Army Reserve Pfc. Rachel P. Barber has graduated from basic combat training at Fort Jackson, Columbia, S.C.
During the nine weeks of training, the soldier studied the Army mission, history, tradition and core values, and received instruction and practice in basic combat skills, military weapons, chemical warfare and bayonet training, drill and ceremony, marching, rifle marksmanship, armed and unarmed combat, map reading, field tactics, military courtesy, military justice system, basic first aid, foot marches and field training exercises.
Barber is the daughter of Dorothy A. Barber of Kansas City, Kan.
She is a 2014 graduate of Bonner Springs High School, Bonner Springs, Kan.
Fuddruckers restaurant opened Aug. 11 at The Legends Outlets. by Mary Rupert
We went to Fuddruckers restaurant, which opened Aug. 11 at 1705 Village West Parkway, The Legends Outlets in Kansas City, Kan., for our first time recently on a Friday night.
The restaurant opened at the location of the former Cheeseburgers in Paradise. The two restaurant chains are both owned by Luby’s. It was getting toward 8:30 p.m. or so when we decided to try out the new place and see what it was like.
Never having been to the Fuddruckers at 87th and Metcalf before, I had no idea of what to expect. We drove through The Legends Outlets, past the Five Guys Burgers and Fries location, which is visible from the new restaurant, and there were not too many people in Five Guys at that moment. Then we pulled into the parking lot near Fuddruckers and it took a while to find a parking space.
I entered the restaurant and looked around and stood for a short while at the front desk area. Then I realized how much it had changed from Cheeseburgers in Paradise. There were no palm trees, no tropical decorations located around the room. There was no bar in the middle of the room serving margaritas. In the corner where musicians had played, there was now a kids’ play area.
No one was going to come forward and wait on us, I realized, and tell us to take a seat and wait 15 minutes. No, instead, we walked up to a counter at the back, ordered our hamburgers and side dishes.
I looked at the menu board and ordered The Fudd, the least expensive hamburger, costing around $5. It was a quarter-pound hamburger. My mind was sort of on keeping cholesterol low, and keeping the cost low, and I felt I might be able to eat one of these a month, maybe. Adding bacon and cheese and other items will raise the price of the hamburger a few dollars. I did not order the Double Stack, which is two quarter-pounders and cheese. There were alternatives including chicken on the menu.
Something familiar about the name The Fudd – it reminded me of Elmer Fudd, the cartoon nemesis of Bugs Bunny. Fudd, who pronounced his R’s as W’s (much as I did when I was in the early years of grade school), carried a gun and frequently chased after Bugs. Fudd’s famous phrase was “Shhh. Be vewy vewy quiet, I’m hunting wabbits.”
Next I moved on to one of those new soft drink machines, which operate a little like a video game. I was going to get a Coke, but root beer was the first image I saw and I decided to try that. Then the image changed before I could hit the button, and I was looking at diet root beer and vanilla root beer as choices. Unwilling to wait until the images circled around again, I nailed the vanilla root beer button and left to find a table.
There were no open tables visible, I realized. We walked around the restaurant, looking for somewhere to sit and wait. Then someone got up near the door and left, and we sat there. There were also open patio tables, where lots of people were headed.
The atmosphere definitely was a high-energy, busy, buzzing place, filled with the sounds of young families. As we sat at our table, there was somewhat more than the usual restaurant traffic from people walking around trying to find a seat.
After a while, our number was called and we received our food. There was another trip back for fixings for the hamburger – a row of condiments, pickles, lettuce and tomato. The lettuce was bigger than the hamburger bun. The thought going through my mind as we used tongs to get these items was that hundreds of hands had already touched the tongs earlier in the evening. Perhaps it would be good at this point in the meal to return to the front of the restaurant and use the hand sanitizer provided near the entrance.
Then, the meal. The hamburger was as good as any other at Village West, I thought. It was cooked the way I had ordered it. I really liked the onion rings I had ordered, they were freshly prepared, not the frozen variety, and they had a light, not greasy texture. The vanilla root beer, something new to me, was pretty good.
The last time we visited Five Guys Burgers and Fries, there were a lot of teens and college-aged students there. I asked a 30-something, “Do you like Five Guys or Fuddruckers hamburgers better?” The reply was “Five Guys.”
As we left Fuddruckers, three employees stood near the door with huge smiles on their faces. They said “thank you” as we left. That was the best part about going there, and reason enough to return. Five Guys Burgers and Fries is within eyesight of the new Fuddruckers restaurant at The Legends Outlets.
Kansas City Kansas Community College is holding Women’s Equality Day later this month.
The event is from noon to 1 p.m. Aug. 26 in Room 2325 on the Lower Level of the Jewell Center. It is free and open to the public.
Women’s Equality Day commemorates the granting of women to vote in the United States. First proposed in 1878, women known as suffragettes worked for more than 40 years to gain equal voting rights. Some would try to pass suffrage acts in individual states; others organized parades, vigils or even hunger strikes. New York was the first state to adopt women’s suffrage in 1917.
After that, President Woodrow Wilson changed his position and started supporting a woman’s right to vote. Other politicians soon followed his lead. On Aug. 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution was certified as law, and since 1972, every president has issued a proclamation for Women’s Equality Day.
“Many people don’t know how much some women sacrificed to win the right to vote. Some were imprisoned, protested through hunger strikes and were force-fed. One woman sacrificed her life for the cause of women’s suffrage,” said Jennifer Gieschen, coordinator for the Women’s Resource Center at KCKCC. “Many people don’t know that women had been fighting to win the right to vote since the writing of the Declaration of Sentiments in 1848 at the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y.”
During KCKCC’s Women’s Equality Day event, attendees will have the chance to learn about the history about women’s right to vote as well as the most current legislation. Polly Hawk, assistant professor of English and women’s studies at KCKCC, will talk about the history of how women fought for the right to vote and Valdenia Winn, professor of history at KCKCC and Kansas state representative, will give updates on legislation that affect women, families and education. A light reception will follow.
“Women’s Suffrage is a fascinating and often much forgotten part of our national history,” Gieschen said. “If people have learned about women’s suffrage in the past, they have often forgotten it, or they never learned how difficult, long and passionate the fight for women’s right to vote was. The right to vote affects all of us. Everyone is welcome to attend both women and men.”
The co-hosts of KCKCC’s Women’s Equality Day are the Women’s Resource Center of the Counseling and Advocacy Center, the American Association of University Women and the Intercultural Center.
For more information, call 913-288-7193.
Kelly Rogge is the public information supervisor at Kansas City Kansas Community College.
