Haysville Online

The Haysville Times
By Barb Walters

One Haysville couple has something extra to be thankful for this week. On Thanksgiving Day, Thomas and Vivian Copeland celebrated their seventieth wedding anniversary.
Married November 24, 1935, in Fulton County, Arkansas, the couple later moved to Kansas where Tom worked for the Boeing Company, a career that would span thirty years. Their two daughters, Helen Stowe and Vernece Greig, live in Wichita. The Copeland’s have seven grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild.
Haysville Dairy Queen employees noticed a customer coming in regularly for four chicken strips and gravy. It’s one of Vivian’s favorite foods. Recently, Dairy Queen owner Jeanette Westerhaus was visiting with Tom Copeland, who likes to buy the chicken strips because Vivian likes them so much. “He told he me was going to be married seventy years the next week,” Westerhaus recalled. “I said ‘what, you were married when you were five?’” He went on to reveal that he will soon be 88. “He’s just such a gentleman’s gentleman,” explained Westerhaus. “He’s just the neatest guy in the world.”
Tom Copeland picks up the chicken strips nearly every day, but he usually fixes something else for himself. The Copeland’s used to go dancing, but now they are content to enjoy their birds – canaries and budgies – 23 in all.
This won’t be the first time the Copeland’s anniversary has fallen on Thanksgiving over the decades, but the celebration is sweeter than ever.

The Haysville Times
By CJ Cross

Friday was an historic day for Oatville Elementary. There were 383 students in attendance, along with the Superintendent, BOE members, school staff, local families and Donald Thompson, with his family.
With a quick show of Oatville Indian spirit, the great dedication started off with a “thank you” to all who made things possible. Next came a ceremony with Mr. Thompson cutting the ribbon and ringing the bell.
Donald Thompson, who will turn 104 in February, attended Oatville in 1905, when it was just one room with one teacher. He walked miles to school, because there were no buses. He could remember the school and how it was when he was a young boy. He had actually kept that bell in his own back yard until the family came together and decided to refinish and return it to its home place at Oatville.
The bell was re-dedicated in honor of Donald Thompson and his family’s legacy at Oatville and in remembrance of his great-grandson, killed in 2002 in a bicycle accident.
Many were there to thank him for making this all possible, from the lime-stone to the refinishing of the bell, which was funded by donations from those in the Oatville community. A great deal of hard work and love went into the project at Oatville, and with the sun shining, it made for a great day!
The Oatville Indians cheered in appreciation and excitement to their old, yet new, addition to their school. May we enjoy another 100 years of memories at Oatville.

The Haysville Times
By Angie Gumm

If you thought you saw a truck stuck in Riggs Pond this week, you don’t need to make an appointment with your optometrist. A city employee was checking on buildings in Riggs Park on Tuesday morning when the strong wind blew his truck, which was stuck in reverse, into the pond.
“Those old vehicles have some gear shift problems,” said the City’s Carol Neugent.
Neugent said the truck wasn’t in the pond very long before it was pulled out with a loader and chains. She expects the vehicle to make a full recovery.
“It’s a very old truck. It doesn’t have electronics, so we can dry it out, and it should be drivable,” she said. “We’re just glad that nobody was hurt.”

The Haysville Times
By Johnna Crawford

What do you get when you mix seventy to eighty teenagers and only eight adults?
The answer is the Campus High School fall musical production of Little Shop of Horrors.
Theatre teacher and director Greg McGlynn is the mastermind behind the upcoming performance and has dedicated his personal talents and time to guiding the Campus students towards another successful theatre production.
Little Shop of Horrors was originally released as a black and white film in 1960. The budget was low, and the rumors are that the movie was completed in only two days and also debuted a young Jack Nicholson. The 1986 version featured Rick Moranis as Seymour, Steve Martin as the sadistic dentist and Bill Murray as his patient.
However, the CHS production only features Haysville celebrities; all have performed in numerous Campus plays in the past. Seymour is played by senior Brandon Napier, Audrey is played by junior Cassie LeBron, Mr. Mushnik is junior Dylon Lewis, and Orin, who also plays the blood eating plant, Audrey II, is performed by junior Miles Mattal. The cast also consists of many other CHS students including those from the Theatre I class, Advanced Acting and musical numbers made possible by the CHS Jazz Band and musical director Mrs. Riffe.
Little Shop of Horrors brings much more life and color to the stage then previous classics such as Our Town and Fiddler on the Roof. Mr. McGlynn wanted something a little more light and fun, allowing his actors to “get a little goofy.” This musical is one musical that actually has it all: comedy, drama, music, unforgettable characters, and choreography.
The plot involves the character of Seymour, a dweebish flower shop worker who acquires a small plant during a solar eclipse. Seymour soon finds out that this plant, Audrey II, named after a co-worker, needs blood to survive. As the plant grows, so does its appetite and the show is pure entertainment from then on.
Napier, as Seymour, is the main character, “who gets to act like a nerd.” He and LeBron, who plays his love interest Audrey, both have been in previous CHS plays and also plan on acting more in their future, though Napier believes he’ll stay in Kansas, while LeBron has different plans. “I’m not sure where I’d go, but I’m not staying here,” she explained.
Dylon Lewis has enjoyed this particular play because besides acting it also involves singing and dancing, which he hasn’t done before. And as for the blood-hungry plant, Miles Mattal is happy with his character, saying, “I think it’s the coolest part I’ve ever had.”
Performances will be next week on November 10, 11 and 12, doors open at 7:00 p.m., and the show starts at 7:30. Tickets are $5.00, unless you’re a child or senior.
The play has already been guaranteed worth the money by the high school actors because, “this one is really funny and random,” said Dustin Swisher, and it’s all in the hands of Mr. McGlynn, who according to LeBron, “basically knows everything there is to know.”

The Haysville Times
By Patricia Barkley

Haysvilleonline.com is the face of Haysville’s online community. This month is the six-year anniversary of the website, and a lot has changed during that time. When its virtual doors first opened, the address was locojoe.com/haysville. That was on October 10, 1999. In June of 2000, the domain name Haysvilleonline.com was purchased. The site was really starting to put itself on the map.
The creator, designer, and administrator of Haysville’s online meeting place goes only by the name Randy. Randy, who previously ran a “bulletin board system” called Alphabet City, came up with the idea for Haysvilleonline after seeing the City’s official website. He felt it was “static and didn’t provide a lot of the information I thought a city’s website should.” He made some suggestions to the webmaster at haysville-ks.com but never saw any of them implemented.

“I then decided to create my own interactive unofficial Haysville website with a large portion of the content, like news, photos and events, being provided by the residents themselves,” Randy wrote in an email. “I also wanted to create a meeting place where residents could voice their opinions, whether positive or negative. Throw in what I knew and could find about Haysville’s history, a few fun things, and Haysville Online was born.”
The website boasts all sorts of information on Haysville and links to the City’s official site, the Haysville Chamber of Commerce, and the Haysville Community Library. It also has information for visitors who might be considering moving to Haysville. There is a directory that lists businesses and churches, a section on schools in USD 261, and lots of photos and facts on Haysville history, as well as local events and a city map. There are Haysville-style games, classifieds, coupons, contests, local weather reports, and an HOL gift shop. Visitors can send in their own photos and information for inclusion in the history section or the photo album or add upcoming events to the calendar.

The two things on Haysvilleonline that have sparked the most interest over the years are the news items and the message boards. In May of 2001, the Haysville Times published an article, written by Johnna Harris (now Crawford), on the excitement that was keeping the message boards busy with posts from Haysville residents, mainly concerning the recent election and the addition of Seth Konkel to the school board. Both residents of USD 261 and elected officials were voicing their opinions. An excerpt from the story can be found in the scrapbook section of the website. The month before it was published, Haysvilleonline received roughly 10,000 hits, but the highest numbers for that year would come in August (about 13,000). Since then, October has become the site’s biggest month, with over 20,000 hits in 2003 and over 21,000 in 2004.

Websites like “Kansas Travel and Tourism” and the radio station B98 FM have linked to Haysvilleonline, and comments from viewers have said things like “Those pretty Haysville pictures are enjoyed by my family in Switzerland. Keep em coming!” and “I have been deployed for the Air National Guard for the past two months. Every once in a while I enjoy coming to this site to see what is going on back ‘home.’” On average, the site still receives about 10,000 page views per month, and the site’s newsletter has over 180 subscribers, both inside and outside Haysville. As one out-of-town viewer wrote, “I have enjoyed your newsletter so much that I almost feel like a member of your community!”

In April of 2005, the Haysville Times appointed Haysvilleonline as its official website. There is a subscription page on the site, and the Times provides some of the local news stories every week a day before publication in the paper.
The future of Haysville’s online community looks bright as both Randy and local citizens add more content.
“The only agenda I have is to keep my hobby of providing an online service alive,” wrote Randy.

Continue reading “Happy Anniversary, HOL”