Cornerstone Classical School celebrates Kansas Day with costumes, barbeque and more
A tradition for most schoolchildren in the state, Kansas Day celebrations happen each year, and for one private school in Salina that celebration happened a few days earlier than the Jan. 29 date this year.
Cornerstone Classical School hosted a day full of events Friday, Jan. 26 to celebrate the Sunflower State including dressing up as famous Kansans, eating a barbeque lunch and taking part in things like pioneer dances.
Christopher Stevens, headmaster at Cornerstone, said it is important for the school to celebrate Kansas Day.
"It gives us the opportunity to thank God for our great state, and what (Kansas) means to our country and our world," Stevens said. "We provide a lot of grain and other food, and that's important."
Students learning about Kansas and Kansans
For students at Cornerstone, celebrating and embracing Kansas Day doesn't just happen on a single day of the year, but is incorporated into their learning.
Younger students learn about things such as emblems of the state, like the Kansas flag, the state bird western meadowlark, state reptile ornate box turtle or the state animal American bison. As the students get older, they begin learning about and research historical Kansans, going so far as to coming to school dressed as those figures.
Parents and other guests visit the school that day to see students in these costumes, first in a promenade around the outside of the school, and then with the Kansas Museum, where they talk with students about the Kansans they researched.
One of those students this year was third-grader Jackson Wetter, who learned about Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, a Spanish explorer and conquistador.
"He led a large group of men from Mexico to Kansas," Wetter said.
Wetter said Kansas Day is one of his favorite days at school mostly because of the activities.
"I like the bow and arrow," Wetter said.
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Sixth-grader Eden Ward chose to learn about former captain of the University of Kansas Jayhawks basketball team Lynette Woodard, Olympic gold medalist in 1984 and the first female member of the Harlem Globetrotters.
"She led KU to three straight Big 8 championship games and won all of them," Ward said. "She also has the most career points (in college basketball) of any woman ever, but she's not counted as the lead because she (did it) before the NCAA (governed women's sports). She had 3,649 points."
Ward said she chose Woodard after going to a Globetrotters game and getting a jersey and signed basketball.
"I thought it was cool that she'd opened up women to play in a men's basketball team," Ward said.
Ward said one of her favorite things about Kansas Day at Cornerstone is seeing how parents get involved in things like helping with their kids' costumes. She also likes learning about and doing some of the historical Kansas activities.
"It's (also) fun to be able to do older things, it's not just about modern technology or something, it's more based on what our history was," Ward said.
This article originally appeared on Salina Journal: Salina private school starts Kansas Day celebrations early this year
