Opinion

THE POSTSCRIPT, Carrie Classon

I saw a photo of an author I admire recently, and she had no hair. I worried she was ill, so I immediately investigated. She was not ill. She had cut off all her hair and had done it for good reasons, she said. She had done a lot of thinking about her hair — a lot more than I had.

First of all, she said, she was not blond. “No one is blond,” she added, or almost no one.

Less than 1 percent of the population is blond, and she implied she felt dishonest pretending she was blond when she wasn’t. She went on to say that she had spent thousands of dollars and untold time on her hair. She sounded a little angry about the whole thing — the money spent, the dishonesty of it all.

RYCKMAN RECAP, Ron Ryckman, 38th District Senator

The pace really picked up in a hurry during Week 4 of the Legislature, as we caucused every day after sessions and took on major issues during floor debate.

Foremost among those were bills to help further public trust in election results and address rising property tax concerns. SB 4 and SB 6 — both passed 29-10 — would do away with the current three-day grace period by requiring all mail-in ballots to be received by 7 p.m. Election Night and prohibit so-called “ranked choice voting” to ensure winning candidates are actually the top choice of voters. A third measure cleared by the House, HB 2020, would require driver’s license reports to identify non-citizens on the voter rolls. With regard to property taxes, the headline measure was Senate Concurrent Resolution 1603, adopted 28-11, seeking to cap valuation increases at 3 percent per year.

GUEST COLUMN, Jackie Mundt, Kansas Farm Bureau

Recently, a work trip prompted a quick trip to Fresno, Calif., where I attended college to earn my undergraduate degree. The trip was past due; it had been nearly 10 years since my last visit.

As I drove around town and visited with old friends, memories broke free from the back of my mind. Many important pieces of who I am stem from those years.

GUEST COLUMN, Brian Hainline, U.S. Tennis Association

Across the country, young people are dropping out of organized sports. The share of kids ages 6 to 17 who participated in a team sport dropped by nearly 5 percentage points between 2017 and 2022. The decline isn't primarily because kids are losing interest. Rather, what they're losing is access -- especially as the cost of participation continues to rise.

Reversing this trend is critically important for kids' mental and physical health. So it's worth looking at some of the barriers sports have faced, and how tennis is forward-thinking in this matter.