Join the Santa Fe Trail Center Museum on Sunday, April 24, at 2 p.m. for a presentation and book signing by local author and attorney, Ronald Smith. Smith recently published his second book, The Wastage. This program is free and open to the public.
Written under the pseudonym, Dean Halliday Smith, The Wastage is about the battle of Fredericksburg during the winter of 1862 and culminates with the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Lincoln in 1863.
Smith who is a Kansas native, is a partner in the law firm Smith and Burnett, LLC in Larned. During the Vietnam War, he served in the U.S. Navy first on a river patrol boat along the Mekong River delta and later as a photojournalist. Smith also served on Gov. John Carlin’s staff from 1979 to 1980 and then lobbied for various commercial and professional activities in the Kansas legislature for 20 years.  
His previous book, Thomas Ewing Jr.: Frontier Lawyer and Civil War General, was published in 2008 by the University of Missouri Press. Ewing was a politician and attorney during the era of Bleeding Kansas, who helped to form and promote the Free State party and the early Republican party. The Santa Fe Trail Center Museum is located 2 miles west of Larned, KS on K-156 Hwy.  Please call 620-285-2054 or email museum@santafetrailcenter.org for more information.