The Kansas Manufacturing Council is taking votes for this year’s People’s Choice tournament, “2022 Coolest Thing Made in Kansas,” according to KMC Executive Director Brandie McPherson.

“There are 60 Kansas man-made products nominated this year but only the top 16 vote-getters will move on to the tournament,” McPherson announced.

Presented by FORVIS, the KMC launched the competition in 2020 to promote and elevate Kansas manufacturers and to highlight products developed and produced in our state and distributed across the U.S. and internationally.

Everyone has until Sept. 16 to go online to kansascool.comand vote. It would be hard to choose just one, but everyone can vote up to 16 times. The choices run the gamut from Peanut M&M’s made at Mars Wrigley (Mars.com) in Topeka to the 7822DT Drill Rig made by Geoprobe Systems (Geoprobe.com) in Salina. When you think of Kansas and “cool,” the Coleman Company in Wichita (Coleman.com) comes to mind and this year’s entry is a 100-quart wheeled cooler that “keeps the ice up to 5 days.”

We were intrigued the first time we read about Friendship Lamps, made by Filimin (Filimin.com), also made in Wichita, but if you want to support a company closer to home, Flame Engineering (FlameEngineering.com) in La Crosse is in the running with its Weed Dragon Propane Powered Torch Kit, and Pat’s Beef Jerky in Liebenthal (PatsBeefJerky.com) has its jerky. Right here in Great Bend, Fuller Industries has Creative Mailbox Planters (CreativeMailBoxPlanters.com) and T&C Manufacturing (TCMFG.com) makes rubber bumpers. (Did that last one make you say, “Better rubber baby bumpers”? T&C’s custom rubber molding is actually a pretty big deal.)

The “locals” always get our vote, but what could be cooler than Vinyl albums made by Quality Record Pressings (QualityRecordPressings.com) in Salina?

There are many, many more to choose from, so check out the website and take a gander at some of the cool things made in Kansas.

— Susan Thacker