How can we grow as a city or county if we don’t know all that it has to offer?

That was a question posed to the City Commission by outdoor enthusiast Rick Dykstra during a special presentation during the March 7th meeting.

“Without a doubt, our quality of life – which includes our vast outdoors – can be used to attract new industries, businesses, families, single persons, visitors and yes – workers; we all need to speak a knowledgeable language [about the community] if this is going to take place,” said Dykstra. “Just look at Junction City with it’s beautiful parks – Homers Pond, Riverwalk, wetlands, ball fields, and the headwaters of the Kansas River – they all provide a great opportunity to get into the outdoors.”

Dykstra stressed that Milford Lake is not the only outdoor recreation opportunity in the county, albeit a very viable one.

“I personally was told by a community leader that our outdoors was ‘a waste of time’; I know we have the outdoor attractions and events which people want, we just need to make sure we are letting others know and are consistent with our message and  stand up when others forget us or omit us,” said Dykstra. “When I speak to some of our business leaders and officials, I sadly discover that they actually know little about our outdoors, though they claim they [know a lot] – these are people that help sell our community.”

The Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism published their 2017 Tourism Guide which failed to mention Geary County or Junction City, according to Dykstra. The guide did mention Symphony in the Flint Hills, which will take place at the Deer Horn Ranch, but failed to mention that it is located in Southeastern Geary County. This omission as well as not mentioning the National BiPlane Fly-in, Jammin in JC and other community events felt intentional to an impassioned Dykstra.

“How are we to market our community if we all don’t know the language to speak and speak with a consistent voice,” said Dykstra. “We need to be stronger with a consistent voice; look at the military, we know demographically they love the outdoors – I’m not saying anybody is doing anything wrong or right – I’m just saying are we delivering that energized, motivated message.”

Dykstra said that community leaders need to look beyond the immediate region when marketing Junction City and Geary County and work from a more national level.