EDITORIAL: Save the book!

Written by by Don Ratzlaff Tuesday, 25 January 2000 18:00

While gathering the historical sidebars for the Free Press’s “Annual Report/State of the City” insert While gathering the historical sidebars for the Free Press’s “Annual Report/State of the City” insert which appears in this issue, we were impressed again with the amazing resource Raymond F. Wiebe has provided our city. His written history of our community, titled Hillsboro: City on the Prairie, is an informative and delightful compendium of enlightening facts and observations about the start and development of our fair burg. Here’s one jewel we discovered while looking for something else: Did you know Hillsboro may be the largest city in Kansas to have never allowed a retail liquor to operate within its city limits? If Raymond believes the notion to be true, that’s good enough for us. His research is meticulous. (By the way, you’ll find that nugget of trivia gold on Page 80.) We also discovered one other, much more troubling, fact while doing our research: Raymond’s book is all but out of print. And that’s a shame. The book has largely been a self-funded project, so we can’t blame Raymond for being hesitant to risk the considerable dollars required to produce a second printing. But maybe a generous benefactor or civic-minded organization in our community could step forward to provide or raise the funds. We agree, such an investment will likely not return huge financial dividends for the investor—the book, as good as it is, will never make the national best-seller lists. But we ought to have an ample supply of copies available for purchase by visitors, tourists and the curious and sentimental—enough to last at least a decade. Or until he writes the sequel. We haven’t broached the idea of a second printing with the author. He may have other, very good, reasons for not moving ahead with such a notion. But he ought to at least know that some of us think the notion is worthwhile. Would anyone second the notion?