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11/20/2003 Archived Entry: "NO ONE LIKED MY IDEA...."

NO ONE LIKED MY IDEA....

Kansas might be best-known for two things: farmers and "The Wizard of Oz." So it's not surprising that designs featuring those themes were among the five recently submitted to the U.S. Mint. One will become the Kansas quarter in 2005.

The Kansas Commemorative Coin Design Committee recently selected the five finalists from more than 1,200 entries. All the entries reflected great pride in the state.

Well, that is all well and good. It will be a nice, conventional looking quarter. like every other state has, that people use for making change, getting sodas from machines and such. Unless you are a collector, people don't pay much attention to what is on the face of a coin.

So, I had a better idea, but I didn't officially suggest it for fear of being run out of the state...and I love Kansas and Ellsworth. But I'll tell you what it was. It was a chance for us to be unique, creative and rich...and a lot folksy.

I figured since the state is broke, nearly so or going to be...or whatever someone who has had the most recent say so on the subject has determined...we should do something to raise money and show concern for all our citizens. And what better way, I say, than to have a lottery and give everyone who has $1.00 for a ticket an opportunity to have his or her mug put on the new quarter. What a great idea.

Someone in Kansas (they should have some tie to Kansas, don't you think?...something even as remote as knowing someone in Kansas so that we'd bring in a lot of new money to the state) would have a face that would be remembered almost forever.

"Look at this quarter, Tiffany Pearl....that's the face of your great-great-grandma. She wasn't famous or rich, but she won the lottery back in O three"

I figured almost everyone in Kansas would buy a bucketful of tickets with the hope he or she, one of their kids or ancestors, or an alien friend in Florida would be the eventual winner. Wouldn't that have been fun?

Then, on some cold, snowy night when everything in the state was at a standstill, we'd tune the TV to the long ballyhooed channel, like we did for the episode of "Who Killed J.R.? where Vanna White, Brad Pitt or some heartthrob would draw the winning ticket from the giant barrel where tickets had been accumulating and drawing dust for months. Think of the excitement and suspense. Photographers would have done a brisk buisness so that hopeful winners would be prepared.

Vanna, not being a Kansan and fumbling with the ticket, would have a puzzled look as she tried to figure out the name. She'd pass it to the Gov. who would pass it to an aide who would pass it to someone from rural Kansas, who then with an enlightened look would whisper the name back to the aide, who would whisper it back to the Gov. who would then announce the winner's name....ANNABELLA MARIE CAJTHMLOZOFOSKY. Everyone would say "Rats!" then... "ANNABELLA MARIE WHO?"

But the state would be a wallowing in money at that point...so we could fix our schools, the health system, rural Kansas and all those things that need fixing because of Annabella Marie Cajthmlozofosky and others just like her who had bought a bazillion tickets. Everyone would be so impressed with Kansans and our friendly, folksy approach to things that we'd have all kinds of people with kids moving to our small rural towns with the hope they could live next door to someone just like Annabella Marie Cajthmlozofosky. We'd all take pride in the face of one of "ours", or a friend of a friend of one of ours, being on the new Kansas quarter.

I thought it was a humdinger of a grand idea.

The end.