Home on the Range Celebration By Sharon Black

Home on the Range Celebration

Before the NFL draft, Mitch Holthus has time to stick in a two-day golf and pickleball fundraiser for Home on the Range. Mitch is the play-by-play announcer on the radio for the Chiefs in Kansas City, Missouri.

Each April the Home on the Range Spring Celebration fundraiser puts on activities for the supporters to play pickleball and golf.

Children can play pickleball in the Smith Center gymnasium along with adults. Teams are made by the players beforehand, as well as golf teams. (4-Person Golf Scramble and 2-person Team Pickleball Tournament.)

Chiefs players were flown in a Falcon 2000 from Kansas City to Smith Center along with the pickleball players from the Kansas City area. Several flights occurred that day.

This year the players attending were Mitchell Schwartz, Shawn Barber, Trey Smith, and Trent McDuffie.

Mitch Holthus’ great aunt and uncle owned the Home on the Range site for many years, and never sold the land or cabin when two historical museums wanted it. The song Home on the Range was written by Dr. Brewster Higley, and has become world famous.

A Chiefs chat ends the activities in the high school auditorium, like when Mitch does his radio show during the football season at various Hy-Vee markets in KC, and recreates it for the Smith Center audience.

The fundraising supports bridges and sidewalks around the cabin in the country. Bridges wash out from flooding. An amphitheater is planned south of the cabin also. Roads need to be built before heavy equipment travels to the construction site.

: Kansas City Chief player, Patrick Mahomes on the “big screen”

: Kansas City Chiefs coach, Andy Reid on the “big screen”

: Kansas City Chiefs player, Patrick Mahomes, on the “big screen”

: Kansas City Chiefs players Trey Smith and Mitchell Schwartz.

: Kansas City Chief players, Shawn Barber, Trent McDuffie, and Mitch Holthus

Sharon Black has been writing for many years including newspapers, short stories, and as a publisher. She was born in Nebraska and has lived in Kansas most of her life. In her hometown of Smith Center, Kansas, Willa Cather’s hometown is to the north and Bob Dole’s hometown is to the south. Sharon is a press release writer for the National Parks Arts Foundation and writes for b U n e k e magazine. The biggest project she has accomplished is the co-writer of the TV movie Home on the Range. The movie is about the song, which is the state song of Kansas and the lawsuit surrounding it in the 1930s and finding the rightful author of the song. Sharon is distantly related to the Mississippi writer Eudora Welty.

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