Plans were underway in December of 1953 to establish a Cowboy Hall of Fame. C.A. Reynolds of Kansas City was sponsoring a drive to honor cowboys, rodeo stars, Western pioneer stockmen and stock raisers.

A National Rodeo Hall of Fame Foundation started work on the plan, and Reynolds announced an initial contribution of $5,000 toward a fund to build a permanent building, contributed by his own company, the H.D. Lee Co.

70 years ago
Frozen cooked food was a novelty in December of 1946. Commercial airlines and railroad dining car service companies had just begun to experiment with the best ways for preparing food ready to eat, then freezing it until needed.

HONORING COWBOYS: The legacy of the cowboy is cemented in history at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City.

"It seems to some that the possibilities in this business are almost unlimited," the December 1946 Kansas Farmer reported. "On the plane and on the train, the food is only heated and served. This will revolutionize the food service business in the transportation field."

60 years ago
Kansas State University Extension and Research was trying to solve a puzzle in the winter of 1956. Why is it, they wondered, that insects attack some crop varieties but leave others alone? They found that Pawnee and Ponca wheat varieties contained more hemicellulose than other varieties that were more susceptible to Hessian fly.

They also learned that while feeding on wheat plants, Hessian flies transferred something to the plant that kept them from using the sugars produced in the green leaves.

50 years ago
It was in December of 1966 that 56 of the farmers growing Christmas trees as a for-profit crop decided to join together to form the Kansas Christmas Tree Growers Association. John T. Rohde of Edwardsville was elected as the first president of the association.

Kansas State University reported that in 1966 Kansans purchased about 500,000 Christmas trees valued at $2 million. The vast majority of those trees were shipped into the state from the north and northwest regions of the country. The foresters said they saw the potential for Kansas growers to grow and market most if not all of the trees purchased in the state.

20 years ago
Satellites and the data they were able to collect were brand-new in December of 1996, with 50 satellite launches set to take place from 1996 to 2006. The ability to collect data in different wavelength bands ushered in an era of big data that has done nothing but grow in the ensuing 20 years.

Goerzen is executive director of Old Cowtown Museum in Wichita, where she shares a home with husband, Matt, four kids, three cats and a dog.