About Brad

There's No Place Like Home

Dorothy said it, and I agree. Kansas is home. However… I love the mountains. There are no mountains in Kansas. I dig the beach. The oceans are far, far away. So why Kansas? To be honest, I’ve asked myself that very question. Put simply, Kansas is where family is, and family is where home is. Growing up, home was a big white house in the country with a red shingle roof and a porch swing. There were trees to climb, horses to ride, a pasture to explore. On hot windy days I swam in the pond. During winter my sister and I laced up the skates, scooped snow from the dark ice and played hockey with brooms and a rubber ball. Falling was no problem as we each wore at least three pair of pants–plenty of padding! My home in the country was a wonderful place to grow and exercise my imagination.

Boots, Bridles, and Spurs

My grandpa gave me a horse when I was three. She was a chestnut Appaloosa with a sugar-white blanket sprinkled over her hips. We called her Misty. I enjoyed riding in the local horse shows and the county fair but the horseback experiences I treasure are the weeks I spent with my dad in Colorado’s back-country. We rode for miles through dense forest and traversed shale slides on narrow trails so high the trees don’t grow and snow remains throughout the summer. At night we camped at the edge of alpine meadows where the hobbled horses could graze. One morning we woke to find the horses missing. We finally caught up to them a mile down the trail. They were headed home without us!

Lay-ups, Line Drives, and Touchdowns

When I was a toddler, my favorite toy was a ball, so it’s no surprise that I spent a good deal of my youth on the basketball court, baseball diamond, and football field. Growing up in the country meant many of my friends didn’t live nearby, so there weren’t many pick-up games in the driveway. Sometimes I recruited my little sister for a game of one-on-one tackle football. Invariably the fun ended with sis in tears and me promising to play “school” with her if only she wouldn’t tell on me for playing too rough! Organized softball started in Kindergarten (baseball came later), basketball in fourth grade, and my favorite, tackle football, in sixth grade. I played all three sports through high school.

Paper, Pencil, and Imagination