Picture It!

Sometimes scrolling through Facebook offers opportunities you'd never imagined.

I admit it: I probably waste a fair amount of time looking at Facebook. But in June, I saw a post from K-State's College of Business Administration. They were asking K-State alumni to submit original photos to be considered as decor for the new building.

Since Brent is the Communications Coordinator at the college, I emailed him about it. But he didn't know any more than what had been posted. So I decided I'd give it a try.

It wasn't limited to College of Business alums. Even those of us who graduated from K-State's College of Home Economics (1979) could submit up to five photographs for consideration. It wasn't limited to K-State themed images. When I asked, they told me this:

Whatever you shoot that’s exceptional: Kansas, France, K-State, California… We just want good work by KSU alumni.

Well, I was fresh out of photos from France or California, but I have lots of Kansas and K-State. I spent a few days thinking about it, then emailed my choices. And in July, I was notified that three of the five had been chosen for inclusion in the new building! The final selections were made by the Leopold Gallery + Art Consulting in Kansas City. (And Brent didn't have a thing to do with it.)

 

I was anxious to see the new building. For one thing, Brent works there, and I like visualizing where my kids are. (Mom habits die hard.) However, we were planting wheat when they had the grand opening ceremony earlier in October. Brent said he'd give us a personalized tour later. We finally got our chance last Friday.

It was such a thrill for me to see my photos enlarged to archival prints and matted to decorate the walls of the new building. Little gold plaques are mounted beside each print, giving the name of the photo and the photographer.

One of them - which I titled Hope for the Harvest - is in the Student Success Center on the building's first floor. I took it in June, as the sun was coming up over a nearly ripe wheat field.

Another is hung over a communal study area on the 3rd floor. It's called Rainbow's Gold. It was an older photo I'd taken in September 2009.

My shot from a K-State football game is in the offices for the National Strategic Selling Institute. (The universe - and wind - aligned just right during the pregame ceremonies in September 2014, and the flags were perfectly framed by the goalposts. I'd never captured it before or since in just that way.) I called it "Faithful to Our Colors," a line from the K-State Fight Song.

I didn't whip out a tape measure to figure out how large they are printed. (I was already embarrassing Brent enough.) But it definitely gave me a thrill to see my photos on walls other than my own.

Photography takes an instant out of time, 

altering life by holding it still.

Dorothea Lange

***

Just a note:  I suppose someone out there will read this and think I'm bragging.  That may be part of the reason it's taken me from the time I was notified in July until now to write about it - or talk about it at all. Until now, I had told my parents and my kids. For one thing, I thought it was just too good to be true until I saw it with my very own eyes.

However, one of my missions for this blog is sharing about our life on a Central Kansas farm. This is part of my story. If I had a diary like a turn-of-the-century farm wife, I would have recorded it there so my descendants would know about it someday. This is my modern-day diary, I suppose. I am humbled to share a couple of images from the County Line and another from our beloved alma mater with visitors to the College of Business Administration. I am thankful for the opportunity and for the honor!