Hey there,
     Tonight, or I should say this morning, since it is after midnight, will be my final blog for my English Comp 2 assignment. I've had a lot of fun blogging even though I probably didn't get enough of them written in order to receive any extra credit, it was still worth the experience. The written research paper if typed and edited, retyped and ready for delivery tomorrow. In the end I chose four men as Wichita's founding fathers. They are: James R. Mead, Jesse Chischolm, William Greiffenstein and William Mathewson. Each contributed a lot to bring Wichita into being. There was text for four plaques as well, one for the Wichita Indians, one for James Mead, one for the Delano District and one for the founding fathers. I made little "prototypes" of the plaques, however I ran out of time to really do them justice. But it's getting late and I'm pretty well done for today and for the semester. I'm so glad that I chose the option that I did  for this assignment though, because I've learned so much about Wichita, the Wichita Indians, James Mead and the other men who founded this city. Those things I will remember for a long time to come.
     I would like to thank Professor Bauus for all of his help and instruction this year. He's such a good teacher and I'm so glad to have had the opportunity to be in his class.
Thank you bloggers for letting me ramble on and on. Actually, I don't think anyone actually read any of these blogs, but like I said before, the pleasure has been mine and it was time well spent.
Cheri

Hello Blogger Buddies, it's been a while since I've been on. So much to do, so little time.... The end of the semester is so quickly approaching and it's past time for me to get my research paper going. I finished my last regular essay today and thought I would sit right down and start working on this most major piece of work. Alas, I can't seem to make any head way. Some of my notes that I wrote months age must be looked for. Thought I had it all together, both figuratively and vocationally. Well, I suppose it will get done one way or another.
    My first job is to set the stage for my paper, where I will  introduce myself as an appointed member of a committee that is going to create new plaques and signs to be placed in various places around the city. This is being done to commemorate the city of Wichita,s sesquicentennial in 2020.  It is my responsibility to write the text for several of the plaques and I have chosen a few names of people who were instrumental in bring   Wichita  from the prairie to a growing, industrious city.
    I know I need to write much more about my plans for this paper, but quite frankly, I'm to tired right now to type another word, and I love to write. So I bid you all a wonderful evening.

Hello Blogging Friends,
What I want to share with you today is related to my English Comp 2 finial essay, but not about the research. The Search, would be good words to describe it because I couldn't fine the notebook that I had taken with me to the Library the day I spent a couple of hours, if not longer, writing down things from the Kansas Collection section,research books. You can't check them out, you know, so I sat there scribbling down information, reading and looking for things that would be useful in writing my big essay. Well, yesterday I wanted that notebook so I can begin working on my #3 essay. I will be using my research material in that assignment, but I couldn't find that notebook anywhere. I looked downstairs and everywhere I could think of, picking up stacks of papers, notebooks and books, then going back through the same process again. I did this about three times. Finally, I decided to stop the searching for that notebook and work on my Spanish work. I had been practicing verbs and direct object pronouns and para & por, at the kitchen table. When I realized that the notebook I was using for writing these things over and over again was red, like the one I had taken to the library. Picking it up and flipping the pages, there it was; every beautiful page of the notes that I'd been looking so hard for. I was so thrilled, you would have thought it was Christmas. What a relief!! I was beginning to think that I was going to have to do that work all over again. I'm a happy student!
There was something that I meant to tell you about on my last blog, but I forgot. How I could have forgotten  this information, I don't know, but it's very interesting and how I came to know about it was most unexpected. Twice a month I go for therapy for some unfortunate baggage from years gone by. Nothing terribly bad, just need to get a new perspective on some things, which I have and all is good, or at least getting better. Well, the place where I go is in this big old house in Wichita. It's a beautiful house and I haven't taken a tour through the whole thing, but I am going to as soon as possible. I knew from the style that it had probably been built in the very late 1800's. I've always loved old houses and antiques, etc. I just found out last week that this very house was the last house that William Mathewson, the real, the authentic, the one and only, Buffalo Bill, himself, built in Wichita. He built about five houses, but this one was the last one.After all of the research that I have done on the early days of Wichita, I was amazed that I was standing in one of the houses that this famous person, one of Wichita's founding fathers built. I am still giddy over that knowledge, and can't wait until I go there next time. Oh my, my, my...
Well that's my news good BFs (blogger friends).
Until next time, happy researching,
Cheri  

Good Morning,
Today is April 2,2014 and it's been awhile since I've been on my blog. Because of other homework assignments both for this class and for my Spanish class, time has been at a premium. I wish I were a faster thinker and worker. In English Comp 2; the class that I'm writing this blog for, we've been reading about Artificial Intelligence. It's a very interesting subject, although I think some of the writers of the articles that we were required to read are just goofy, wondering is a robot can have a soul or could be classified as a human.
As I said; in my opinion they are wasting time. When I was a kid in grade school, I remember thinking how cool it would be to have a machine that we could put out text books into and it would pop out our homework, all finished and totally correct. I imagined in my mind this big box like those that washing machines might come in. I couldn't have believed back then that today we'd have computers in every home and are able to access so much information. My desk top doesn't do my homework for me, but it sure makes some of it easier. Life is so funny sometimes.
Well, that was a little rabbit trail; what I really want to write about today is the assigned #3 essay on Persuasion. Two things I'm not good at is arguments and persuasion. I absolutely hate and avoid arguments, however, I understand that this is slightly different in that these arguments are of a friendly sort, used in order to prove a point of view. In essay #3 I am to write a persuasive paper with at least 3 arguments that are from the research work that I've done for my research paper; about the early days of Wichita. I have thought and thought about what arguments I have encountered during my searching out information for this paper.
I believe one that I might use is a disagreement between James Mead and another man; who I will have to look up in my blog; who disagreed about the treatment of the Native American Indians, particularly the Wichita Indians. The other argument is one between James Mead and some of the other founding fathers of Wichita, concerning the naming of Wichita. What the third argument will be, I don't know yet, but I'm sure there's one in there somewhere. Then to take these arguments and put them into a persuasive form. It's going to be interesting to see how this comes out. I believe this paper is due next Wednesday, which means I have a week to get it ready...Oh, my little brain!!!!
Well, stay tuned and I will try to fill you in on my progress as I work through this assignment. By the way, thanks for listening to my ramblings.
Cheri

Hi there,
Today is the 24th of March and this month is almost gone. Time is zooming by as the months and years rotate in their appointed paths. Sooner than we can imagine, we will be the people being researched for school essays. Maybe not you nor I personally, but our time and place in history.
Spring break is over and classes resume today. I worked very hard all last week on the # 2 essay for English class. I do believe it is ready for Wednesdays class. The work I did last week was getting the reference material in order for an annotated biographical page. The whole process of learning about writing is very interesting and I know it will be a valuable tool that I will use through out the rest of my life.
The next thing is an essay on persuasion. We have to introduce a clear thesis that can support three arguments. and come up with an effective conclusion. It also needs to incorporate the subject of our fourth and finial essay; the reason for all of the research and writing and worrying that I've done this semester. Each paper we do is getting us closer to the finished product for this class. It's really kind of neat to see things working themselves together into one cohesive work. I've begun to think about the plaques that I need to write text for, which is what I am working towards for the completion of my essay. I think I have plenty of research material now, I just have to figure out the best way to take what I have and what I've learned about the time period, the people and the city of Wichita to write a good paper and complete the assignment.
It's almost time for me got get to my Spanish class, and I still have to get my shoes and socks on. Isn't it funny, as in "hum," that we always say shoes first and then socks, when we have to put on the socks before the shoes? Is there a lessen in that phrase somewhere?
Hope all of you had a wonderful Spring break and are ready, maybe even excited about getting back to class. That's all I have for this time,
Cheri

Hey There Bloggers,
     It's been a while since I added to my blog. Seems as though there are so many things to do, and I have real trouble getting the things done that I have to do; and never seem to find time to do the things I want to do. I'd bet I'm not alone in this view of life! There were a few days that I wanted to blog, but didn't have any good material to blog about then; Oh happy day, I checked out a book from the base library titled: KANSAS The History of The Sunflower State, 1854-2000. p.114,115,116. I haven't read it from cover to cover of course, but in browsing through it's pages I spotted an important name from Wichita's history. It was James Mead. In the couple of pages that I've inspected thus far it gives me some information that I need for my essay. The question is: How did James Mead treat the Indians, especially the Wichita's? What kind of relationship did they have? Had found some info. on that already from other resources. What I found in this book was that a man named General Winfield Scott Hancock of Gettysburg fame was given orders by William Sherman to go and  and threaten the Indians that if they wanted war, they could have it. If they didn't want war they had better stops their "threats and insolence." The Indians had smoked the peace pipe with some  military officers and other government men, saying that they hadn't harmed the white settlers and didn't want to harm anyone, but the buffalo were being killed out at an alarming rate and if that continued they would soon go hungry. They asked that the solders not fire on their young men. Hancock burned a Cheyenne-sioux camp and a confrontation took place with Hancock, Custer, and James Hickok, " Wild Bill Hickok,"along with other men ensued with the Indians on the other side, each group in a single row one facing the other. On the other side; Chief Roman Nose, ( he was known as the Pawnee Killer), leaders of the Sioux and Cheyenne who were dressed in all of their headdresses, feathers, paint etc. I'm not quite clear on what happened, but the Indians eventually just walked off. I found that rather interesting. People like Samuel Crawford, the Governor of Kansas from 1865-1868, didn't like the Indians at all and wanted to see them moved off their land by force.
     Here comes the James Mead part; the book states and I quote; "A contrasting view was held by James Mead. Mr. Mead came to Kansas from Iowa to start up a trading business with the Indians," which we know from reading not only his personal letters but also from other sources of history, that he had a very successful trading and hunting business with the Indians. Mead and Mr Crawford and some other folk thought that those who disliked the Indians exaggerated the danger that the Indians posed. Mead recorded 1867 that "when the Indians were said to be on the warpath, he traveled over the Plains as usual, unmolested. Mead also wrote in 1910 during the Civil War that;  "in the first five or six years after the Indians had left, and the country was open for settlement, I have a record of some twenty men who came to a sudden and violent death. Most of these were no special loss to the country." I believe he was saying that more white people killed other white people than had the Indians when they were there."
     Mr. Mead studied the Indians and their way of life. He collected articles of clothing and their "jewelry/ adornments" and keep notebooks full of pictographs of things he saw on his travels. Wonder if Mr. Mead's notebooks have survived the years and are out there somewhere. hum... There is one unrelated thing that I want to tell you about. In one of the paragraphs above I mentioned Chief Roman Nose. That caught my attention because of a State Park In Oklahoma not farm from my dad's farm that is named Roman Nose State Park and has a big stone image of an Indian's head which I figure is to represent Chief Roman Nose. We went swimming there in a swimming pool that was filled with water from an underground spring, and it was COLD! There wasn't a diving board, but you could dive off of a cliff of natural rock, if you were brave. We had picnics there under the trees and rode paddle boats on the lake. It's a beautiful place, but this is the first time that I've read the name of this chief other than in reference to the park; pretty cool stuff!
That's my story for tonight, so let's call it a wrap.
Cheri

Good Evening Blogging Friends,
It was such a beautiful day in Kansas today. The thermometer display in my car read 81dgs. this afternoon, and I believe it. Tomorrow isn't going to be as nice, but still in the fifties. That will be okay, at least it isn't freezing. I checked out a book from the library at McConnell today that has an article about the Wichita Indians. It isn't very long, but it has some info that I haven't ran across until now. Before I get to the new stuff, I can't help but be amazed at all of the different ways given to identify the Wichita Indians and what the names mean. I don't have them all before me right this minute, but I will get them together and make a list of the variety. In this article which is from a book titled: The Encyclopedia of North American Indians,  Published in 1997 by Marshall Cavendish Corporation. Summary: A comprehensive reference work on the culture and history of Native Americans ISBN 0-7614-0237-3 (vol. 10), this article says that the name Wichita is a Muskogean word spelled wia-shitch, and is said to mean thatched houses or arbors. That's close to one or two of the other articles that I've read. It also says that the Wichita called themselves Kitkit'sh. I've seen that name before too. It is thought to have to do with the tattooing around the eyes and bodies of the Indians.
The Wichita's were thought to have moved to the areas of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas from the South. Perhaps from Missouri because they were pressured by the Osage and Kaw tribes to get of their reservation. The Wichita's were very good hunters and farmers and when they killed a buffalo, nothing went to waste. In their fields they grew corn, pumpkins, beans and  tobacco. After finely chopping up the tobacco leaves, the Wichita's would put into little leather bags and trade it to the Comanche's. The Wichita's were very good at trading goods for other things that they needed.
One of the more interesting things was about a Spanish conquistador named Diego Dionsio de Penalosa who fought the Wichita's in 1662 and won. After this battle is when the Indians left the Little Arkansas and moved to Oklahoma.  Later on, the French and Wichita Indians had a pretty good trading business going on. The French wanted buffalo robes and other furs and the Wichita's received tools and crops.When the Wichita's were pushed into Oklahoma territory, the French and Indians continued to trade, but eventually the French lost most of the land they had owned and were defeated in the French and Indian Wars. The Wichita's became friendly with the Comanches and they began trading with each other. The Wichita's traded what they had left of their crops to the Comanches for horses, mules and buffalo robs.
Guess what? I think this blog will be my first cliff hanger blog. I'm getting to tired to continue for tonight and I don't want to totally mess up history, so lets all get some sleep. I'll try to finish up about this book and the article tomorrow.
Cheri