By LESLIE MANNING
Tri-Rivers Fair Board
The 2022 Tri-Rivers Fair board invites folks to be inspired by presentations focused on innovative programming and projects impacting Saline County residents during the Inspiration and Innovation Showcase on Saturday, Aug. 6 in the Great Plains Manufacturing Convention Center of the Tony’s Pizza Event Center. The showcase is partnered with an outdoor event honoring the innovations of the past, with an antique tractor show in the south parking lot of Tony’s Pizza Event Center, featuring tractors owned by members of the Kansas Tractor Club. The Kansas Tractor Club will also provide tractor games during the outdoor show.
Honoring history
“There are a lot of stories behind these tractors,” Michael Boldenow said. "A lot of those tractors came around the war, when the armed forces needed more metal. The tractors have cast iron frames, because the steel was used in the war, and once the war was over they went back to steel tractors.”
Boldenow serves as the president of the Kansas Tractor Club. The club will be showcasing the members’ tractors and sharing stories during the Antique Tractor Show from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday in the south parking lot of the Tony’s Pizza Event Center.
“The club involves basically anyone who wants to join, and we usually don’t go more than an hour away for shows,” Boldenow said. “It’s fun talking about the history on these tractors. You get a lot of that from everybody who is a member.”
According to Boldenow, the majority of tractors on display were built between the years of 1925 and 1955.
“We enjoy any tractor that shows up,” Boldenow said. “We expect 20 plus tractors from the Kansas Tractor Club on Saturday.”
One tractor Boldenow expects to display is a Ford 8N.
“They made a lot of them,” Boldenow said. “Those are really unique tractors, because there are not a whole lot that are exactly the same. They would change them throughout the year, so they are all kind of different.”
The Kansas Tractor Club will also host tractor games at noon on Saturday. The games will include the chain game which involves a tractor driver dragging the chain back and forth, dropping it in a box; a game with the goal of dropping washers in a bucket while driving; a blind fold driving game, which involves a partner providing directions to a blind folded driver and the teeter totter game, where a tractor drives up on a teeter totter and has to balance for an extended and measured amount of time.
The Kansas Tractor Club involves more than 70 members, some who own antique tractors and some who do not. The club offers a $1,000 scholarship to club members each year to support a restoration project, and offers a $1,000 scholarship to a graduating senior each year. You can find club information on Facebook.
Local innovation
The Inspiration and Innovation Showcase on Saturday begins at 10 a.m. with a presentation from Lori Blake, executive director at Child Advocacy and Parenting Services, Salina. Parents and guardians attending the presentation will discover the different free services available to support the full-time job of raising children of all ages. The presentation is titled Connections Matter, and Blake hopes to empower good parents to become great parents. The presentation will include information on the value of safe, caring adults in the lives of children.
Tim Bartz, Long McArthur Ford, will take the stage at 11 a.m. to share the details on Ford’s lineup of electrified vehicles. Long McArthur’s communication and marketing team has developed systems allowing Salina’s Ford dealership to ship on average more than 50 vehicles out of state each month. Long McArthur Ford is the No. 1 Ford Maverick dealer in the USA, No. 1 Super Duty Dealer in Kansas, and has won the Ford President Award three years in a row. Bartz will share which electric vehicles are available from the Long McArthur inventory, including the Ford Maverick Hybrid 42mpg truck that can haul 1,500 pounds and tow up to 4,000 pounds; the Ford Mustang Mach-E which is a full electric crossover that drives like a Mustang and uses zero fuel; the Ford F-150 Hybrid offering the best of both worlds with 13,000 pounds of towing and good fuel economy in town; the Ford F-150 Lightning which is the first all electric American made truck with 10,000 pounds towing and 775 pounds of torque; along with other hybrid line-ups like the Escape and Explorer. Several of the electric vehicles will be on display in the circle drive of Tony’s Pizza Event Center during the showcase.
As federal decision makers delegate more and more policy making to states and local governments, a relationship with local representation becomes all the more important. Clarke Sanders will take the stage at noon to share what he has been working on as the District 69 representative in the Kansas House of Representatives, and a question and answer session will be facilitated during the time available.
Speaking of federal action delegated to the state and local level, Phillip Smith-Hanes will present at 1 p.m. regarding the money received by Saline County from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA.) Smith-Hanes collected surveys from Saline County residents to better understand where the people wanted ARPA funding spent, and the highest priority communicated was business recovery. Smith-Hanes has worked with technology companies to provide an app that consumers can download, along with technology businesses can use, to shop and distribute ARPA funds to local participating business.
If you are a local business owner, learn how to earn ARPA dollars by attending this presentation. For consumers, come learn how you can be a part of a grassroots effort to support and provide recovery dollars to the businesses in Saline County.
At 1:30 p.m. Eric Brown from the Salina Area Chamber of Commerce will follow the presentation about the Saline County business recovery, with information about leadership programs available to Saline County business owners. The presentation titled, Ins and Outs of Local Community Leadership Programs, will focus on high level overview of two community leadership programs offered by the Salina Area Chamber of Commerce. The Leadership Salina program and Springboard program are designed to develop leaders who will have the skills and capacities to move our community forward by being trained with the tools necessary to lead at work and non-profit sectors.
The ever changing landscape of technology continues to impact lives in Saline County, and Deven Fortkamp, vice president at WCCiT, will identify ways to navigate these changes at 2:30 p.m. The presentation will discuss aspects of cyber security, including what it is, why it is needed and hot to spot scans and phishing attempts. Fortkamp will also share what can be done to stay safe on the internet. The presentation will include some true, personal stories related to cyber-attacks and some frightening statistics.
Continuing the trend of tech talk, Emanuel Ashiedu of the Salina Code Academy, will present at 3 p.m. on stage. The Saline Code Academy provides hands on learning for elementary aged kids, middle-schoolers and high school students, teaching them math, logical thinking, creativity, persistence, problem solving and strategizing with the power of code. Ashiedu will share information about the classes available, and the results he has observed in the short time the academy has been open in Salina.
Did you know that Saline County and the City of Salina have set a goal together, to reduce solid waste across the county? Learn more about the goal, current efforts and future projects by attending a presentation at 3:30 p.m. from Jim Kowach, City of Salina public works operations manager, about the Zero Waste Initiative efforts. The presentation will define the Zero Waste Initiative goal; explain the Saline County Solid Waste plan and the role of the Saline County Solid Waste committee; describe the current waste diversion efforts in Salina and Saline County; describe the Solid Waste Sort and Recyclables Composition Study completed in the Spring of 2022 and describe the ongoing and planned efforts to develop waste reduction strategies for the community.
Bring your kids to the air conditioning of the Great Plains Manufacturing Convention Center at 4 p.m. to listen to a presentation from Rolling Hills Zoo staff. The presentation will cover a brief history of the zoo, as well as new exhibits and animals; upcoming events and future projects. The presentation will also share the SAFE (Saving Animals From Extinction) program, explaining what it is and how Rolling Hills Zoo is involved. Three Animal Ambassadors will be guests during the presentation, allowing guests to get close to the exhibits safely, without touching.
The showcase is headlined by a free concert and presentation provided by the Peterson Farm Bros at 5 p.m. In 2012, the Peterson Farm Bros published a parody video on YouTube titled, I’m Farming and I Grow It. The video has grown to 12 million views, hitting 50,000 views in the first 48 hours online. To celebrate 10 years since the launch of the Peterson Farm Bros, Greg Peterson, Nathan Peterson and Kendal Peterson will take the stage and perform parodies and share their story.