Bridgette Jobe, director of Kansas Tourism, visited the Great Bend Brit Spaugh Zoo Wednesday morning to present two big checks.
“Good luck cashing that,” she joked after officials posed with the photo op facsimile checks. Luckily, she was accompanied by Kody Hardman, the fiscal and grants manager at Kansas Tourism, who would work with Great Bend Convention & Tourism Director Christina Hayes and others on handling the true transaction.
CVB received a check for $3,468 to help cover the costs of its look book, which has not yet gone to press. This hardcover book will feature photos from the zoo and some of its history. Some copies will be available for purchase at the zoo and the zoo will receive money from those sales, Hayes said. It is expected to be available before the holidays.
Jobe also had a $10,000 Kansas Tourism grant for Meet Kansas, a coalition of 18 communities including Great Bend. The president of Meet Kansas is Janet Kuhn from Hays, who joined the others Wednesday for a photo at the zoo.
“One of the things we try to push with Tourism is collaboration,” Jobe said.
Meet Kansas will use the funds to create a showcase event where communities in the coalition will showcase what they have to offer and tell their stories. The first Meet Kansas showcase will be in Topeka.
This coalition focuses on bringing conferences from other states to Kansas and conference planners will be invited. Hayes said Great Bend is a member of other coalitions as well. Sports KS aims to bring sporting events to the state and Tour Kansas brings tour groups and tourists to various destinations.
“We love what you guys do in Great Bend,” Jobe said. “One of the things we’re trying to do with Kansas Tourism is (ask), ‘Howe can we get children to fall in love with Kansas and stay here?’ She said that makes attractions such as the zoo a good fit. It also helped that the look books were a fresh idea.
“These are competitive grants to help new projects get off the ground,” she said.
City Administrator Logan Burns attended the presentation and thanked Hayes and her staff for all of their hard work.
Zoo Supervisor and Curator Ashley Burdick was also there. She said attendance at Great Bend’s free zoo is always at least 30,000 a year and sometimes more. For the photo, she posed with Penelope, a Mississippi kite that came to the zoo’s raptor rehabilitation program after someone tried unsuccessfully to raise her. After imprinting on humans, Penelope could not be released into the wild.
