LYONS — Gordon and Rae Zahradnik enjoyed a lifetime of love of artwork and each other.
Perhaps no couple was better matched than Gordon and Rae, who both died in a traffic accident Monday afternoon in Barton County. Gordon, 80, and Rae, 78, were graduates of Fort Hays State who shared a love of art and teaching. Their funeral service is scheduled at 10:30 a.m. Monday at the Celebration Centre in Lyons.
They are survived by their son, Zane Zahradnik and his wife Dawn, Windom; a daughter, April Brooks and her husband Brent, Lucas, Texas; a brother Junior Zahradnik, and eight grandchildren.
The Zahradniks spent their lifetime working, teaching and promoting the arts. Gordon and Rae once conducted a two-person art exhibit at the Governor’s mansion in Topeka. They coordinated art exhibits around the state.
“They were generous with their time and talent,” said Karen Neuforth, Barton County Arts Council director. “We will miss them greatly.”
The Zahradniks were members of several organizations, including the Rice County Historical Society.
Gordon and Rae spent several years in Great Bend from 1959-1964 when Rae worked as a kindergarten teacher and Gordon was elementary art supervisor for Great Bend USD 428.
Gordon worked 26 years as head of the art department at Sterling College. Rae taught drawing, painting, watercolor, color, design at Sterling College.
Gordon would spend time in his art studio, The Art of Z, right outside of Lyons on U.S. 56 He founded the Rice County Arts Council in 1973. He was instrumental in the establishment of a downtown mural.
The Zahradniks were well known in Barton County, where they served on the Barton County Art Council and were American Legion members. Their artwork is displayed at various venues in Barton County. They specialized in watercolors, but did mixed media and collages.
“Their art styles were different. They were extremely active in the arts community all over Kansas, including Barton County,” said Neuforth. “The Zahradniks were well known in the arts community. They were a couple that never sat still.”
Gordon enjoyed an affinity to ceramics in addition to his watercolor work.
“Having a love for nature — creating with clay is a real joy!” he said. “I am always striving to create ‘one of a kind’ art pieces, keeping in “repetition with constant variation.
“It is my hope that each creative art work displayed can serve as a teaching experience and I constantly use them as  I work with and teach other students and artists.”
His lasting remark for any student is to “get up in the morning and feel like what you’re doing is the best you can do, and enjoy what you do. You have your whole life ahead, and you should make it worth while.”
Rae said she believed artwork was a perfect way to interpret the world she lived in.
“The world is like a magical carousel of images, light, and color,” she said. “Watercolors have the wonderful possibilities of overlapping and overpainting transparency, as well as the ability to be dark, rich, and more opaque color.
“Personal fascination with the sheer beauty of form, color, texture, and design motivates me to paint sometimes in a more traditional way — other times more inventive and obviously searching. As a painter, I hope to be always more inventive, original and skillful, representing my vision and love for the world in which we live.”
Their artworks were displayed at the Kansas State Fair in Hutchinson, in the City Arts in ‘Old Town’ Wichita, and the Kansas International Water Competition at the Center for Arts in Wichita. They were featured artists at the Robbins Center at Fort Hays State University.
When the historic Wilson Opera House burned in Nov. 6, 2009 fire, Wilson native Gordon Zahradnik led a group that  cleared the debris. At the time, Zahradnik said he had “pure Czech genealogy” on both his mother’s and father’s sides.
The ground floor of the century-old polka dance hall served for decades as the gathering place for Czech dinners, wedding dances and funerals and lodge meetings. The basement housed a collection of Czech artifacts and photo scrapbooks.