Ramona
By JESSICA GILBERT
Ramona correspondent
(785) 965-2621
"Somethin's gotta be done about these scarecrows in town," drawled Collin Bailey. "Why I just drove by the Ohms' and thought I saw a scarecrow standing beside Harold's tractor. I said to myself, 'that scarecrow looks just like Harold.' And then it moved! It WAS Harold!"
On Saturday evening Jim Brunner called and left a message. "There's something haywire going on over at Tony Meyer's place." And indeed, Jim had been witness to Pat, Tooltime Tim, and me stuffing shirt and pants with hay, erecting a scarecrow of Tony, standing next to his walker.
Reality does shift a bit during the fall in Ramona. Even I'm still surprised when I drive by Tony's house at night, and see this tall "being" standing in the front yard, and my first impulse is to stop and tell Tony that he should be in by dark!
Furthermore, Tony defies the statement: "You can't be two places at once," since his likeness is in his own front yard and also in Erich's. (My sister, Pat, wrote all about the Erich and Tony scarecrows in her weekly column, Another Day in the Country.)
A week ago I was sitting in the bank building looking out the windows and caught sight of a woman with long hair and stylish cap — I could only see her torso jutting out above some bushes across the street. "Oh, the Remers must have company," I thought to myself.
But then an hour later, when I drove down the street, I noticed this same woman from another direction — she hadn't moved. And she wasn't alone — she was pushing a baby in a stroller! Jeannie Weber is the creator of the mother and baby scarecrow and it's probably one of the more realistic on display.
The Utech family gave $50 in prize money and selected three women from Tampa to judge the scarecrows Halloween weekend. But if you want to see the scarecrows in all their glory, don't wait until Halloween since Kansas weather can take its toll. Some scarecrows are lit up at night — which is a fun experience. But to see them all, come in daylight.
Hopefully most will be on display by this weekend and then you'd have two reasons to visit Ramona: 1) the scarecrows, and 2) the city-wide garage sale Saturday, beginning at 8 a.m. This is the second year for the city sale and the event is orchestrated by Jeannie Weber, member of Ramona City Council.
Biscuits and gravy also will be available at the former Cheers restaurant in Ramona beginning at 8 a.m. Saturday. "We'll start at 8 a.m. and serve until the food's gone," said Jeannie. Breakfast will be $1.50 for one biscuit, $2.50 for full order. Proceeds from the breakfast will go toward the Ramona Park Improvement Committee's plans to build a bathroom in the city park.
Several Ramona families attended the Santa Fe Trail Festival Sunday afternoon in Tampa. "I enjoyed the socializing," said Vickie Jirak who perched in the shade and visited while she watched Jacob enter the cake walk, and son, Seth, was across the way selling caramel apples as a sophomore class fund-raiser. Even Raschelle was home for the weekend. "She comes home most weekends," said Vickie. Raschelle is a freshman at K-State in Manhattan. "I think she imagined college life would keep her so busy she wouldn't miss us — but she needs the connection with her little family — I think she misses Elias the most!"
Lisa Hanschu watched as her son, James, entered the cake walk. The cake walk was a very popular event. "It was a lovely day," Lisa said, "and James and I both won a cake!" I joined the fun and walked home with a beautiful pink angel food cake! And then, my aunt Frieda Struebing, who was here from Wichita won a cake, too. We had two gorgeous cakes in our hands when we headed for home. Tooltime Tim was lamenting that neither of them were chocolate!
Running competition with the cake walk was the Life Watch helicopter that flew in for folks to view. "It's very compact
Martha Ehrhardt had company from Friday through Monday when her sister, Frieda Struebing from Wichita came to visit. The sisters visited their older sister, Anna Schimming in Herington twice. "We invited her to come home with us to Ramona for a sleep-over on Saturday night," said Frieda with a grin, "but Anna elected to stay put in Herington."
The sisters also visited their cousin in Ramona, Norma Weber, and Martha's sister-in-law, Naomi Fike.
This weekend was a spectacular one for Shaina Makovec of Ramona, who was elected homecoming queen at Centre High School. After reigning at the homecoming festivities Friday night with homecoming king, Andrew Hajek, the royal pair participated in Saturday's Lincolnville Octoberfest parade, riding in a regal convertible. When I saw Shaina on Sunday, waiting to have lunch at Ramona Café, she was still beaming from the royal experience.
Ramona had a first-rate traffic jam Saturday afternoon when the Utech family converged for their annual family gathering at Erich's house on E Street. Used to be the Utechs had their reunion out on the family farm west of Ramona, but when the farm sold recently to the Srajer family, the Utechs moved their celebration to Uncle Sonny's house (that's the family's pet name for Erich).
Erich's house is next door to the Lutheran parish hall so the family had lunch there, and them migrated to Erich's for homemade ice cream and making the Tony and Erich scarecrows.
It was grand to see E Street in front of Erich's house literally "impassable" as elder Utechs and younger Utechs
Warren and Paula Fike participated in another kind of reunion recently — the USS Antietam Reunion — uniting veterans who served on this ship during their military service.
"This was my 15th reunion," said Warren. The Fikes drove to Illinois, meeting close friends who also attend the reunion, and together they drove to Annapolis, Md., for the convention held Sept. 20-24.
The Fikes toured the Naval Academy and watched soldiers in officer training do formations. They had lunch at Union Station and visited several war memorials.
"We visited the new WWII Memorial in Washington D.C., it has columns representing every state, with a bronze wreath at the top of each column. The Korean War Memorial has statues of soldiers, as though they are on patrol and they're scattered around the memorial area. And we didn't get to see George (Bush)," said Warren with a chuckle.
The Kleiber farm looked like it was holding a convention of sorts Sunday — a regional rally of the Catholic Youth Organization. The event was orchestrated by Andrea Kleiber, who we are proud to claim as a Ramona-ite. (They live awfully near Tampa, but have a Ramona address!) "There were kids from Halstead, Marion, Tampa/Ramona area, and Council Grove. We played games, had a hay-ride, and even had a piñata — you wouldn't think high school kids would like a piñata but it was the funniest thing ever."
And that's the news from Ramona where scarecrows are certainly increasing traffic but a traffic jam is still two parked cars and a dog in the road.
