RIVER CITY JOURNAL: AS TRAVEL DESTINATION, TOPEKA HAS ITS POINTS

As a native Missourian who has lived all over the country, you have managed to make your share of jokes about Kansas. There was a time when the easiest column to write -- and one that usually got favorable reviews -- was about how Kansas ought to be fenced off and forgotten.

Anyone who has driven to Colorado from Missouri knows what this is all about. There is general agreement that western Kansas is the end of the planet and provides a barrier so immense that much of Colorado's success as a tourist lure is due to the I-survived-the-drive-across-Kansas mentality.

All of this worked for lots of years. Then you moved to Kansas.

To be specific, you moved to Topeka, the state capital, which is in eastern Kansas and is so close to Missouri that it could pass for the Show Me State almost any day of the year. But living in Kansas also afforded several opportunities to go to -- instead of through -- western Kansas. There are wonders to be seen in that part of the Sunflower State that are generally hidden from out-of-staters and lifelong residents alike.

So, you began writing columns extolling the wonders of Kansas, which most of your colleagues thought would peter out in a couple of weeks. But there was always another tale of hidden treasures waiting to be found if only folks would overcome their phobias about the state and take time to look.

You see, that's the problem. Most everyone who hates Kansas really hates I-70, which is the concrete ribbon crossing the state without ever curving one way or another to expose the diversity and beauty of western Kansas. Besides that, most motorists on their way to the Colorado mountains actually put the blame on Kansas for most of eastern Colorado. Talk about a forsaken stretch of land. But let's not quibble over geography.

After finally coming to grips with Kansas and its natural beauty, imagine the shock and horror of reading in this very newspaper a comment made by Rep. Gene Copeland, a state legislator from New Madrid. In a story about Missouri lawmakers' travel spending and a planned trip by some legislators to a meeting in Puerto Rico, Copeland said: "I would not be going if it was in Topeka."

Ouch!

Obviously, Copeland hasn't been to his neighboring state capital. Or, if he has, he wasn't properly introduced to the city and its charms.

Not to sound too much like the Topeka Convention and Visitors Bureau, the state capital of Kansas offers some amazing reasons to make a special trip there. For example, the Kansas International Museum is currently exhibiting the treasures of the czars of Russia, which is a dazzling display of priceless art and art objects.

But that's not all. Topeka's statehouse is a treasure too. Its murals are among the best anywhere. And the Kansas Museum of History on the edge of the city tells the story of Kansas in displays that are nothing short of stunning, right down to the real-life steam-engine locomotive and rail cars on a piece of track across one end of the massive building.

Topeka is the home of Menninger, the world-famous psychiatric facility and teaching hospital where modern psychiatry was born. Its clientele has always included the rich and famous. Part of Menninger's treatment includes finding local jobs for patients. Where else can you go into a women's dress shop and be waited on by a famous movie star?

There is a cultural diversity in Topeka too, thanks in large part to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. During the railroad-building days of the westward expansion, the railroad brought an entire Mexican town to Kansas and relocated it in the Oakland section of Topeka. The new arrivals provided labor in the giant machine shops that built and repaired railroad rolling stock. And they enjoyed all of the cultural and religious amenities of home. Another area is known as Little Russia because of the workers from that foreign land who were brought to town by the railroad.

Topeka is the home of Washburn University -- Go! Ichabods! -- the only municipally owned university left in the nation. And the internationally renowned Sunflower Music Festival. And Heartland Park, one of the finest auto-racing facilities in the country. And Forbes Field, whose National Guard unit supplied the military governor for Operation Desert Storm. And Alf Landon, former governor, onetime GOP presidential candidate and father of U.S. Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum.

Topeka has quite a convention business, thanks both to its location and its facilities. If the Council of State Governments wants to meet somewhere that won't raise so many eyebrows, it would do well to consider Topeka. It would be better to hear a Missouri legislator say, "I wouldn't go unless it was in Topeka."

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.