Horst, Nancy and Mylnar, Bobbi Birk

Emporia, Kansas, was at the heart of a national story for several years in the 1980s after the 1983 double murders and an alleged tryst between the murder suspects: An Emporia pastor and his church secretary. Then-Emporia Gazette managing editor Ray Call credited the two reporters with having significant roles in solving the murders. The Gazette nominated them for a Pulitzer Prize.

Nancy Horst’s first job after graduating from Kansas State University in 1978 allowed her to work in multiple roles for three years at The McPherson Sentinel,  After a short stint in The Gazette production department waiting for an opening in the newsroom, she joined the reporting staff in 1982.

Roberta Birk, now writing as Bobbi Mlynar, began as a part-time keypunch operator at The Emporia Gazette in 1963, and later became a reporter.

Bobbi and Nancy soon became close partners in the newsroom and found themselves working together on the Bird Case. What began as a fatal car wreck in July 1983, claiming the life of Sandra Bird, developed into a much bigger story when Martin Anderson was shot and killed in a pasture south of Junction City in November 1983. They worked as a team covering the mysterious deaths that implicated Sandra’s husband, pastor Tom Bird, and church secretary, Lorna Anderson, wife of Martin Anderson.

The Gazette, under the leadership of Editor Kathrine Klinkenberg White, kept the two reporters on the case, which involved two county law enforcement agencies, the Kansas Highway Patrol, and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, while they continued to handle their regular news beats. They persisted in their investigation, and charges eventually were filed in both Lyon and Geary counties. Bird was convicted of first-degree murder in his wife’s death, and Bird and Anderson both served prison sentences on conspiracy and solicitation charges. Lorna pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of second-degree murder in the Anderson case. No one was ever convicted of pulling the trigger on her husband. The case also was featured in a made-for-TV movie that included the reporters’ characters.

During her newspaper career, Bobbi also was the Emporia area correspondent for The Topeka Capital-Journal and the Kansas City Star. She was promoted to city editor, a position she kept until she left journalism in 1994. She was co-author of two books on Kansas storms, and a ghost-writer on the first “Hatteberg’s People” book.

After working in international marketing and as public affairs supervisor for a statewide child-welfare agency, she returned to The Gazette for a few years on the condition that she would serve only as a reporter, the job she enjoyed most. She has been semi-retired since 2010, was elected to the Emporia City Commission in 2011, and served as mayor in 2012-2013. She writes occasionally on a freelance basis. 

Nancy also had multiple roles in the newsroom as the wire editor and city editor before she left The Gazette to become the communications director for the Emporia school district in late 1992. This career gave her a new lens to use her reporting background to help local and state reporters fulfill their responsibilities. She also worked as a freelance writer for community organizations and partnered with Ray Call to publish a history of the Emporia Chamber of Commerce in 1987. She retired from the school district in 2017.