Bowl Plaza – Album #2 – the Artwork
By:Grassroots Art Center

Bowl Plaza
Eric Abraham & Wayne Gilbert, volunteer construction crew.
By:Grassroots Art Center

World’s Largest Souvenir Travel Plate, Lucas, KS | Go BIG or Go Home
gobigorgohomeblog.com
It hit me like a thunderbolt today. Why not feature a guest post once a month? That’s certainly doable, provided I can find people willing to submit reviews

To recognize the 40th anniversary of Kansas PRIDE, we are sharing success stories from PRIDE groups over the years. In this newsletter, we are pleased to highlight Lucas PRIDE and their theater project.

Lucas Area Community Theater

The renovation of the old ISIS Theatre in Lucas has truly been a community project. Work on the theater started in 1998 and will be completed this July with the installation of new digital equipment. Phase I consisted of renovating the building; Phase II – the addition of a community room and dressing rooms and Phase III – the updating of the old cinema projection equipment to a new digital light processor and 3-D equipment.

The project, valued at over $750,000, has had a tremendous impact on the community. During the renovation and construction of the theater, volunteers of all ages worked together. Many of the youth spent their Saturdays working at the theater while learning construction skills from the adults. The adults worked with each other and formed new friendships with their neighbors and newcomers to the community. To keep the business viable, volunteers help with concessions, cleaning, and operations of the theater during movies, live performances and conferences. The theater provides entertainment for individuals of all ages. People from surrounding counties come to Lucas to enjoy a movie or live production. To find out more about Lucas and the community theater check, out their website .

Due to be released on June 30, and in card stores Thursday July 1st, the new 2010 Allen and Ginter set of retro-themed baseball cards will include a regional favorite – the World’s Largest Collection of the World’s Smallest Versions of the World’s Largest Things. Lucas KS based artist Erika Nelson was contacted in February by the head of image licensing about including the WLCoWSVoWLT in the 2010 series after the head of marketing found the World’s Largest Things website. The initial call came as the Topps executives were still chuckling over the theme song, and a deal was swiftly struck, pairing Kansas’ superlative-sporting attraction and an industry leader in sports trading cards.

Allen and Ginter, a Richmond, Virginia, tobacco manufacturing firm, created the first cigarette cards for collecting and trading in 1875. In 2006, Topps resurrected the name, producing a specialty line of cards in a vintage style. In addition to modern and historical baseball figures, the sets included special quirky insert subjects – relic cards with real objects from famous people (a piece of JFK’s sweater), or a special Sailors of the Seven Seas series. A set of signature cards encourage folks to collect autographs from a wide range of people including Erika and her collection, illusionist David Blaine, skateboarding icon Tony Hawk, and fire eater Hubertus Wawra.

Allen and Ginter sets also include special wooden or silk cards in some of their packages, cards that fold out like books, and special ‘rip’ cards that hide a small card inside a larger card, only revealed if you physically rip open the larger card. Since it is one of the specialty collector sets, you’ll have to seek out a hobby shop that still deals in sports cards. There are only a half-dozen official Topps retailers in Kansas, and the owner of The Arena in Salina feels that this years A&G set will sell out quickly, due to a last-minute inclusion of Stephen Strasburg in all Topps releases, starting with the Allen & Ginter series.

Kansas “Topps of the Class” stores include: The Sports Dome, 1000 Massachusetts, Lawrence; Lobos Sports Cards, 1016 S Oliver, Wichita; Rock’s Dugout, 3232 N. Rock Rd., Wichita; The Arena, 127 N. Santa Fe, Salina; Star Sportscards, 806 A East 4TH, Hutchinson; and Baseball Card Shop, 2332 Main, Great Bend.

Since the World’s Largest Collection of the World’s Smallest Versions of the World’s Largest Things is one of the autograph cards, when you send one in to the World’s Largest Things Home Base (PO Box 101, Lucas KS, 67648) for a signature, you’ll receive an additional postcard of the New Sideshow Extravaganza banner featuring the collection. It’s a meta-collectors dream, and a great honor for one of Kansas’ Quirkiest to be a part of this historic set.

Wheat Harvest 2010
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