Each week we’ll take a step back into the history of Great Bend through the eyes of reporters past. We’ll reacquaint you with what went into creating the Great Bend of today, and do our best to update you on what “the rest of the story” turned out to be.

This week in 1974, while the nation struggled with the threat of oil embargoes and ensuing rising inflation, the news at home was light.  What is commonly referred to as a “slow news week.”
Weeks like these may feel ho-hum when we look for exciting news stories, but its important to remember that slow news is usually good news, or at least not bad news.  Every now and then, it’s nice to take a breather and slip down memory lane.
Special features
Action Answers was a regular feature of the paper, allowing readers to send in questions and get answers to the inner workings of Great Bend.   While the caveat was that it could provide answers to almost anything, the questions pertained mostly to city government questions like parking fees and locked bathrooms at the park.
Another feature that ran in the sports pages was Panthers of the Week.  During the week of Sept. 25, 1974, four players were awarded honorary titles and spotlighted.  Lance Spencer, “Bell Ringer and Hustler,” Tom Burke, “Hustler,” Bruce Pinkall, “Mad Cat,” and Ryan Engle, “Bad Cat.”  The Panthers played Manhattan that week, and apparently did pretty well.
With fall harvest, newspapers often run photos of amazing horticultural feats, from the oddly shaped, strangely colored or extremes of height and weight.  Joe Mermis was pictured next to a 60-pound pumpkin he grew on his farm southeast of Claflin.  “I’m just an amateur farmer and it just grew,” he said.
Efforts for kids
“Peanut Butter Sunday” was proclaimed by then-mayor Bob Parrish that week.
“The proclamation refers to the need for a summer camping program for the cerebral palsied and others with similar handicaps and the sale of peanut butter on Sunday by the Kansas Jaycees helps in the program.  The Jaycees have a ranch and camping program for people afflicted with cerebral palsy.”
While Peanut Butter Sunday didn’t stick, the Kansas Jaycees CP ranch did.  It is still in operation, and more information can be found at http://www.cpranch.org/.
Speaking of sticking, that week, the Morrison McFadden VFW post and auxiliary held a “lite-a-bike” program at area elementary schools.  Students , as well as anyone else in the community, could bring their bike to a school and have reflectorized tape placed in the proper spots.   In recent years, the effort to promote bike safety has become a project of the Great Bend Police Dept.  For several years now, the police have held a bike day, complete with obstacle course and helmet giveaways.
Whining about wine
With fall comes the twice yearly discussions about Daylight Savings time.  This week, things were slow enough in Great Bend for the editor to comment on the topic, presumably after a period of time scratching his head, wondering what on Earth to have an opinion about.
“In what seems like a lot of foolishness, the Senate’s vote on restoring standard time was held up because Sen. John Tunney of California tried to amend it.  
What that has to do with daylight and standard time is anybody’s guess.”  
It turns out, Tunney started whining about a tax on wine, which developed into a filibuster, which made the vote to switch to standard time for four months a year, November through February, go down the drain for the week.
Due to the 1973 oil embargo, Congress had increased DST to 10 months in an effort to save energy.  It stayed that way until 1976, then switched back to the 1966 mandate that it start the last Sunday of April and end on the last Sunday of October.  
In 2007, it changed again.  
Today, DST starts on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November. Too bad, Tunney.
The editorial concluded that the California wine industry held up the nation’s time switch.