Leadership topic - Kansas

Kansas, the band, is one of my favorites. I was introduced in college by my roommate Wes who was from neighboring Oklahoma, and many hours were spent listening to them on travels up to Tulsa and back, 5 hours each way. We actually went to a “practice show” in Dallas where their sound company was trying out the sound system for a stadium tour. We had 4th row tickets in a very small hall and nearly lost our hearing 😉

Kansas came out of Topeka in the early 1970s, rented a small-town opera house in 1973 to play for a record label’s man from New York, and got the deal. Leftoverture came out on October 21, 1976, with Carry On Wayward Son on it, and Dust in the Wind followed a year later, the band’s only US Top 10. 50 years on, the band is still touring, though the men who started it have stepped back one by one: Robby Steinhardt died in 2021, Phil Ehart left the road after a heart attack in 2024, and Rich Williams is slowing down. In Ehart’s words, Kansas is still a band.

I first wrote about them for the 4th of July in 2020, on America: 7 songs and the founders who signed the Declaration. In 2026 I came back for the 50th of Leftoverture, on Time: where yours actually goes, from 7 angles, and what the people who matter most are owed of it. Come along for 7 days, and bring your earplugs…