As Kansas celebrates its 150th anniversary on Jan. 29, Kansans reflect on the many figures and events of the state’s past decades.
The Montgomery County Chronicle offers these 25 questions as a way to test your knowledge of the Sunflower State. A word of caution: the questions go beyond the basic facts about Kansas information, such as buffaloes, sunflowers and Indians. If you can answer a majority of the 25 questions, consider yourself an expert on Kansas.
1. Of the following presidential or vice presidential candidates who hailed from Kansas, which ones were not born in Kansas?
A. Dwight Eisenhower
B. Charles Curtis
C. Alf Landon
D. Bob Dole
2. Kansas has three counties named after soldiers or generals from the Revolutionary War. Can you name those three Kansas counties.
3. Kansas has only one county named in honor of a woman. What is the county, and who was the woman?
4. Of the following Kansas-raised television actors and actresses, which one did not win an Emmy Award for best supporting actor/actress or best actor/actress in a television series (comedy or drama)?
A. Don Johnson (Wichita) of “Miami Vice”
B. Kirstie Alley (Wichita) of “Cheers”
C. Vivian Vance (Cherryvale) of “I Love Lucy”
D. Ed Asner (Kansas City) of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”
5. Who was U.S. president on the date when Kansas gained statehood.
6. Name the Topeka minister who is best known for writing the book “In His Steps” in 1897.
7. Kansas has had 33 U.S. senators ever since statehood in 1861. How many of those U.S. senators were Democrats?
8. Although Kansas gained statehood in 1861, the state did not have an official state flag until what year?
9. Kansas has the distinction of having had prohibition for more years than any other state in the country. How many years was alcohol prohibited in Kansas?
10. Name the Kansas physician who gained national acclaim for transplanting a portion portions of goat testicles into male patients.
11. Dan and Frank Carney of Wichita are best known as the creators of what popular franchise?
12. Which of the following nicknames was not used by Kansas University basketball player Wilt Chamberlain?
A. Wilt the Stilt
B. Flipper With the Dipper
C. The Hawk Hoopster
D. The Big Dipper
13. Samuel J. Crumbine of Dodge City was an early-day public health reformer. Concerned about the need for greater cleanliness and hygiene, Crumbine successfully spearheaded a nationwide effort to have what phrase engraved on brick sidewalks?
14. Harry Woodring, who was born in Elk City in 1887, held this cabinet-level position in the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration.
15. Great Bend native Jack Kilby was known as the inventor of the modern-day microchip. What prestigious award was bestowed to Kilby in 2000?
16. Emmett Kelly, born in Sedan in 1898, was known by this name as a clown for the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus.
17. Charles Curtis, who served as U.S. vice president from 1929 to 1933, was one-fourth American Indian. From what tribe did Curtis, who hailed from Topeka, descend?
18. When Alfred Landon, who lived part of his adult life in Independence, ran as the Republican Party nominee for U.S. president in 1936, he carried only two states. What two states had majority support for Landon’s candidacy?
19. What was the name given to African Americans who fled the war-torn southern states and migrated to Kansas to escape persecution?
20. Clyde Tombaugh of Burdett, Kan., is credited for what discovery in 1930?
21. Susanna Madora Salter of Argonia, Kan., holds what political distinction in the United States?
22. Lloyd Stearman, A.K. Longren, Clyde Cessna, Walter Beech and Henry Call share what commonality?
23. Decades before McDonald’s opened its first restaurant in California, Walter Anderson and E.W. “Billy” Ingram opened this franchise restaurant in Wichita in 1921.
24. Clint Bowyer is one of NASCAR’s most popular drivers. Bowyer was born in what Kansas town?
25. Harry Sinclair, a one-time Independence pharmacist, became one of the world’s wealthiest men after entering the petroleum industry in 1913 and forming a company that ultimately carried his name. However, a political scandal in the mid-1920s tarnished Sinclair’s reputation. What was the name of the scandal?
Answers:
1. Dwight Eisenhower (Denison, Texas) and Alf Landon (West MIddlesex, Pa.).
2. Marion (named for Revolutionary War hero Francis “Swamp Fox” Marion); Montgomery (named for Gen. Richard Montgomery, who led the colonial army into Canada and died while attempting to capture Quebec); and Washington, named for the colonial general who later became the nation’s first U.S. president, George Washington.
3. Barton County, named in honor of Clara Harlowe Barton, a Civil War nurse and founder of the American Red Cross.
4. A. Don Johnson.
5. President James Buchanan
6. Charles Sheldon
7. Four
8. 1927
9. 68 years (1880 to 1948)
10. John R. Brinkley, also known as the “Goat Gland Doctor”
11. Pizza Hut, which was originated in Wichita in 1958
12. The Hawk Hoopster
13. “Don’t Spit On The Sidewalk”
14. Secretary of War (1936-40)
15. Nobel Prize in Physics
16. Weary Willie
17. The Kaw Indians
18. Maine and Vermont
19. Exodusters
20. The discovery of the planet Pluto
21. First woman mayor in America (elected in April 1887, just weeks after Kansas women had gained the right to vote).
22. Theo were early-day Kansas airplane builders.
23. White Castle
24. Emporia, Kan.
25. Teapot Dome Scandal
