graders reported having drank alcohol within 30 days.
Countywide survey results showed that 53 percent of seniors, 38 percent of sophomores and 23 percent of eighth-graders had drank alcohol within the last 30 days.
About 5 percent of Olathe and county sixth-graders reported alcohol consumption within the last 30 days.
As for binge drinking, almost 30 percent of Olathe seniors said they had consumed five or more drinks in a row within two weeks of the survey. About 19 percent of Olathe sophomores reported that kind of binge drinking.
Marijuana use came in right under alcohol. About 16 percent of Olathe seniors, 13 percent of sophomores and 3 percent of eighth-graders reported they had smoked marijuana in the last 30 days. Countywide, 20 percent of seniors, 15 percent of sophomores and 3 percent of eighth-graders admitted to marijuana use within the last 30 days.
Though Olathe’s results are below county and state statistics, some say the numbers still are cause for alarm.
“Honestly, if one person is drinking, it’s too much,” said Heather Schoonover, the district’s Safe and Drug Free Schools and Youth Friends facilitator.
Schoonover cooperates with school principals, counselors and school resource officers on prevention programs throughout the district. She said she wants the community to be aware of these statistics.
“The results may be good for the district, but there is still a problem,” she said.
Schoonover said the community must work together to lower the numbers. As a result of the CTC results, the district will partner with the city, Johnson County Prevention Center and other community members to work on prevention initiatives.
“We can’t do it without them,” Schoonover said.
School board member Jim Churchman agreed with the necessity of community support.
“This is a community initiative, and it all begins at home,” he said.
Schoonover said she would like to see the community participate in creative ways. She said funding and mentors always are needed.
Schoonover also requested help to spread awareness about the issue.
“I need help,” Schoonover said. “Let’s talk to parent-teacher organizations. Let’s talk to kids.”
For more information about the district’s anti-drug initiatives, call 780-8233.

— Contact Arley Hoskin at 764-2211, ext. 133, or ahoskin@theolathenews.com.

Longtime residents remember good times as historic house is restored
Aaron Cedeño | Staff Writer
The picture that Art Hoehn paints of his life growing up on the Klein-Hoehn farmstead, one of the oldest standing structures in Lenexa, is one that by today’s standards lacks the creature comforts one now takes for granted.
Like electricity, for example.
“In the old farmhouse, there was no electricity,” Hoehn recalled. “We had gas lights and a fuel stove in the kitchen.”
Even so, it’s a picture of a sense of family, of warmth. And for several members of the Lenexa and Shawnee communities, it is home to some of their best memories.
The house was built in 1904 by John and Susan Klein for them and their seven children, one of whom was a daughter named Irene. She would marry a local man named Max Hoehn, and the two later purchased the house from the Kleins so that they had room for their own children, who also numbered seven.
Hoehn said that even though there were as many as 11 inhabitants in the farmhouse during his youth, including his Klein grandparents, the house never felt overcrowded.
“We had a kitchen as big as most people’s family rooms,” he remembered. “We had a table, my brother still has it, that doesn’t have the leaves in it. You’d have to build a house around it if you did.”
One of Hoehn’s favorite memories includes his father, a pair of mules, a cornfield and one of Hoehn’s lifelong hobbies: bees. Even now, at 76, Hoehn is still a beekeeper, though back then he admitted he didn’t know how to properly care for them. Combine swarming bees with skittish mules, and it’s a recipe for disaster.
“My dad was cultivating the corn, and the bees were swarming,” Hoehn said. “Well, they got all over his mules. They took off and didn’t stop running until they hit a barbed-wire fence.”
“When Dad got back to the house, he looked at me, and he said ‘Art, those bees gotta go.’”
Hoehn said his father owned a dairy herd, and at 4:30 in the morning he and his brothers would hear a stick thumping the ceiling from below, along with his father’s voice calling them to milking detail. Such a life is foreign to most living within Johnson County these days, but to the Hoehns it was a way of life.
“A lot of times, on winter mornings, there would be snow on our beds that had blown through the cracks of the windows,” Hoehn said. “That got us downstairs to the little fire my dad would have started real quick.”
Another of Hoehn’s fondest memories has to do with the large family reunions they would have on the property, such as the one that took place in 1978, right before Max Klein moved into an area nursing home. Events such as these give Hoehn cause to smile even now, with the home badly damaged by a fire in July. Work has begun to restore the house.
Hoehn said stories like these and structures like the Klein-Hoehn farmhouse are important parts of any community.
“I think it’s history,” he said. “You know, it is important to the people here who like history.”

Lenexa promotes acting fire chief
Aaron Cedeño | Staff Writer
Dan Rhodus has been Lenexa’s acting fire chief ever since Kenneth Hobbs retired in March after 26 years. So when the city decided last week to end its six-month search for a worthy candidate by making Rhodus’ promotion final, he thought that was it.
It didn’t take him long to figure out that things weren’t quite that simple.
“You know, I thought that it would just keep goin’,” Rhodus said of the transition from acting fire chief to official fire chief. “But I found out in the last couple of days that there’s a lot more to it.”
Rhodus said it’s never easy replacing a fixture in the community such as Hobbs, whom he described as an ultra-progressive fire chief and one of “great vision.” Rhodus said he was “humbled” by the outpouring of support and congratulations he’d received from the community as word spread of his appointment. The quality of Lenexa’s community was part of what made the position of fire chief desirable, he said.
“The vision of the city government, including the city administrator’s office both current and past and the council we have today, is just fabulous,” he said. “They’re very supportive, they understand the Fire Department’s role in the community, and they’re very proud of that.”
Thanks to the job Hobbs did, Rhodus said, maintaining the department’s outstanding service record may be his most important job.
“The hard work is done,” he said. “We continue to work for that great service level and will continually strive to make improvements. That mission is pretty clear for us.”
Rhodus and Hobbs said the department is one of the finest in the country, and Rhodus said that was due to a number of factors, such as the quality of the firefighters and former fire chief, support from the community and the city and the constant communication with other city departments.
And while Rhodus, who has been a member of the department for 23 years, was quick to push any responsibility for the department’s acclaim off onto others, Hobbs said Lenexa was getting a new chief who not only is capable as a firefighter but also a quality individual.
“I think Dan will be an excellent chief for the city of Lenexa and the Lenexa Fire Department,” Hobbs said. “His personal qualities are such that his integrity is beyond reproach, he’s technically very skilled, and he has the respect of his peers in the industry.

Leaders agree on need for national broadband policy
Aaron Cedeño | Staff Writer
It wasn’t exactly the G-8 gathering of world leaders. But Lenexa recently played host to city councilmembers and mayors from around the country and discussed issues that could threaten America’s place in the technology world.
From Sept. 6 to 8, Lenexa was home to the Information Technology and Communications Steering Committee, an organization comprised of city councilmembers and mayors from across the country. The organization is part of the National League of Cities, a group dedicated to lobbying on behalf of municipalities on Capitol Hill.
Andy Huckaba, a member of both the steering committee and the Lenexa City Council, said that the primary goal of the steering committee was to examine issues dealing with technology and how they could impact cities in some way. He said the focus of meeting was the development of a national strategy for deploying broadband Internet access across the country. Technology is advancing at such a rapid pace, he said, that the Internet is today what electricity once was in the past.
“We’re now hitting the point where we believe that broadband access is probably hitting that point where it’s becoming a utility more than a luxury,” he said. “Different municipalities have taken different cuts at this. Some have built their own network; others have worked with private industry.
“But there’s an agreement among all the parties that broadband access is a critical element to our citizens and our country as a whole.”
Huckaba said the steering committee hoped that discussion on this topic would become an important component of the 2008 presidential election. He said that the United States, as the country where the Internet was invented, should feel some concern at the fact that several other countries have largely passed the United States in this sector of technology. The effects of a continued downward trend could soon be felt in other areas as well.
“It’s our belief that to be able to compete economically in the world, as a country, this is a major factor,” he said. “We really need to have a broadband policy that puts some upward pressure on the penetration, the affordability and the speed of broadband that’s available to everyone.”
In fact, one of the immediate results of the three days of deliberation was the drafting of a document that officially established the need for that national broadband policy, he said.
“This is a committee, and it goes to the (National League of Cities) board of directors,” Huckaba said. “They choose to either go with our recommendations or not, but chances are pretty good that they will.”
He described the meeting as a success.
“It’s a very interesting group of people,” he said. “Interesting areas are being represented on this committee, both small and big.”

De Soto voters to decide bond issue Sept. 18
Aaron Cedeño | Staff Writer
The long-term future of the De Soto school district faces a very immediate decision. District officials say the results of the Sept. 18 election for the district’s latest bond proposal will have a significant effect on the future course of their schools.
The current bond comes on the heels of a $105.7 million bond proposal that failed by a handful of votes in November 2006 and is divided into two sections. Section No. 1, a proposed $51 million, addresses the expansion of several schools, with the bulk of the funds earmarked for Mill Valley High School. Section No. 2, which can pass only if Section 1 is approved, proposes $19.5 million for upgrading performing arts theaters at both De Soto and Mill Valley high schools and providing artificial turf on the two schools’ athletic fields.
Alvie Cater, director of community relations for the district, said the issue with most voters would be, understandably, one of dollars and cents.
“We have some fixed-income families in our district, and any tax increase is a huge concern,” he said. “A lot of our voters are going to look at the bottom line and make their judgment on that. That’s the reality we have in this growing district.
“But when you have a growing district, you have to look at the future,” he continued. “An investment in the school district does have economic benefits in the future.”
De Soto school board member Bill Fletcher said that while as a board member he would go along with the decision of the people, as an individual the current bond proposal was something he couldn’t support.
“My concerns are that we don’t have a long-range plan in effect,” he said.
“I think a lot of people involved are getting tired of having to come back to the voters.”
Fletcher said the feedback he had gotten seemed to indicate that voters would support a bond proposal if it were done one time and done right.
He felt that the current bond represented more of a Band-Aid than a long-term solution.
“Why should I spend the money for a Band-Aid?” he asked.
“I just can’t do that to the taxpayers, and then come back with more Band-Aids. Let’s do it right the first time.”
Chris Akins is the head of the “Vote Yes,” campaign, which she described as a grass-roots organization wanting to see the bond passed. She said the November 2006 bond represented an example of the district trying to think on a larger scale.
“Historically, because we don’t have all of the businesses and the tax burden does fall on the patrons, our patrons have not voted for the more long-range bonds,” she said. “They’ve opted for the smaller bonds. The high school needs (to be) expanded, and it needs it now.”
The district says Mill Valley’s enrollment stands at 950 students, with the current capacity set at 1,000. If the expansion proposal passes, Mill Valley could add 300 students. The district has said that a capacity of 1,300 would necessitate no further additions to Mill Valley, but that De Soto High School, and the district’s future, would need to be addressed again in the future as the population within its boundaries continued to increase.

Manchester Park builds family bonds
Aaron Cedeño | Staff Writer
Anyone can relate to the sense of pride an elementary school student takes in sharing with family his school, classrooms and friends.
Manchester Park Elementary School, now in its fourth year, has made that pride a focus with its annual Grandparents Day Picnic.
“Our message with Grandparents Day is about connection and relationships and kids’ lives and building those connections within the schoolhouse,” Principal Susan DeGroot said.
DeGroot said that it was an important goal of school districts to promote family involvement, and that the Olathe school district does an exceptional job in that regard. The school is better able to connect with students, she said, when a connection also is made at home.
Jill Gobble, vice president of the Manchester Park PTO, agreed with DeGroot’s assessment, saying grandparents often can play a large role in children’s development. Events such as the picnic give them a chance to see aspects of their grandchildren’s everyday life that parents, by being a part of that daily life, may take for granted.
Gobble said that even older students get a lot of enjoyment out of including their grandparents.
And, DeGroot added, the enjoyment wasn’t one sided.
“That’s a hard call because we had grandmas on the swings and doing hula hoop,” she said when asked if the students or the grandparents got more out of the event. “Not only are the kids out there just beaming with excitement, but the grandparents are, in some ways, reliving younger times on our playground.”

Parents ask about grade change
Arley Hoskin | Staff Writer
Olathe Northwest parents met with school district officials Sept. 10 to discuss the October bond election, but the conversation steered toward a future bond.
Superintendent Pat All and school board member Jim Churchman found themselves discussing the proposed grade reconfiguration, which would move sixth-graders to junior high schools and ninth-graders to high schools.
The school board voted 5-2 in May for reconfiguration, but projects associated with the move won’t be on next month’s mail-in ballot election.
“The whole issue of reconfiguration is a complex one,” All said after a parent asked if the October bond made accommodations for the change.
The 2007 Bond Task Force the board commissioned recommended reconfiguration. The change would cost $60 million in additions to the district’s four high schools.
The board decided to put reconfiguration projects on another bond, possibly next year, when an ETC Institute survey revealed that most voters would not support a bond issue that included reconfiguration.
According to the survey of 460 Olathe voters, only 32 percent of participants said they “very likely” would support a $190 million bond issue with reconfiguration attached.
Despite the board’s May vote, reconfiguration depends on voter approval of that bond issue. Churchman and fellow board member Mike Poland voted against reconfiguration.
Olathe Northwest parent Richard Brown urged All and Churchman on Sept. 10 to move forward with reconfiguration.
Without the switch, Brown said, ninth-graders would not have access to advanced classes at the high school level.
“It seems to me that we are going to be holding some students back,” he said.
Reconfiguration also would free up space at the elementary schools when sixth-graders move to junior high schools. Last spring, the district identified the need for more than 100 new rooms at the elementary level to accommodate growth and create equity among schools.
Churchman said that space needs would be an issue with or without reconfiguration, but that board members did consider while deciding what building additions would be on October’s bond that sixth-graders may move to junior high schools in a few years.
Board members plan to continue their discussion on reconfiguration after the Oct. 16 election, which includes the $138 million bond and a question to increase the district’s tax authority.
The bond money would pay for projects to address equity in schools, technology purchases, new school construction, land acquisition and additions to overcrowded schools.
The proposed tax authority increase would allow the district to collect more tax money for its annual operating budget.
Voters will receive their ballots in the mail this month. They must be returned by noon Oct. 16. The last day to register to vote in the election is Oct. 1.
Another information presentation about the election is planned for the district site council meeting Sept. 27 at Olathe Northwest. She said she also will have a community meeting about the bond issue.

— Contact Arley Hoskin at 764-2211, ext. 133, or ahoskin@theolathenews.com.

Mize student works to bring curbside recycling to De Soto
Aaron Cedeño | Staff Writer
If a fifth-grader were to make a list of his immediate concerns, one may not expect “helping the environment” to make the cut.
For Nathan Zwahlen, a student at Mize Elementary School in Lenexa, what started as the result of a fourth-grade field trip last year has turned into an effort to increase recycling awareness that could take him to the state Capitol in Topeka.
“I’m trying to bring curbside recycling onto the streets of De Soto because a block down from our town they have curbside recycling, and we don’t,” he said. “It makes me wonder why we don’t have any.”
Sen. Julia Lynn, an Olathe Republican, has offered to play host to Nathan in Topeka for a day after meeting him a few months ago. Lynn, who said environmental issues were important to her as well, said she saw initiative in Nathan that was rare for a child and wanted to do her part to get his concerns heard at the state level.
“He can’t do this alone,” Lynn said. “He’s gotta have somebody in his corner, and I’m gonna be that person.”
Nathan, whose favorite subjects are reading and spelling, said increased personal awareness of how much recycling can do for energy conservation played a big part in his desire to see curbside recycling spread throughout his hometown. He added that the school district also could benefit from increased recycling efforts.
“We do a lot of paper recycling, but we don’t do any plastic or anything,” Nathan said. “I might want to get it into schools.”
Nathan’s mother, Cheyenne Zwahlen, said her son first made a presentation on the issue to the De Soto Rotary Club, of which his grandmother is a member. Though he was nervous about speaking in front of a group, Nathan said talking got easier after he started. His friends, he hoped, would start to get more involved as word of the project spread.
“I haven’t really asked any of my friends, but one of them knows about it, and he thought I was pretty brave to go up (in front of a group),” he said. “He said he couldn’t do it.”
Not many students Nathan’s age could have, and Lynn said children could provide a spark for legislators and grow up to be leaders themselves.
“I’m around young people, and I know that the people we have in this generation coming up are so much more politically aware and highly educated in world affairs, not just state affairs,” she said. “They’re interested and concerned, and they should be.
“A lot of people might think this is a little thing, but this is a huge thing for (Nathan), and it could be a huge thing for Kansas.”
Cheyenne Zwahlen agreed with Lynn and said it was indicative of the younger generation’s increased desire to take care of the environment and each other. She added that efforts such as Nathan’s showed a great deal of character in area students.
Nathan said awareness among children his age was important.
“I think so,” he said. “If more of us care about the environment, the better it gets.”

Lenexa teen gets unique opportunity
Aaron Cedeño | Staff Writer
Pasadena, Calif., is more than 1,600 miles from Lenexa, Kan.
Most 16-year-olds would relish the opportunity to spend time that far away from home in a city that evokes images of sandy beaches, blue skies and plenty of rest and relaxation. Most 16-year-olds, however, don’t travel to Pasadena as Miss Teen Kansas like Jaymie Stokes did.
“It was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Stokes, now a junior at Shawnee Mission West High School, of her participation in the Miss Teen USA pageant. “It was extremely stressful, but I had so much fun, and I felt so independent.”
Stokes said that the two weeks spent apart from her family was the longest she’d been away and represented only one of the unique stresses a pageant contestant had to deal with. Countless hours of rehearsals, which prevented her from spending time with the rest of the Stokes clan upon their arrival in Pasadena, and missing her friends and the first day of school also were among the challenges she experienced.
One of the things that helped, she said, was knowing that 50 other girls (the District of Columbia has a contestant) were going through the same thing. That bond helped smooth out some of the rough patches during the two weeks.
“Most of the girls were really nice, and I got to know a lot of them,” Stokes said.
“They were all just normal teenage girls.”
One of the girls Stokes befriended was Miss Teen South Carolina, Caitlin Upton. The 17-year-old from Lexington, S.C., has received a flood of national media attention for her response to a question regarding the inability of a portion of America’s youth to locate the United States on a map. Though Stokes was backstage during Upton’s response, she said that she wasn’t focusing on it and only got a chance to take it in later.
“I feel bad for her because I know she wasn’t like that,” Stokes said of Upton.
“I’m sure her nerves got to her, and I would have done the same thing if I was in the top five.”
Throughout the pageant process, Stokes said, her friends understood the competition often would cut into time they would spend together. She said her friends watched the pageant on TV and were excited when she made the top 10.
“They told me that they were all screaming and crying, all at the same time,” Stokes said. “I thought it was really funny.
“They’ve been really supportive,” she continued. “We always hang out on the weekend, and they understand if I can’t because of pageant stuff.”
That understanding is good because Stokes indicated that further pageant appearances could be in her future — most notably a run at the Miss Kansas USA crown when she turns 18. For now, however, she said she was looking forward to settling down, getting back to being a student and enjoying her family and friends.
“It was really hard getting back into things,” she said. “Now, I’ve mostly caught up in all of my classes, but I’m still behind in some of my subjects.
“It’s starting to come back together.”

Ladron paces Cougars early
Andy Marso | Sportswriter
Shawnee Mission Northwest senior Diego Ladron won the Cougars’ first cross country meet of the season last week.
Ladron beat everyone in a 10-team field that included Kansas Class 5A champion St. Thomas Aquinas and Missouri powers Blue Springs and Rockhurst. But his toughest competition came from the same guys he runs with in practice every day.
Ladron’s SM Northwest teammates, Daniel Munro and Keaton Jones, finished second and third. Ladron also topped Jared Ellsworth, another teammate, who was running ill. All four were part of the team that won SM Northwest’s 13th straight state championship last year.
Ladron finished 37th at state last year, well behind Munro and Ellsworth and barely ahead of Jones. But an intense off-season training regimen vaulted Ladron into the Cougars’ No. 1 spot even before he won the Greg Wilson Classic at Johnson County Community College to open the season.
“My goal was to win the race going in,” Ladron said. “Since state last year, I’ve put in a lot of mileage. This summer we did some other 5Ks, and I was winning those, too. I guess, as a team we knew I was probably quicker at this point in the season. I don’t think anybody else really knew, but our team knew where we were.”
Where the Cougars are is far ahead of where they were to open the season last year. They had little returning varsity experience last year, but by the end of the year coach Van Rose had them ready to compete for a state championship, as always.
This year, with Ladron, Munro, Jones and Ellsworth all back, the Cougars have been fast right out of the gate. The leader, though, has been Ladron.
“He put in a bunch of miles last winter, made a big jump during track, and then put a bunch of miles in this summer,” Rose said. “So he’s really made himself into quite a runner.”
Last year was Ladron’s first trip to state as part of the Cougars’ varsity team. It’s a role that comes with prestige but also a lot of pressure. No team wants to be the one that ends SM Northwest’s unprecedented streak of state championships.
“I felt kind of nervous going into it just because I was like, ‘It’s state and the streak and I’m going to be part of it this year and I could ruin it,’” Ladron said. “I think this year — hopefully we get back there and I’m healthy and stuff — I think I’ll feel a lot more confident going into the race.”
The state meet holds a special significance for Ladron because it’s at Rim Rock Farms in Lawrence, a popular training ground for the University of Kansas cross country team.
One of Ladron’s former teammates, Bret Imgrund, now runs for KU, and Ladron dreams of being a Jayhawk.
“I’m going to contact KU in the next week or so,” he said. “I think that would really be the place where I want to go run.”
Ladron’s work in the off-season and strong start were good steps toward catching the attention of the Kansas coaches.

— Contact Andy Marso at 764-2211, ext. 138, or amarso@theolathenews.com.

Tennis pair aim for state
Garth Sears | Special to the Lenexa Centennial
They came awful close last time.
Then-sophomore Jennifer Dien and then-junior Lindy Anderson fell short of winning the girls Class 6A state tennis doubles championship last year, losing to Ariel Bodker and Haley Fournier of Blue Valley North in the championship match.
Now that Dien is a junior and Anderson is a senior, they have one more chance to become champions together.
They started this season as the favorites to win it all but have struggled early. Dien and Anderson lost three times, including a rough 8-4 defeat at the hands of Sarah Luby and Nikki Reber of Shawnee Mission East.
“Well, we could be better to say the very least,” Anderson said. “Last year we were really on, and since the off-season we haven’t been playing as well as we could be. But we’re going to practice, work at it and be up to our playing level last year if not higher.”
They have been working on new strategies and adjusting their formations in an attempt to thwart some of the problems that have been nagging them.
They want to operate at full capacity by the time state competitions roll around again in about a month.
“I think Lindy and Jennifer are a little disappointed that they haven’t done better so far, but they’re willing to make some changes,” Vikings coach Greg Schieszer said. “I know they’re going to keep working. They still expect to be in that championship match at the end of the year.”
Things are getting better for the pair. Though tough losses marred their early season, they are working out many of their off-season kinks.
“We have gotten to know each other better, and our communication is improving,” Dien said. “We have had some ups and downs this year, but it’s going up right now.”
So until the state competition starts, Dien and Anderson will work to improve the holes in their game and eagerly await state. After all, they have a score to settle.
“We got second last year, but I think this could be our year,” Anderson said.
After a pause, a joke.
“It’s my senior year,” she added. “It better be.”

Ravens golfer exhibits ‘Wright’ stuff on links
Tod Palmer | Sports Editor
Kendra Wright isn’t a golfer.
Ask the Olathe Northwest sophomore, and she’ll tell you she’s a softball player — who just happens to play golf well, too.
Wright, almost as if she were dared to do it, joined the Ravens golf team as a freshman last year.
Without having picked up her clubs all summer, she came out and won the Olathe Cup — an annual tournament for the four Olathe schools — and emerged as Northwest’s top player during the 2006 season.
“I didn’t think I was going to be the top player,” Wright said. “It was hard being a freshman playing with seniors and stuff. It put a lot of pressure on me, but this year I knew what to expect.”
Wright never seriously considered giving up golf this season, but she also felt bad that she didn’t get much chance to prepare.
She had talked about joining a junior league with fellow Ravens Kelsey Corrigan, Erin McFarland and Elsa Pageler this summer, but she couldn’t because of commitments with KC Lasers softball club.
Softball took up a couple hours a day and five weeks of Wright’s summer between practice and travel for college-exposure tournaments, national tournaments and other events.
“I was actually planning to come out for golf again all along,” Wright said. “Every single day I had off, which was maybe a day or so a week during the summer because of softball, I would come and play golf.”
Competitors love to compete, and certainly that’s a big part of the draw for Wright: competing against other golfers, competing against the elements and competing against her own expectations.
During her freshman season, a funny thing happened to Wright on the golf course — she figured out that she likes golf, too, and that it can help her in softball.
“(Golf) has taught me patience, and that if I make a mistake I just have to go on to the next hole,” Wright said. “It’s the same in softball. The next pitch is going to be in five seconds or so, so you can’t blow up.”
Wright also is beginning to take golf a bit more seriously.
“I’ve progressed a lot as a golfer over the last year,” Wright said. “I have more of a short game because that’s just feel for the game. Hopefully, I’ll keep getting better with that.”
At first, it was for fun, but now it has become a priority.
Between school, the Aerospace and Engineering Club and the golf and drill teams, Wright needed to give up something to find a few more hours to sleep.
“I thought golf was more important than drill team,” she said, explaining why she won’t be a Ravens dancer this season.
Wright is off to a fast start this season.
She placed fifth Aug. 29 in the season-opening Olathe North Invitational and finished third Sept. 6 at the Olathe Cup.
Wright’s goal is to reach the Class 6A state tournament this season, a goal with which softball may just benefit her golf game this time around.
Wright struggled with rainy, windy conditions at regionals last season and missed qualifying for state.
“You can’t make an excuse of it, but I just didn’t know how to handle it as a golfer,” Wright said. “I know how to handle it with a softball, but I wasn’t prepared in golf.”

— Contact Tod Palmer at 764-2211, ext. 140, or todpalmer@theolathenews.com.