Everything old is new again. Well, sometimes.
If one looks around Great Bend right now, its hard not to see one building or another being demolished. There is the former Wolf Furniture Galleries store on 10th Street and the old opera house downtown. In the near future, the old Allied Services Building that is part of what once was the Central Kansas Medical Center will be torn down, as will be the landmark CKMC structure itself.
It is always sad to see a building being destroyed. Each structure, in its own way, becomes a part of the community. It serves a need and, in some cases, takes on a life of its own and becomes ingrained in the fabric of our lives.
However, nothing lasts forever. Just walk through the Barton County Historical Society and look at the photos of Great Bend from back in the day. Many of those buildings no longer exist, giving way to something newer and, supposedly, better.
Even some of those newer buildings have been erased from the landscape.
We know there is a new Holiday Inn Express coming to the site of the furniture store and we know that St. Rose Ambulatory and Surgery Center is planning a revamped campus on the site of CKMC. The fate of the old opera house lot is uncertain.
We see progress and we see vision. 
We can only hope that whatever springs from the sites of these old edifices has the backing to make a difference in our city and has the chance to become a landmark in its own right.
Dale Hogg