I had always heard Meadowlark Hills is for older adults, but when I moved in, I found out Meadowlark Hills keeps us young.
"Big Why" Fall Lecture Series: Enriching Our Lives by Facing Some of Life & Our Community's Big Questions
October 3, 2025
Blog
Oink! Now that the calendar has flipped to October, temperatures are cooling, but activities to benefit Meadowlark Foundation are heating up. It’s HOGTOBERFEST season, and here are a few squeal-worthy announcements!
No. 1 – The 11th annual HOGTOBERFEST, an awareness and fundraising event to benefit Meadowlark Foundation’s Good Samaritan Fund, is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 25!
No. 2 – You asked for it, and you got it! Meadowlark’s Prairie Star Restaurant and Event Venue is once again this year’s celebration location!
The music has faded, and the confetti swept away, as we close out the sweet 16th Annual Speedy PD Race for Parkinson’s Disease. We kicked off the party on Friday evening at the Holiday Inn at the Campus for Empowered Live!: An Evening to Celebrate Living Well with Parkinson’s. Guests enjoyed a delicious dinner buffet and viewed the creative talents of our VIPDs (Very Important People with Parkinson’s Disease) before learning more about Lee Silverman Voice Treatment therapies from Kathleen Depperschmidt, Speech Language Pathologist.
If you grew up in a family that camped or liked to sit around a patio firepit, an open fire was perhaps one of the first memorable outdoor mysteries you encountered. What young mind wouldn’t be mesmerized by that flush of heat on the face, or those flaming, leaping tongues that disappear quickly into smoke and air. Ancient humans probably felt the same reactions.
Our family moved to Manhattan from the northwestern part of Illinois in 1975 when my husband accepted a job at a local bank. Ken and I were excited about the move, our 3-year-old daughter wasn’t actually aware of what was happening, and our Golden Retriever was happy to go wherever the family went.
It was our son, Kirk, who balked at the move. He was part-way through first grade, and he didn’t want to leave his school or his friends. He turned 7 only days before the movers arrived. Even a birthday didn’t soothe his ruffled feathers. His world had been turned upside down.
As a veteran 4-Her (Franklin County, Kan. Rambling Ranchers!), I am thoroughly enjoying watching the skills, fun, and magic develop for my own children. Fair week is a highlight of the 4-H year - one we prepare for in the months leading up to it. This year was no different and the 2024 Riley County Fair was an exciting and successful event for my two oldest daughters! Murphy, age 10, and Eilish, age 7, showcased their hard work during fair week.
Some days, I’m preoccupied with the animals that live their lives all around us but are seldom seen or heard. Many people are not even aware of their presence. I’m thinking of the racoon, deer mouse, hispid cotton rat, bobcat, chimney swift, or the short-tailed shrew, a small voracious and venomous mammal that also lives in our area. These organisms owe their lack of publicity to being solitary, shy, quiet, nocturnal, or relatively small—or all of the above.
No matter your age, the phrase “sweet sixteen” tends to bring up a myriad of thoughts and emotions: excitement, fun, food, friends, joy, cars, wonder, cake, and hope. These are just a few of the words one might ponder when thinking about the 2024 Speedy PD Race for Parkinson’s Disease. This year brings us a great new Presenting Sponsor, Little Apple Cars. We are thrilled to have them cruise on the inside lane to help us achieve some new goals.
As is normal for this time of year, we’ve had some strong wind days during the past three to four months. But, just as for heat, or its absence, cold—or for the force of gravity-- we know the existence of wind only by its actions. No one has seen the wind, but “when the trees bow down their limbs, the wind is passing by.”
On Wednesday, June 5, the Meadowlark Outdoors Committee held what it hopes will be the first traditional celebration of Arbor Day on the Meadowlark grounds. This celebration was inspired by resident and committee member, Carroll Hackbart, as the beginning of a plan to replant trees along the Meadowlark pathway.
Today is the 80th anniversary of the huge, costly, and ultimately successful allied D-Day land assault on Hitler’s Fortress Europe. Although mere words never can remotely capture what happened that fateful day in June 1944, I want to share a powerful experience that my dear late wife, Imogene, and I once had there on Omaha Beach.
One morning in July 1990, we stood on the 100-foot-high cliff overlooking Omaha Beach. Even with a week in Paris (our favorite city) and 10 days in our beloved Ireland ahead of us, we assumed this moment would be the emotional highpoint of this trip.