Word: wichitas
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Hedrick, 68, whose florid face testifies to years spent in the summer sun and winter winds of Wichita, points out that "this certainly isn't the world's fanciest climate, so we must have other advantages." In his view, one echoed by various local business and labor chiefs: "A work ethic still exists in this part of the world. People feel they have to give a day's work for a day's pay." Local people commonly speak of the city's Midwestern "openness." Says Hedrick: "I was in North Palm Beach the other...
More than 160 Vietnamese refugees are doing well working in a local meat packing plant (where employment has doubled in the past four years), and some of them are beginning to start their own small enterprises on the side. Wichita's unemployment rate for blacks, 7.7%, is much lower than the nation's average. Women are also getting ahead. Olive Beech, who with her late husband founded Beech Aircraft, is now its chairman (not chairperson), and thus ranks as one of the nation's highest female executives. Wichita's Nancy Kassebaum is the U.S. Senate...
...Button, chairman of the Fourth National Bank, boasts that he has hired two senior officers away from Houston banks. Iowa-born Richard Upton, who runs the hyperactive Chamber of Commerce, points to Metropolitan Life, NCR and many other big companies that have opened branches in the area. Tom Pierce, Wichita's AFL-CIO chief, notes that despite its right-to-work law, Kansas' average hourly wage is fairly high ($6.11). Says Pierce: "If workers come here and stay for two or three months, you would have a tough time getting them to move...
Sure there are shortcomings. Housing is scarce. Even the most vocal Wichita cheerleaders admit to a certain provincialism. Bible Belt conservatives have barred the public sale of liquor by the drink. But the city is on a culture kick. In the past decade, Wichita has opened a flying saucer-shaped civic center that dominates downtown, a 12,200-seat coliseum for conventions and cattle shows, one of the nation's better Indian museums, two art museums, a planetarium, a zoo and three new libraries. That hardly makes the community a rival to, say, Chicago. Yet almost everything...
...breaking for the hoop. Averaging 28.6 points a game, Larry Bird, 22, is the second leading college scorer and stands third in rebounds. What is more, he has led his hitherto obscure team through a schedule that reads like the mail drops on the midnight train to Yuma−Wichita State, Tulsa, West Texas State, New Mexico State−and arrived at the top of last week's Associated Press national rankings...