The Goodland Kiwanis Club was formed in June of 1949. The Cook Shack began prior to 1958, unsure of actual start date.
In the early years of the fair, there were wooden Cook Shacks on the grounds of the NWKDFF. Groups involved were the Kiwanis Club, Methodist Church, Catholic Church, Lutheran Church and the Oschner Family all selling food. The Episcopal Church also had a shack but they sold used clothing out of their booth, which was a big hit to the carnival workers.
The Kiwanis Club had a Cook Shack that housed a cook stove and a dunk tank off to the side. The Kiwanis Stand was placed next to the south entrance of the Exhibit Hall. The door to enter the Shack faced south, the window that opened to the East sold concessions to the Grandstand attendees. The window that opened to the West sold concessions to the patrons of the carnival.
Along with the main Kiwanis Shack, in the mid 60’s a new stand alone refreshment stand was built to serve the grandstands. This stand was only about 10’x 20’ and served pop and popcorn only to the patrons in the grandstands. The size allowed for a maximum of about 4 or 5 workers at a time.
Refreshments were sold from the stand as well as members and volunteers would sell pop out of drink trays directly to the patrons in the stands. Both the larger stand and the stand alone concession stand were used until the fair board put up the new metal building to house the concessions and to add restrooms in 1974. The new building allowed Kiwanis members to be able to sell to both the fair goers on the midway as well as the patrons in the Grandstands from one place.
Current member Kevin Rasure recalls the grill was made by Clark Jordan. Kevin also remembers his father, Dick Rasure, talking about the building of the Shack. The story was told that the membership built the stand alone concession stand. After a long day of building and shenanigans, Pete Whalen had left for the evening and had forgotten his tools. The rest of the builders played a joke on Pete by placing his tools in the newly poured cement at the Shack. It is unknown if Pete ever retrieved his tools.
The menu included the world famous Kiwanis Hamburger and bottled Coke. The dunk tank was an added bonus, kids could try to throw a ball to hit the target and the Kiwanis member would fall into the tank. Kevin Rasure remembers as a child walking thru the crowd and selling pop and popcorn from the Kiwanis Shack in the Grandstands during the horse races and the Demo Derby. The races included a horse and carriage and the competitors sat in the carriage during the race. The Demo Derby was brought to the NWKDFF in the about 1969 after Mr. Byron Carlson, an instructor at the Technical College, who had seen the Derby in another community.
Steve Sitton recalls that he and Jim Todd worked for Clarence Scheopner in 1971. Clarence had an old demo derby car that he had entered twice into the derby. It was sitting idle at the car wash with a sign to advertise the 1971 derby. Steve asked if he could fabricate and fix the car to enter into the derby. Clarence agreed with one condition, if Steve won, Clarence got to keep the trophy. Steve ended up winning that year and as promised, Steve gave Clarence the trophy.
The demo derby has continued on since 1969 with the exception of one year when the fair board brought in a mud bogg in 2012. The following year the demo derby was back on the schedule.
Several remember that Mr. George Garrison, the manager of the local Coca Cola Bottling plant, would mix up a “special blend” for the Kiwanis Shack. The blend was whiskey added to the Cola mix. At some point the “special blend” was mistakenly stored with the regular bottles of coke and the “special blend” was distributed to patrons of the Shack. At that time the fair board demanded that no more of the “special blend” be offered to the workers of the Shack. Only Coca Cola could be served after that point. The end of the “special blend” was not the end of the pick me up spirits available to the workers, it was kept in the back of the refrigerator and was known as “onion juice.”
Leonard Howell and Max Carman were the first ones to serve breakfast at the shack. When Max was President, the Kiwanis International Convention was held in Denver. Max let attendees of the International Convention know that the Goodland Kiwanis Club had a fair shack that served a pancake breakfast and hamburgers throughout the day. Current members remember the Fair Shack was well attended from the International Convention attendees traveling to and from Denver to attend the event. Max was not in favor of continuing the breakfast, because it “messed up the patina on HIS grill”. And Leonard did not want to fire up the grill so early in the morning due to the heat that the grill put off. To keep Max and Leonard happy, members would cook on electric skillets. Sausage was added in the early 1980’s. A blend that was made special by Mary Ann Bennett from Price Right Meat Market. The hamburger patties were purchased from the Price Right Meat Market as well. During the week of fair, it is remembered that Max, Elmer Jacobs and Al King instructed young Kiwanis members on the proper way to grill a famous Kiwanis Cheeseburger.
Breakfast continued on until Brad Shields moved away for a short time in 2013. Brad recalls making the “The Breakfast Special” which included a Hamburger bun with a cooked egg, maple sugar sausage patty and cheese. “The Breakfast Special” came with a hash brown and drink $5. As part of the early morning crew that would open the shack, Jim Wedermyer spent many hours as the handyman for the shack. Brad Schields remembers the two of them working the 5am shift to get the shack prepared for the day, mainly coffee and breakfast. Jim could fix anything and get parts to repair some older items housed in the shack. Brad remembers Jim’s stories about the shack, the shack had lots of stories!
One Kiwanis member loved making his own Kiwanis Special for lunch. He would come out for lunch in nice dress clothes and head to the grill to create his own Kiwanis burger. He would put a pile of dried onions on the grill next to his hamburger and fry them both up. After completing the task, he would put his Kiwanis Special on a plate and enjoy his meal. When he was done, he would head back to work with the Kiwanis Special aroma going with him.
Members recall Jack Burr at the popcorn machine. That task was a hot one as you had to stand in front of the popcorn cabinet and watch the popcorn fall from the kettle to bag it up. Along with the thrill of watching the popcorn drop, you were also warded the task of cleaning the machine each evening. Between the grill and the popcorn machine, the Shack was pretty warm the week of the fair. Other vendors started selling Kettle Corn popcorn on the Midway and took away from the sales. In about 2018, the popcorn machine was tucked in a corner of the shack and it has not come back out since, no one misses cleaning the machine!
In about 2007, Dennis and LeAnn Taylor became “Chief In Charge” of the Shack after LeAnn volunteered to help Rich Simon, as he was in charge of the Demo Derby. The Taylors handled the ordering of the food as well as morning crew to get the food prepped and started. In 2008, it was suggested that the Vice President of the Club run the shack with the assistance of a committee. The responsibilities would be divided up among the committee members. Generally, the committee members were the VP, President and Treasurer. The committee would be in charge of the day to day operations as well as finding the support staff and members to run the shack. Somewhere along the way, the committee dwindled and it became just the VP in charge of Volunteers and groups as well as the go to person for the week of the fair. LeAnn would still do the ordering of the products and the treasurer is in charge of the money and accounting. It truly takes the whole club for the Shack to operate for the 4th of July and the week of the fair.
Over the years, food items have come and gone from the menu. Menu items such as popcorn, vegetable trays, fruit cups, caramel apples, cowboy nachos, sloppy nachos, chicken wrap, cowboy wraps and etc. But the food item that has stood the test of time has been the Kiwanis Cheeseburger, the number one selling item on the menu. In 2022, between the single, double and triple hamburger/cheeseburger 4,541 patties were served, what we know to be our busiest year at the shack.
Ron Vignery remembers that oftentimes while Kiwanians were cooking hamburgers on the grill and serving customers cries would ring out in the Shack of “Get your souvenir hamburgers here” or “We will serve no hamburger before its time” much to the amusement of customers ordering burgers. Some blamed these cries on the grease from the burgers affecting the brains of the Kiwanians and others blamed it on “onion juice” even though no onion juice was available.
Early members that would have worked the Cook Shack would have been the following: George Lyon, Jerry Steele, Dick Spencer, Selby Soward, John Evans, Felix Younger, Les Frazier, Al King, Royce Patton, Joe Colburn, Ernie Elliott, Tom McCants, Lawrence House, Ernie Schmidt, Lester Sage, Jones Schroeder, Max Jones, Tom Cooper, Coke Myers, Clarence Scheopner, Leonard Howell, John Golden, Larry Keirns, Bud Perry, Max Carman, Doc Driver, Doc Whitmore, Elmer Jacobs, Jack Burr, Dick Rasure, Burette Griffith, Larry Minner, Don Martin and Pete Whalen.
1974 – The 4-H building was built and the grill that is in the current location was brought over from the previous Cook Shack. The buildings skeleton structure exposed the metal support beams and insulation. It was cooled with a swamp cooler. The original grill was made by Clark Jordan and is still used today. Max Carmen and Jim Wedermyer were in charge of the layout of the shack to the new location. The new and improved shack allowed Kiwanis to serve out of the front for 4-H building patrons and out of the back window to serve to the grandstands. It wasn’t until the 90’s that the club decided to upgrade and add wall coverings and new counter tops. Air Conditioning was added at this time as well. These upgrades were done under the supervision of Jim Wedermyer and Larry Milke was the contractor that did the actual work.
2007 – Kiwanis began opening the Shack for the 4th of July Freedom Fest. This day brings in a deposit which is a great start for the week of the Fair Shack.
2009 – Cash Registers were introduced to facilitate the line and take in the cash.
2010 – The Shack almost doubled in size by adding the South side of the Shack. This improved the storage and efficiency of the Shack.
2012 – New air conditioners were purchased to cool the shack.
2016 – A Credit Card machine was introduced for the Kiwanis Shack to accept payments. 10% of the transactions were via credit card the first year the machine was introduced. 7 years later in 2023, 45% of the sales were via credit card.
2021 – A new Credit Card payment system called
Square was purchased. Along with the new payment systems came new kiosks for taking orders. The kiosks provided a larger receipt paper that had more detail in the tape that was presented to the helpers at the window. The new system provided a nightly sales report with an inventory of what was sold that day. These reports helped with ordering inventory throughout the week. Aaron Duell created stands to go along with the kiosks.
2022 – A new exhaust fan was installed to help with the ventilation in the shack and improve the air quality for the cooks standing over the seasoned grill. The screens from the hood were taken to the car wash for a good cleaning. The hood was cleaned several times but the fan could not withstand the years of grease. At this time, it was decided to have the hood professionally cleaned each year to help preserve the life of the hood.
The Shack and the Demo derby were the main fundraisers until the Kiwanis Club began our Flag Project in 2008. Over the years we have sponsored the Turkey Hoop Shoot, Scholarships, Toys for Tots, Recycled Cycles, local youth activities, youth groups as well as the Carnegie Arts Center, Goodland Activities Center, Sunflower 4-H District, Boy Scout Troop #142 and local youth sports.
History compiled by Gennifer Golden House
August 2023
