Kansas Day, 2025

January 29 is our annual celebration of a passionate and complex state. We mark 164 years of statehood, though the decades preceding were a testing ground of vital issues —- the Bleeding Kansas period.

Looming large in the statehouse is this mural Tragic Prelude by John Steuart Curry. It is arresting. The Kansas Historical Society shares this record of the mural and the momentous time it depicts.

The Seal of Kansas, adopted 1861 (source: Kansas Memory at kshs.org)

On a more sentimental and optimistic note, we also celebrate Kansas as our dear home.

On this first anniversary of the Harvest Blue community, we’d like to share this video again - enjoy the Friends University Music Department’s 2021 feature on our state song, Home on the Range.

(the music starts at time 5:20).

Home on the Range Video, from Music Education majors at Friends University (source: Friends University, on Youtube)