These 67 Kansas opinion columns opened eyes and hearts throughout one rugged 2025

Posted December 31, 2025

Farmer Jason Schmidt took a photo with his longtime dairy cow friend, Buffalo.

Farmer Jason Schmidt took a photo with his longtime dairy cow friend, Buffalo. (Photo by Jason Schmidt)

The opinion coverage in Kansas Reflector takes a proverbial village to create.

I edit the section, of course, and contribute two to three columns a week. But we also rely on a number of regular contributors, such as Max McCoy on Sundays and Eric Thomas on Fridays. Mark McCormick doesn’t have a day set aside, at least not yet, but he writes frequently. Readers no doubt recognize others, including Tara Wallace and Ben Palen.

The village metaphor came to mind as I assembled this list of the top 67 Kansas Reflector opinion columns — by page views — published in 2025. You’ll see many of the names listed above as you browse below, along with surprise guests like First Amendment attorney Max Kautsch and former college president H. Edward Flentje. (I wrote all the columns without a name attached.)

You’ll notice pieces from new contributors who helped us tell stories that no other news outlet in Kansas managed. Sam Foglesong wrote about his wife being fired in Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency purges. Farmer Jason Schmidt sent a heartfelt remembrance of his cow friend, Buffalo.

We relied on all of these voices to tell the story of 2025. As you might have noticed, the year didn’t just challenge. It grated. It pained. It wrenched. Yet we made it through nonetheless, refusing to be silenced by those who would like nothing more than cowed, fearful acquiescence.

Why 67 pieces? I hear that kids like that number for some reason. Enjoy the list, and I’ll see you in 2026.

 

Emporia's unemployment stats shot up this summer, as the Tyson closing was fully felt. Unemployment here is now greater than the state average of 3.8% or the national, 4.1%.The closed Tyson beef plant in Emporia can be glimpsed behind a chain link fence. The company announced the closure in December and has since laid off 809 employees who worked there, contributing to conditions that made Emporia, by June 2025, the city with the highest unemployment in Kansas. (Photo by Max McCoy/Kansas Reflector)

Columns 1-22

My town is the new unemployment capital of Kansas. But have you tried the water? (July 27) Max McCoy

How’s your tap water?

Here in Emporia, we supposedly have the best-tasting water anywhere. I wouldn’t know, because the stuff that comes out of the kitchen faucet seems ordinary enough to me. Maybe I’m spoiled because I’ve been drinking it for 20 years. But judges have given Emporia’s municipal water a couple of gold medals for taste.

With Trump and Musk driving U.S. policy, Kansas farmers have been played for suckers (Feb. 12) Ben Palen

Many farmers voted for Trump because he promised less regulation and greater prosperity for America’s farmers. The hard truth is that, like most of the folks who voted for Trump, farmers failed to do their homework about the reality of the new administration. All of this has occurred in the context of higher input costs and tight margins for virtually all crops.

A Kansas town chose cruelty. Now it mourns as the mayor faces voter fraud charge and deportation. (Dec. 1)

Coldwater residents have learned a valuable lesson: Actions have consequences.

Their town’s mayor, Joe Ceballos, has been charged with felony voter fraud by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach. Ceballos appears to have registered and cast ballots in multiple elections, despite not being a citizen. While you might expect townsfolk to support the prosecution, that’s not the situation at all.

This Kansas senator exalts Trump’s first 100 days. Please don’t ask any follow-up questions. (May 5)

As a humble U.S. senator from Kansas who is definitely not Roger Marshall or Jerry Moran, it fills me with ecstasy to write a column commemorating the first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second, but hopefully not last, administration.

Here’s the latest from Hays, Kansas: Elon Musk fired my wife (March 4) Sam Foglesong

Two weeks ago, my wife was fired from her job with the federal government. We were playing a board game and having a beer when her phone rang. A colleague asked if she had “got the email.”

 

A view of downtown Lawrence, KansasDowntown Lawrence shimmers with fall colors as pedestrians stroll from store to store. (Photo by Clay Wirestone/Kansas Reflector)

Columns 23-44

This Kansas town doesn’t hate immigrants enough. So the Trump administration plots vengeance. (June 9)

The Trump administration has put my town — the place my family and I call home — on its hit list for a thought crime.

What horrible thing have the people of Lawrence and wider Douglas County done to deserve this fate? Apparently, we don’t sufficiently detest immigrants.

What’s happening at Kansas’ Haskell University isn’t a Native problem (July 14) Haines Eason

When I first moved to Lawrence more than six years ago, my wife and I settled into a neighborhood near Haskell Indian Nations University. I still remember arriving in town and being surprised and excited to see there was “another” university in town. I’d taken a job in communications at the University of Kansas and used to be a teacher, so my interest was piqued. 

A darkness has descended on America. We must seek the air and light of hope. (Feb. 9) Max McCoy

Last Sunday, I drove across the Flint Hills and found myself unexpectedly awash in winter light. On Highway 177 in Chase County I passed the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve and the landscape became cinematic, the slanting rays of the afternoon sun rendering the tawny palette of February in arresting detail.

A rural Kansas county is postcard perfect. Its for-profit jail is a way station to deportation hell. (May 4) Max McCoy

The story of Rosi Alvarado is a story about home.

The 42-year-old mother was lured from her residence in Pittsburg to an immigration office in Kansas City under the pretext of an interview for a green card application. Accompanying Alvarado to that April 23 appointment was her husband, a recently naturalized U.S. citizen, and their 20-year-old daughter.

D.C. wrecking crew has taken sledgehammer to services for Kansas rural communities (Feb. 18) Christy Davis

Throughout my years working in local and state government, nonprofit management, small business, politics, and consulting, I carried the same mission with me — work with the “construction gang” to leave every place better than I found it. Don’t break something you can’t fix.

 

Sen. Renee Erickson chats on the Senate floor during the April 10, 2025, veto sessionSen. Renee Erickson, R-Wichita, chats on the Senate floor during the April 10, 2025, veto session. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

Columns 45-67

You took the country out of Cracker Barrel — then put it right back in (Sept. 12) Eric Thomas

Dear Cracker Barrel, 

We need to talk about your redesigned logo. The one you released last month to nationwide groans. The one paired with new interior designs for your restaurants. The one that shoved your stock price into a tumble. The one that sent you scrambling back to your traditional logo less than two weeks later. 

Kansas Legislature’s supermajority makes mockery of open records law over efficiency portal messages (April 23) Max Kautsch

Since the 1980s, the Kansas Open Records Act has mandated that all public agencies, including the Legislature, produce public records either within three business days or “as soon as possible” in response to requests for records.

But the current Legislature seems to believe those words mean “whenever we feel like it.”

Last week’s letter from the Department of Ed will make Kansas classrooms twitch, then suffer (Feb. 21) Eric Thomas

Photograph a Palestinian refugee? Trump’s proposal/threat to take over Gaza is relevant. Interview a research scientist? The recent cut in NIH funding bubbles up. Talk to transgender students? They are reeling and fighting against federal regulations regarding gender-affirming care, plus his order on transgender athletes.

Dedicated, hardworking Kansans support farmers. DOGE has targeted their office. (March 5) Jeff Darrow

I recently read a headline that reported how the Department of Government Efficiency closed the Topeka regional office of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Risk Management Agency.

DOGE, which is run by an unelected billionaire, claimed it was to save “millions.” The truth is, the savings only come if the office remains closed for nearly a decade.

In 1922 a Kansas paper gave readers an inside look at the Klan. The evil it exposed was timeless. (Aug. 10) Max McCoy

On the big hill west of town they met on hot summer nights beneath a wooden cross illuminated with electric bulbs. Purists might have said the cross should have been flaming, but at least there were the hoods and the white robes and the desperate oaths and the silly language rife with the letter “k.”

See you on the other side of the yearly divide, opinion contributors and friends. I’m sure we’ll find something to write about.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

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