By Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University.

The author reads her work as the audience enjoys her well-written prose. Was this in a coffee shop? Bookstore? Library? No, this particular reading took place in the chamber of the Kansas House of Representatives. Wow. That venue is especially fitting when one learns that this particular writer is a true Kansan – and is creating wonderful columns celebrating our great state. 

Cheryl Unruh is a columnist for the Emporia Gazette. Her weekly column and her new book bear the same name: “Flyover People.” It’s a term for those who populate Kansas, which some east or west coast residents dismissively call “flyover country.” But Cheryl Unruh loves Kansas: its beautiful skies and wide open spaces. She especially loves the people and places of small town Kansas, and sharing their stories with others.

Cheryl grew up in the rural town of Pawnee Rock, population 351 people. Now, that’s rural.

Cheryl wrote of her view of her hometown at age 18: “A dirt-street town with familiar faces, loose dogs, and few opportunities.” But today, she reflects nostalgically on the sense of safety she had as a kid in Pawnee Rock, and the joys of small town living.

Cheryl is a natural born wordsmith. As a high school student, she wrote about her school for the local newspaper in Larned. Her writing skills were helpful as she followed her older brother to KU, although as a matter of teenage rebellion she refused to major in journalism because he had already done so. She graduated in education and settled in Emporia, but the urge to write continued.

“I always wanted to write a column about Kansas,” Cheryl said. “I pestered the people at the Emporia Gazette until they let me try it.” On January 28, 2003, her first column ran. Fittingly, it was the day before Kansas Day.

“As a writer, I can’t think of a subject I’d rather cover each week than the great state of Kansas—its small towns, the weather, the people, the landscape,” Cheryl wrote later. “I love this place.”

So Cheryl set out to write a weekly column with its focus on our state. She wrote, “I call this column “Flyover People” because of my fascination with the sky, the sunsets, the clouds, as well as the planes and travelers that inhabit the air. Our endless sky…belong(s) to us. It is ever-present, a player in our daily lives.”

Her love for Kansas came through, and her column gained quite a following. Then the column developed into a book.

“In March 2010, it hit me that the Kansas sesquicentennial was coming,” Cheryl said. “What better time to put a Kansas book together.” Cheryl got in touch with her older brother the journalist, and he helped her assemble some of her favorite essays into a book which was published in August 2010.

It is titled “Flyover People – Life on the Ground in a Rectangular State.” Her stories of life on the ground are, by turns, entertaining, humorous, and touching. She writes fascinating tales of small town Kansas people and her own experiences while growing up there.

“I’m documenting Kansas as it is at this point in time,” Cheryl said. “It’s a living history.”  Cheryl and her husband Dave like to travel and experience those small towns first-hand.

“We’ll get in the car, pick a direction and just go,” Cheryl said. “Every town has something, and each town has its own personality. I can’t wait to see what’s there.” For more information, go to Flyover People.

And so, each week the Emporia Gazette carries her column, and people are enjoying her book.  On June 18, 2011, she presented a reading of her work in the House Chamber of the Kansas Capitol building.

The author concludes her reading as the audience applauds -- not in a coffee shop, bookstore, or library, but in the chamber of the Kansas House of Representatives. How fitting that this author is Cheryl Unruh, who is making a difference by writing so passionately and eloquently about Kansas living. She manages to lift up the Flyover People of Kansas while staying down to earth.

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The mission of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development is to enhance rural development by helping rural people help themselves. The Kansas Profile radio series and columns are produced with assistance from the K-State Research and Extension Department of Communications News Unit. A photo of Ron Wilson is available. Audio and text files of Kansas Profiles are also available. For more information about the Huck Boyd Institute, interested persons can visit Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development.

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