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Roger Shannon

As he is finishing up his first term on the City Council, running for re-election seems to be a foregone conclusion for Rodger Shannon.

“All you have to do is look at my face,” Shannon said with a smile. “I love it.”

Shannon, who represents Ward 3 on the council, has lived in Bonner Springs since 1974 and is a current substitute teacher and former teacher of kindergarten, fifth grade and physical education, with about 35 years of teaching experience under his belt. He has also held various titles throughout his professional career, such as regional coordinator for Kansas Special Olympics from 1971 to 1974 and volleyball area supervisor for the Kansas Sate High School Activities Association, which is a title he still has today.

Shannon said he enjoys being on the council because it gives him a chance to play an active role in making Bonner Springs the best city it can be.

“I like being a part where things are moving forward and you’re helping the city to grow, making this a fabulous place to live and raise your family,” Shannon said.

The phrase “there’s no ‘I’ in team” is one that Shannon strongly believes in and so, though he has several challenges he would like to see met if re-elected, he has a hard time with categorizing these challenges as personal goals. He said that when you take on a position such as that of the City Council, you automatically take on the goals of everyone on the team.

“It’s not ‘I,’ it’s ‘we,’” Shannon said. “It’s ‘we’ working together for the betterment of our community and our families. That’s a ‘we’ goal.”

One “we” goal of Shannon’s is to see the walking/jogging trail on 134th Street between Pioneer and Kansas avenues completed by the summer. He would also like to see, in the near future, a new sidewalk built between Bluegrass and Garfield streets on the south side of Morris Street. He said these areas have a lot of traffic, both the driving and the on-foot kind, and the city is playing a dangerous game by not having safer avenues of travel for pedestrians, who he often sees walking or jogging on the street right next to the cars.

“We have 2,000 cars a day on Morris and I see families walking, kids walking, cross-country kids jogging, and we’re dodging a big bullet,” Shannon said. “We gotta protect our kids.”

Another goal is to visit each family within his ward once a year to give them a chance to, as he puts it, “share their joys and concerns within our city.” He believes this will be a great way to reach out to those he is representing and it might, along the way, garner a few good ideas for the council as well.

“Everybody has something of value to contribute,” Shannon said, “and their insights could make Bonner even better than what it is.”

Shannon said he had one final goal that pretty well sums up all the others he mentioned.

“To do everything possible to help our families in our city anyway I can,” he said.

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