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Dick Burns’ hand touched almost every aspect of recreation in the Bonner Springs community through his role as a coach, teacher and recreation director in the city.

Dick got involved in the community early on after being hired in the school district in 1959. I was president of the City Recreation Department at the time, and after I got acquainted with Dick I got him involved with the city recreation summer program. I started little league baseball in 1956 and for several years had a minimum of help, but I did hire Jim Foster to help mark the fields and install bases, and he and I umpired two games every night. Foster did all these jobs for the amazing sum of $25 a week.

Dick got involved immediately with our program and he was made city recreation director with a starting salary at that time for $300 a summer. We were a good team and took our share of verbal abuse during baseball season, but we managed to hold on. At one City Council meeting the recreational program was on the agenda and I had to be there. A lady got up to speak. She rambled on for quite a long time before Mayor Marion Vaughn interrupted and asked the lady where she lived? She replied, “in Edwardsville,” and he said, “sit down madam. You have no right to complain.” At least, we got good support from our mayor.

One big problem was lack of fields. We started with just one but within five years we added two more. In the 9- and 10-year-old baseball league, a big problem we had was the large number of walks in a game. I researched the entire season with all the scorebooks, and there were games where no other player got to touch the ball except the pitcher and catcher. Dick heard about recreation leagues in Lawrence using a pitching machine and made several trips to check it out. He came back and announced that Bonner Springs would begin using a pitching machine in the 9- and 10-year-old leagues. Pitching machines were used for many years.

When my daughter heard I was doing another column on Dick Burns she supplied me with an incident worth repeating. My daughter, Carol, was a cheerleader at Bonner Springs High School and Dick, who was a member of the football coaching staff, came to a cheerleader meeting to talk to the girls. “If you are going to use that cheer ‘first-and-10, first-and-10, let’s do it again,’ make sure the Braves have the ball,” he told them. She said he was sure nice about the whole thing.

A new sport, slow-pitch softball, came on the scene and Dick Burns started a slow-pitch program. We were the only town at that time that held tournaments, and Dick promoted one with a 32-team bracket which was almost unheard of. After that year he organized a tournament with 16 teams, with the top eight teams going into the upper bracket of the league and the bottom eight going into the loser’s bracket. Dick annually turned away teams until the Miller’s Woods Complex opened in Overland Park. It was a little tougher filling brackets after that.

Dick designed the restrooms and concession stand at Lions Park that also included a garage for the tractor. Before, somebody from the city grounds crew had to go down to the maintenance shop and drive the tractor to Lions Park and back to the shop on the same day. We got complaints about the facility but it was a far cry from the three-hole outhouse we started with back in 1956.

Dick, with the help of City Manager Bob Evans, played an important role in designing and constructing the Community Center. This was one of the better investments the city ever made as the center is used very much. It houses the library, senior center, Jim’s gym and the recreation offices. I enjoyed the years very much working with the Bonner Springs legend and feel we accomplished quite a bit.

I believe it is only fitting that the Community Center should be renamed the Dick Burns Center to memorialize him. It is, after all, the hub of so many recreation activities in Bonner Springs, and Dick Burns spent his life making many of those opportunities possible.

Thank you Dick for the many good hours we spent running the recreation program together. You are truly missed and I am sure God has blessed you with a special place in heaven.

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