Category: Outdoors

Space Monkey Independence celebrates its own Miss Able, who blazed the trail for human space travel when she was launched to space 60 years ago Mickey Mantle made history in 1949 when he hit his first professional home run at Independence’s Shulthis Stadium. His ball soared over the stadium...

Off the Beaten PathBike culture grows as SEK promotes cycling Randy Rasa has found a new hobby: dropping by the trailhead for the Lehigh Portland Trails just to peek at the cars in the parking lot. Their license plates hail from all over – from every county in the...

Rural By Choice Schenker Family Farms and McCune Farm to Market invest in SEK – while serving customers around the world It was 2008. Cherie Schenker logged on to Craigslist, a relatively new website at the time, to advertise a quarter of Schenker Family Farms’ grass-fed beef to local...

Welcome to The Lavender Patch Fort Scott family farm features 1,000+ lavender plants When you enter Davin and Betsy Reichard’s home, you can’t miss it: that familiar, unmistakable scent of lavender. It’s inevitable. The Reichards are surrounded by lavender, from the hundreds of lavender plants that are blooming just...

Fall in Love at Summit Hill Gardens There’s just something about Summit Hill. It captivated Patsy Smeed from the very beginning. She moved there – one acre of land south of Chanute, the site of an old one-room schoolhouse – more than 40 years ago with her late husband...

  Every other year, we publish this special tourism issue to give Southeast Kansas readers ideas for places to go and things to do right in their own backyard — and this one is our best yet, packed with more than 150 ideas! Southeast Kansas Living subscribers received the 68-page...

Hidden Gem Mined Land Wildlife Area boasts premier hunting and fishing – and unique history You’ve never experienced a Kansas wildlife area quite like this one. Spread over 47 different tracts of land, the Mined Land Wildlife Area encompasses nearly 15,000 acres throughout Cherokee, Crawford and Labette counties. But...

Thriving Thrive Allen County makes big strides for Southeast Kansas You don’t have to search hard to see the impact Thrive Allen County has had in Iola. There’s the new Allen County Regional Hospital, the soon-to-be-constructed grocery store in the heart of town, the bike sharrows painted in the...

Outdoor Oasis Hunt, fish, explore, or kick back and relax at Timber Hills Lake Ranch When you cross the gate into the ranch with one of the largest hunting preserves in the state of Kansas, it’s like entering another world. A world where trophy elk and deer roam free....

Cross Timbers It’s the perfect time of year to discover this state park and its ancient forest According to park manager Kim Jones, if you’re looking for fall foliage in Southeast Kansas, Cross Timbers State Park near Toronto “is the place to be.” Of course, Cross Timbers is the...