Tanner, Beccy

Few journalists have done as much to promote a love of Kansas as Beccy Tanner, who for decades covered history and rural Kansas for The Wichita Eagle.

During her 40 years as a Kansas journalist, she has written thousands of stories on Kansas history, its people and its unique characteristics. She published two books about Kansas history.  Her subjects range from the Adam’s Apple Festival in Lucas to how Nicodemus is using conversations about race and history to bring people together.

Her articles about the Smith County cabin where Brewster Higley wrote the poem that became the words to our state song, “Home on the Range,” prompted a successful state-wide, fund-raising drive to preserve the cabin. 

Her articles also saved the John Mack bridge, a two-lane south Wichita bridge known for its distinctive rainbow arches.  The city was one month from replacing it with a four-lane bridge when her article was published in The Eagle.  Within a few days, nearly 30,000 people had signed a petition to save the bridge, prompting the city to change its design, making the John Mack a one-way bridge and building a second bridge parallel to it. That success led to the formation of The Wichita Preservation Alliance to save other Wichita landmarks.

In 2011, The Kansas Sampler Foundation honored Beccy Tanner with its annual We Kan! Award, recognizing her “for lifting rural Kansas with her pen.”

During the Kansas Sesquicentennial anniversary of statehood, Tanner created an interactive story on Kansas.com showcasing attractions in all 105 counties.

While at The Eagle she began working with Wichita State University, offering classes called “Quirky Kansas” and leading bus tours of the state.

After leaving The Eagle in 2018 during downsizing, she was named one of “Kansas Finest” by the Travel Industry Association of Kansas for her stories and promotion of Kansas people and places to see.

Besides teaching at WSU, she began freelancing that year for KANSAS! Magazine, published by the Kansas tourism office, and is a regular contributor with stories published in the Kansas Leadership Center Journal.

In 2020, Tanner shared a Silver Award from the International Regional Magazine Association for “Kansas! 100 Years of the 19th Amendment” using historical resources to create vivid portraits of suffragettes.

That same year, Tanner began offering “Hidden Kansas” radio segments to Wichita’s public radio station, KMUW. Some of those topics have included the Home on the Range Cabin in Smith County, the 1921 march of the Amazon Women during the coal mine strikes in Southeast Kansas, and coyote calling in the Arikaree Breaks,  located in the far northwest corner of Kansas.

In 2022, KANSAS! Magazine received a Gold Award from the International Regional Magazine Association for her story “200 Years of the Santa Fe Trail” illustrating the importance of the Santa Fe Trail on shaping Kansas and the West. She also shared a Bronze Award in the magazine for an article “Haunted Atchison,” written after spending a creepy night in Atchison’s 1889 McInteer Villa.

Beccy, who describes herself as a purveyor of random Kansas facts, said she loves writing about Kansas for a simple reason: “It’s home.”