The Kansas Wetlands Education Center (KWEC), located northeast of Great Bend on K-156 HWY, is gearing up for its annual Perseid Meteor Shower Watch Party.
The public is invited to join the KWEC staff for this free, family-friendly activity. Each year, as the Earth passes through the dust and debris of the Swift-Tuttle comet, the Kansas Wetlands Education Center celebrates the end of summer with our guests by watching the meteors or shooting stars as they burn in our atmosphere.
This year, our event will take place on Tuesday, August 12, from 8:30-10:30pm. This coincides with the peak of the shower. Stargazers may be able to spot 60-100 meteors per hour. Guests are invited to bring lawn chairs or blankets for comfortable sky-watching on the KWEC lawn. Be sure to stop by the fire pit to enjoy a s’more!
This event will occur regardless of weather conditions. Guests at the meteor shower watch party can also participate in several space-themed learning stations inside KWEC; magnetic meteor hunt, build a spectroscope, participate in a space lander STEM challenge, create an asteroid belt art project, and use a blender bike to make a galaxy smoothie. Planetarium shows will also be offered in the inflatable planetarium. Real meteorites will be on loan from the Sternberg Museum of Natural History.
Date: 08/12/2025 8:30 PM – 08/12/2025 10:30 PM
Kansas Wetlands Education Center hosts Perseid meteor shower watch party
Just a Bit of Bark and Banter: Summer Days with My Toy Aussies
Jennifer Long
Columnist
Summer is here, and while many of us love soaking up the sunshine, my four Toy Australian Shepherds have their own opinions about these hot days!
Lucy, our indoor queen, is perfectly happy lounging in the cool air conditioning. She’ll occasionally peek outside, but the heat doesn’t appeal to her one bit. Her favorite summer activity? Sprawling out in the coziest spot on the couch, keeping a close eye on everything happening inside.
Brutus and Scout, on the other hand, are usually the adventurous ones. They love their walks and exploring the neighborhood, but lately, the summer heat has slowed them down. Walks have to wait until early morning or late evening when the sun isn’t blazing. Even then, they’d rather take shorter strolls and hurry back to the shade.
Luna, our playful girl, likes a mix of both worlds. While she appreciates the comfort of staying inside where it’s cool, she can’t resist her little pool in the backyard. On particularly hot afternoons, she’ll splash and play in the water, tail wagging, before heading back inside to relax.
Watching my Toy Aussies handle summer in their own ways reminds me that, like people, pets have their unique personalities and preferences. Whether it’s lounging indoors, enjoying a quiet evening walk, or splashing in a backyard pool, there’s no wrong way to beat the heat—so long as they’re happy and safe.
A Few Summer Tips for Your Furry Friends:
Hydration is key! Always keep fresh, cool water available indoors and out.
Paw check! If the pavement is too hot for your hand, it’s too hot for their paws. Walk during the cooler parts of the day.
Shade & splash zones: A shady yard and a small kiddie pool can turn a hot afternoon into a play day.
Frozen treats: Ice cubes or frozen dog-friendly snacks make for fun (and safe) summer cool-downs.
Know their limits: Just like us, dogs can overheat quickly, so watch for signs of heat exhaustion and give them plenty of rest.
Summer with my Toy Aussies is never boring—between Lucy’s lounging, Brutus and Scout’s short-but-determined walks, and Luna’s splash parties, there’s always a story to tell!
Prairie Doc Perspective: Breaking the Silence: Ending the Stigma Around Addiction and Mental Health
Prairie Doc ®
Perspective
Dr. Melissa Dittberner
In South Dakota and across the whole United States, addiction and mental health struggles touch every community. Yet far too often, people suffer in silence—not because help isn’t available, but because stigma keeps them from reaching for it.
Stigma shows up in many forms. It’s the harmful comments we hear about people who use substances. It’s the judgment directed at those struggling with depression, anxiety or trauma. It’s even the quiet self-blame people carry, believing they should be able to “snap out of it” or that asking for help makes them weak.
Social stigma is deeply embedded in our systems and culture. It can show up in the way medical professionals talk about patients, in media portrayals that dehumanize or in policies that punish rather than support. When people internalize these messages, they may avoid seeking care altogether—also known as label avoidance. They fear being labeled as “addicts” or “crazy,” and would rather struggle alone than face the shame and judgment that too often follows disclosure.
This silence can be and is deadly. Addiction is a treatable health condition. Mental health challenges are human, not moral failings. But when stigma gets in the way, it cuts people off from connection, care and healing.
So how do we fight it?
We lead with compassion. We create spaces where people are met with dignity, not dismissal. We challenge our own biases and educate ourselves on the realities of addiction and mental health. We tell the truth: recovery is possible, and people are so much more than their struggles.
At the University of South Dakota, the Department of Addiction Counseling & Prevention is committed to changing the narrative. Our students and faculty work to educate, advocate and care for people across the region—whether in treatment settings, prevention programs or community outreach efforts.
To help make that shift, faculty members in the department are using a grant to provide prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery services for those individuals with substance use disorders who are involved with the courts. The $2 million grant will integrate:
Integrated Peer Support Services: The grant funds peer support specialists to work directly with Drug Court participants, offering lived experience guidance, accountability and recovery support.
Wraparound Care Model: Emphasizes coordinated care—connecting participants to medical, behavioral health, housing and employment resources.
Focus on Sustainability: Aims to increase the number of billable services and set up systems for long-term sustainability beyond the grant period.
Data-Driven Outcomes: Includes metrics for reducing recidivism, increasing treatment engagement and improving participant stability.
We believe that no one should be ashamed to ask for help. Everyone deserves access to care, and everyone deserves to be treated with humanity.
Ending stigma won’t happen overnight, but it starts with all of us. We can speak up when we hear harmful language. We can be a listening ear. We can make room for people to show up exactly as they are—and meet them with respect.
Let’s be a community where no one has to hide their pain. Let’s create a South Dakota where people feel safe to heal.
Melissa Dittberner, or “Dr. Mo” as she is known to her students, is a professor in the Addiction Counseling & Prevention Department at the University of South Dakota.
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A Likely Story: “MILEPOST 100.1” Ark Valley News
Roger Clark
Guest Columnist
I ran this route only a few times each year, and for the most part, it was a predictable run. It’s a scenic trip, even when the Flint Hills are on fire, and traffic is limited to road-weary families, triple-trailer rigs, drug-running entrepreneurs, and mail haulers like me. It’s a great time for personal reflection, corporate gratitude, and genuine appreciation for cruise control.
It’s a time to embrace mental health, goodwill to men, and remembering how good-looking my wife is. Life is good, some nights, and nobody knows it better than me. Especially at 3:00 AM when I’m just hitting the interstate, it’s a comfort zone for a mostly awake trucker.
That is, until I reached mile marker 100.1 north of Cassoday. By this time, I’m in that zone where one is groovin’ to the music, glancing at the moon, and counting the money that’s sure to roll in someday. But as I’ve done countless times on this run, I forget about the bridge. The evil bridge. The bridge that’s about to ruin the reputation I always wanted.
Bridges have expansion plates. Expansion plates, they like, expand. But these particular expansion plates, located only on the south side of the bridge, and only in the northbound hammer lane, have separated from the main structure. Running over it with a forty-thousand-pound semi is like cracking open a can of Bud Lite with a sledgehammer.
The impact launches me out of my state-of-the-art air seat and slams my chest against the shoulder belt. Anything not bolted down, including my coffee cup, cell phone, prepaid funeral plan, and Bluetooth headset are being slung around the cab like marbles in my wife’s state-of-the-art washing machine.
Some people believe time stops or goes into slow motion when things like this happen. They can recall seeing things like bright white lights, long-dead relatives, or images of the pearly gates. Some even claim to have died, briefly.
I should be so lucky. If I recall anything, it’s that trip last November, when I did the same #@%*^! thing, at the same #@%*^! bridge. But trust me, that recollection comes later, not sooner. In the moment, the only thing I’m seeing is the trailer logo way too prominent in the driver’s mirror.
Standing on the gas pedal like you would for a steer tire blowout, I drive for the shoulder and let the engine lug down before clutching. I might have practiced this before. But I also worry about being rear-ended in a situation like this, so I park straight, exit quickly, and do a one-minute walk-around looking for things that might be dragging on the ground, or broken. You know, like my pride for instance.
I did call the turnpike authority, just like last time, and they promised to get right on it, just like last time. I even write them an email about this one, and they responded by offering a prize if I can describe it in seven words or less.
So there’s hope, but not in Kansas. (And there’s my seven words!)
Later when it’s safe to do so, I find a good place to park and clean up the mess. Not only am I able to reset everything undamaged, but also find some loose change, leftover chicken nuggets, and the bonus check I lost last July.
Insight: Corn Sweat and August
Greg Doering,
Kansas Farm Bureau
According to recent reports the summer heat is causing corn to sweat in the field. Is it the corn’s profuse perspiration causing the issue or maybe the county fair is the party responsible?
More likely it’s just summer in early August. There are two options, hot and humid or hot and dry. Either way, the corn is still sweating, with each acre pumping up to 4,000 gallons of water into the air every day. Kansas’ 6.4 million acres of corn pumps out enough sweat each day to cover a football field in more than 15 miles of water.
Corn sweat doesn’t actually make the temperature rise, rather it makes hot summer days feel hotter by adding to the humidity in the air. In addition to evaporation, all plants release water through tiny pores in their leaves during a process called transpiration, or plant sweat.
August is the peak growing season for corn and other fall crops, and correspondingly the peak for humidity, especially with the rains portions of the state have received this summer. The extra moisture can turn a normal August afternoon into a “three-shirt day” where even light work outdoors requires changing shirts more than once.
I do have a small quibble with the National Weather Service over its recent change in the adjectives used to describe our hot, humid summers. In March, the agency substituted “extreme” for “excessive” for heat-related watches and warnings.
Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t consulted on the change, and I have no problem alerting folks about the dangers posed by intense summer weather. But I’m not convinced that classifying normal, expected bouts of summer heat as excessive or extreme are of any help. Everyone should be mindful of the toll working outdoors can take. Plenty of breaks in the shade and cold water are crucial to staying safe in the heat.
As the change from excessive to extreme indicates, adjectives are arbitrary, and neither one is as effective as the description used in explaining the meaning of an extreme heat watch or warning: dangerous heat is possible or happening.
Dangerous means the situation is serious, as the weather in Kansas often is (there’s a 161-degree swing between the hottest and coldest record temps in the state). It also works across a range of conditions from hot and cold to flash floods and severe thunderstorms. It’s an adjective that conveys the stakes of the weather, especially in summer for individuals most at risk of high temperatures like older adults, young children and those without access to cooling resources. It’s easy to poke fun at labeling typical summer weather as excessive or extreme. Call it dangerous and people are likely to actually pay attention.
While July is the hottest month, August is still the heart of summer where triple-digit readings on the thermometer are commonplace. Our electricity bills may be extreme, but that’s just summer.
The days are getting shorter and soon harvest will put an end to sweating corn. For now, it’s still summer. Do your best to stay cool and maybe pack an extra shirt or two if you’re doing anything outside. Afterall, it’s just another August in Kansas.
“Insight” is a weekly column published by Kansas Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization whose mission is to strengthen agriculture and the lives of Kansans through advocacy, education and service.
