Small town slice of life, or pie, in Gypsum

Sandy Kruse hasn’t met a pie she doesn’t like.

Gooseberry, peach, apple crumb, she names a few out loud. That’s a good attribute for the mayor of Gypsum, Kansas, and the town’s resident pie promoter.

“I don’t have a favorite,” she said as she stood in the doorway of Gypsum’s old city auditorium, which still has the same wood floor my dad played basketball on in the early 1950s. About 170 pies sit on the stage where volunteers are selling them for $3 a slice. There are more pies at the fire station across the street, served by the Temple Church women.

My hometown doesn’t have a school anymore. The hardware, grocery and drug store, where I used to get a fountain Coca Cola and ice cream cone, are closed. But there is still plenty of life in the Saline County town of 400.

That includes its Memorial weekend festival celebrating old cars and pies.

Kruse, a longtime family friend, said her ex-husband loved both and came up with the festival idea when pondering a way to put Gypsum on the map. Now in its fifth year, the Gypsum Pie Festival and Car Show draws between 150 to 200 old vehicles. Winners are awarded a pie as the trophy.

“Everyone likes pie,” Kruse said. “It brings so many people to town. It helps the businesses. It just makes me feel like the town is alive, and it really is. It feels like you are doing something to keep Gypsum vital.”

Pie here is tradition. Pie was served at every First Baptist Church dinner I attended. My mother spent hours making homemade pie and crust for every holiday or family get together. My Grandma Bickel would bring fresh-picked gooseberry and cherry pie to the field to eat on the tailgate during wheat harvest.

But pie isn’t the only thing going on in Gypsum. Gypsum has 13 exits, according to the sign on the edge of town. There are still a few cornerstones—a restaurant, bank, grain elevator, four churches and a gun store. The hardware store now houses a flea market. A young family bought the gas station, now called K-4 Garage, where they sell fuel and tires and do repairs. The old Standard station also was fixed up recently and turned into a repair shop.

“What makes this Gypsum is everyone coming together and working together,” said Judy Scanlan, who was busy serving pie with her grandchildren in the auditorium. She and her husband, Tom, operated Scanlan Hardware for 44 years, retiring in 2014.

Like many small towns, folks here are deep-rooted, including my own. My great, great grandfather Levi Henne homesteaded two quarters south of town, pulling his cabin back and forth between them every six months for seven years when he finally proved up his claim. We still own that original homestead and it’s where my dad grew up.

Local farmer Kenny Hall told me his family might be one of the oldest in the area. His great-great- grandmother came from Illinois in 1868 and homesteaded south of town. He and his wife, Judy, raised two boys here.

“I hate to think about leaving,” Hall said as he stood by his refurbished 1968 Pontiac GTO during the car show. “It’s my hometown. I graduated down here from Gypsum High School.”

Kruse and volunteers spent the Friday before the car show giving an old building a new paint job. They hope to paint a few others on Main Street and maybe even put a mural on one of them, welcoming people to Gypsum.

“When you don’t have a school in your town, you have to think of other ways to bring people together,” Kruse said, adding the pie festival “seems to work.”

Amy Bickel can be reached at 620-860-9433 or [email protected].

Gypsum Vitals

Founded: 1886

Name: After the mineral found nearby and was once mined in the area.

Notable residents:

• Steve Fritz, 1996 Olympic decathlete, placing fourth.

• Frank Wilkeson, an 1800s New York Times journalist and Washington explorer who owned a large ranch near Gypsum and is buried in the town cemetery.

• Bill Wheatley, a member of the gold-medal U.S. basketball team that competed in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany.