Interview of Steve Morris, August 22, 2024

Interviewed by Rex Buchanan

Interview Description

Former President of the Kansas Senate, Steve Morris, focuses in this 2024 interview on the issues that impacted his far-southwestern Kansas Senate district during his time in the Senate, 1993-2013. Important issues included those relating to extraction of natural resources, agriculture, and the closely related issue of water. He also reflects on how tax policy has had a wide-ranging impact on the area, touching everything from school financing to the sense of disconnect experienced by some western Kansans. Morris's background as a farmer representing the area of the Hugoton natural gas field made him a logical choice for appointment to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Morris looks back on the controversy around expansion of the Holcomb power plant -- a decision that Kansas may have gotten right "by accident." The interview touches on the economic and social impacts of the natural gas and agriculture industries in Hugoton and the 39th Senate District at-large, including the decline of the Hugoton Field and the introduction of irrigation, fracking, and renewable energy generation. Morris speculates on the future of agriculture and the changing demographics in southwestern Kansas.

Highlights -- short excerpts from the interview

Interviewee Biographical Sketch

Steve Morris is a native Kansan who was born in Garden City, KS and grew up on a farm outside of Hugoton. Morris attended and graduated from Hugoton High School in 1964. He went on to attend Kansas State University, graduating in 1969. He served as an active-duty pilot in the United States Air Force from 1969 to 1974, after which he moved into Reserve duty until 1991. Morris served on the Hugoton Board of Education from 1977 to 1993, and the Kansas State University Alumni Association board from 1985 to 1991 where he was President from 1989 to 1991. He represented the 39th State Senate District from 1993 to 2013. While in the Senate he served as President of the Senate from 2005 to 2013. Additionally, Morris assumed leadership roles at the national level, serving on the executive board of the National Council of State Governments from 1997 to 2013 and as President of the National Conference of State Legislators in 2011 through 2012. Morris and his wife Barabara continue to live in Hugoton.

Transcript

Rex Buchanan: Good morning, I’m Rex Buchanan, the former director of the Kansas Geological Survey (KGS). Today is August 22, 2024. We’re here to interview former Kansas State Senator, Steve Morris. Our videographer is former Representative Dave Heinemann. We want to thank the Morris’ for hosting this interview at their home here in Hugoton, Kansas. Also, with us is Gus [the family dog]. We need to introduce him as well.

I don’t have any background on Gus, but Steve is a native Kansan who was born in Garden City. He and his wife Barabara are residents of Hugoton, where Steve attended and graduated from Hugoton High School in 1964. He went on to attend Kansas State University, graduating in 1969. Steve served as an active-duty pilot in the United States Air Force from 1969 to 1974, after which he moved into Reserve duty until 1991. He served on the Hugoton Board of Education from 1977 to 1993, and the Kansas State University (K-State) Alumni Association board from 1985 to 1991 where he was President from 1989 to 1991. Steve also represented the 39^th State Senate District from 1993 to 2013. While in the Senate he served as President of that chamber from 2005 to 2013. Additionally, Steve assumed leadership roles at the national level, serving on the executive board of the Council of State Governments from 1997 to 2013 and as President of the [National] Conference of State Legislators in 2011 through 2012.

This interview is part of the Kansas Oral History Project’s series examining the development of public policy at the nexus of energy and the environment during the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries. In these interviews we explore those policies through the eyes of experts, executives, administrators, legislators, environmentalists, and others. The Kansas Oral History Project is a non-profit corporation that collects and preserves oral histories of Kansans. The project is supported by donations from generous individuals and grants from Evergy and ITC Great Plains.

RB: Good morning, Steve, and thanks for agreeing to do this interview and to have it here in your home. We’ll come back to your service on various committees in the Legislature in a second. I want to start off a little bit with your background out here because I think it connects directly to what we want to talk about in terms of energy and environmental issues. It says that you were born in Garden City, but you grew up in Hugoton.

Steve Morris: That’s correct.

RB: What was that process?

SM: When I was born there was no hospital here in Hugoton. That’s the reason my parents went to Garden City.

RB: So, they really lived here in Hugoton.

SM: Actually, out in the country on a farm. I grew up on a farm.

RB: They grew up as farmers?

SM: My parents?

RB: Yeah.

SM: My dad did. My mother was actually a teacher. She graduated from Wichita State and came out here and taught. That’s where my parents met.

RB: Which direction from Hugoton did they farm?

SM: Southwest. Fifteen miles southwest. Actually, I went to a one-room country school that was three miles from our farm until I started high school.

RB: Was Hugoton natural gas there?

SM: Yes.

RB: Did they have royalty ownership of natural gas as part of the farmground?

SM: Yes, they did.

RB: How cognizant – and this would have been in 1950s, right?

SM: Yes.

RB: Were you cognizant of the Hugoton Field and how important it was? Do you remember growing up?

SM: I don’t remember talking about it that much. I do remember that we had natural gas at our farm home. Every time it got really cold, it froze. My father had to go put alcohol on the drip in order to get our gas back online.

RB: So, you used gas from the field for basically your residence.

SM: We did.

RB: Interesting. How big a farm was it?

SM: I think roughly 1,500 acres.

RB: And mostly at this time wheat?

SM: Mostly grain sorghum. This was before irrigation.

RB: You weren’t tempted to stay on the farm?

SM: I’d always thought about the Air Force, and I went into the Air Force directly from K-State [Kansas State University]. And then in 1974 we returned here, and I transferred to the Reserves, but then was able to farm and still do the Reserve time.

RB: Do you still have that ground today?

SM: No, I retired from farming.

RB: A couple of the committees that you were on in the time you were there relate directly. You served on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee from 1993 to 2004, and you were chair or vice-chair of Ag Committee from 1993 to 2000 and then you also chaired Senate Ways and Means from 2001 to 2004. So, you went basically on the energy committee right at the beginning of the time you were on the Legislature.

SM: Yes.

RB: Why did you get appointed to that committee?

SM: Probably because of my background from this area with all the Hugoton Field and natural gas. Of course, water’s a big issue. The Ogallala [aquifer] reservoir and other environmental issues probably led to that appointment.

RB: So, it was kind of that background from coming out here and being familiar with the Hugoton and issues related to the Hugoton that probably led to that.

SM: Yes.

RB: Were there any particular Hugoton issues that came to play in that time that come to your mind? Obviously, the Hugoton is one of the biggest natural gas fields in north America. But also, really kind of peaks in the 1950s and 1960s, goes through a kind of a decline period. Goes back up a little bit in the 1980s with deregulation of natural gas prices. But still a declining field today.

SM: One issue that was really part of this area was in 1992 or maybe it was 1991. The Legislature passed a School Finance Act. Part of that legislation was what they call a recapture. It took money from districts such as Hugoton that were wealthy at the time and sent it to Topeka to equalize property tax across the State. This upset a lot of people. In fact, nine counties out here had a vote to secede from the State because of that. Our [property tax] levy at the time was fairly low, like 16 mills, because of the natural gas valuations. So that was really a hot issue back in 1992 when I ran for the Senate.

RB: Yeah, there was a sense that certain districts, because of a high valuation, — there was not, in some ways, equality of education across the state, because some districts could afford to spend a lot of money and some of them couldn’t.

SM: Exactly.

RB: So that was a way to sort of even that out. A lot of that was basically from high property taxes based on valuation because of the Hugoton [Field], right?

SM: Well, it was high property tax in other parts of the State that led to that.

RB: As that field declines, how does that express itself out here in Hugoton? We talked a little bit about the [Southwest Kansas] Royalty Owners Association. Royalty Owners Association basically represented the interest of the royalty owners, obviously, in the Hugoton Field. That organization was a big deal and may still be, I don’t know.

SM: Yes. One of the pieces of legislation that I authored when I was in the Senate was called a Severance Tax Trust Fund. What that amounted to was we had a base year, and it took a very small percentage of the severance tax that came from each county — something like 90 counties in Kansas had some type of mineral production — and put it in a trust fund. As that trust fund built up, counties could access it once they went down below 50% of the valuation that was in the base year. [Valuation declined] primarily because of the depletion of the minerals, out here depletion of the national gas field, and also lower prices, which both have happened. That worked really well until I left the Senate and the person who replaced me, Larry Powell, introduced a bill to take all that money from the counties and do away with that procedure, which was very counterproductive for this area. He was actually from Garden City. Anyway, they didn’t take the money away, but they stopped the procedure. It was too bad because now, a few years ago our school district’s valuation was something like $450 million, now it’s down to $70 million. [That was] the rationale for doing that because eventually we knew that valuations were going to drop, and it was sort of a way to mitigate high property taxes.

RB: Sort of a cushion to deal with that.

SM: Yes.

RB: As I think about it, the Hugoton [Field] goes through these periods of decline and, at the same time, particularly in the last 15 or 20 years with the introduction of fracking from tight shales natural gas prices just go in the tank. You put those two things together and the impact both on royalties and on valuation is huge.

SM: It’s pretty dramatic.

RB: I’m not quite sure how to ask this question, in the 1950s and 1960s natural gas must have been the dominant thing in the economy here. I mean obviously [agriculture] is a big deal, but that’s kind of pre-irrigation. Natural gas must have really been the dominant force.

SM: It was, and they built compressor stations in this area. A lot of pipelines and the companies came in here in a big way. That was certainly helpful for jobs. The Hugoton Field probably at that time was known as the largest gas field in the world. That was helpful for this area.

RB: We’ll get back to the main topics here in a minute, but how has the community responded to that? I mean, you talked a little bit about that sort of rainy-day fund. How’s the community responded to that? We were talking earlier; I’ve always regarded Hugoton as a pretty prosperous place because of the role of natural gas. What’s it like today with the Hugoton [Field] playing out to the extent that it has?

SM: We’ve gone from a very low [property tax] mill levy to a very high mill levy because of a drop in valuation. Two reasons for that. The price of natural gas is very low compared to what it was at one time. And then the fact that it’s been depleted over time. But it’s still valuable and I haven’t seen any evidence of new wells being drilled in this area lately, but occasionally you’ll see a workover rig just trying to fix a well that’s not working properly.

RB: Well, let’s talk about a few of the issues then that I think were kind of dominant on the energy side during your time in the Legislature. And I’m going to come back to water issues as we finish up. Maybe one of the most divisive ones is the Holcomb power plant at Garden City. Is that at that time – and I’m going to talk about the proposal for a second unit there – is that part of your district at that time?

SM: Yes, it was.

RB: What was your feeling about that?

SM: At that time Holcomb’s power plant that was there already was one of the cleanest in the country, as far as a coal plant goes. They felt like that there was a real need for more power and so they had a proposal to build a second plant. It was supported in the Legislature, but Governor Sebelius at the time was not supportive. I had a good relationship with Governor Sebelius. I went and told her that I would have to oppose her on her position on that. [The Legislature] actually passed legislation for that plant twice, but [the Governor] vetoed it twice. Ultimately, she went to become a cabinet secretary in the Obama Administration and [Lt. Governor] Mark Parkinson came on board as Governor and he immediately OK’d that plant. So, they had a clean air permit, but about the time all this happened, the price of natural gas dropped significantly. It was up to $12 or $14 per MCF when they were talking about building a second [coal-powered] plant. By the time they went through this process [of getting the air permit], it was down like to $2.50 — in that range. It made more sense to add gas-powered units than it did prior to the time when they were talking about building another coal-fired plant. Anyway, it worked out and I don’t know how much of a percentage they’re using now from gas versus coal. I haven’t heard anything recently.

RB: You mentioned earlier the nine counties in the secession conversation. There’s always been a little bit of that feel from out here that – trying to think of the right way to put this – maybe a little bit of resentment over Topeka and State government in terms of where taxes go, where they come back, what Topeka tells people to do. Holcomb was kind of an example of that, wasn’t it? By and large folks out here were supportive of [the power plant expansion].

SM: Yes. In fact, the majority of the Legislature was supportive of it. I think the resentment really took hold when the legislation was passed that did the recapture on the school finance where we were sending actually more money to Topeka than what the budget was for our school district at the time.

RB: Really. How much is that attitude still present today?

SM: I don’t hear much like that anymore.

RB: Really.

SM: Yeah. Actually, when Governor Graves was elected, I had a visit with him about that recapture and we ended up coming to an agreement to reduce the statewide mill levy to 20. I think it might have been changed this last session. But it was that way for a long time. I think that settled things down because our valuation dropped down some and so that was about what our mill levy was, is 20, without . . .

RB: Looking back on the Holcomb thing from the perspective of today, and again, you know, I mentioned fracking in terms of driving natural gas prices down. In some respects, fracking is partly responsible for the availability of natural gas for that power plant in Holcomb as opposed to going to coal.

SM: Yes. Fracking actually started here in the 1940s.

RB: Right, late 1940s.

SM: I remember Halliburton doing some of the wells around my father’s land back in the 1950s.

RB: Really?

SM: Some of the trucks would go into the well and leave deep ruts. They had to compensate my father for all the damage done by those trucks.

RB: But those were oil wells?

SM: Gas wells.

RB: Gas wells, yeah. I think the literature I’ve seen talks about really the first time in the late 1940s in Grant County around Ulysses somewhere. But it would have been real common in the 1950s. In some – and this is a tangent – in some respects I’ve always been surprised at the amount of opposition of fracking in the rest of the world when it’s a pretty common thing in Kansas and has been for a long time and generally it’s not been much of a problem.

SM: I agree, I never saw it as a problem, and I didn’t really understand the opposition.

RB: I think a lot of the opposition came from places that hadn’t seen it before, and it’s at shallower depths and there were problems, but not, but those kinds of things never occurred out here. As you look back on the whole Holcomb thing today, with a perspective of – and obviously it’s a very different situation – was the Governor [Sebelius] wrong? How do you feel about how it’s all played out in retrospect? Did we get it right in the long-term by accident? What are your thoughts?

SM: I think we got it right by accident. But if the prices of natural gas had stayed high it would have been the wrong decision not to build it. I think it would have been much better off for everybody if the second [coal-fired] plant had been built if natural gas prices had stayed where they were at the time.

RB: So, in some respects it’s a case of, looking back, of events that really nobody saw coming.

SM: True, yes.

RB: I talk about the way fracking revolutionized natural gas production, and I come out of that community, and nobody saw that coming. Today the U.S. leads the world in oil production. Nobody would have seen that coming 20 or 30 years ago.

SM: Actually, fracking was a concern when irrigation came along when these companies going into fracking well that was close to an irrigation well and people were concerned that that might affect the irrigation well. But I’m not aware of any damage because of that.

RB: Usually, the depths that the frack jobs are at are so much greater than the relatively shallow ground water production that it’s, there just hasn’t been much of an issue. Let’s talk about another situation that I’ve always been sort of interested in and that is that, and this relates directly to Hugoton, the town, which is the cellulosic ethanol plant out west of town. Were you involved in that process of bringing that here in any way?

SM: Somewhat. When they decided to build that plant there were several locations that were considered. I helped, I don’t remember who I worked with but maybe [the Kansas Department of] Commerce or another agency, but we ended up getting them to build a plant here, which was a big deal. Abengoa was the company that built this. They were a strong Spanish company. Maybe 80% of the power in Spain was generated by Abengoa. We were pleased to have a company like that come in and they spent $700 million building the cellulosic plant. For people who don’t know about cellulosic that was a form of ethanol developed by processing foliage like corn stalks, milo stalk, wheat stubble, and other forms of foliage like that. They spent several years building the plant. About the time they were really ready to start production they ended up going bankrupt. It was a blow for everyone. Eventually another company bought it in a bankruptcy settlement. They didn’t do anything with it. And ultimately Seaboard Corporation bought it and they have actually turned the plant into a biodiesel plant, and it’s taken them a few years to get to that point, but I think that they’re actually producing biodiesel now. It’s certainly nice to have them doing that with about 70 full-time employees. They’re still pockets of foliage sitting around that they bought that’s been sort of rotting over the last several years.

RB: I have seen that when I’ve been out measuring water levels. They were looking at all sorts of feed stock there. Switch grass was one that I remember would come up all the time. People baled that. They made basically stacks of those bales out all along the roads. Then when the plant went under, they would just sit there.

SM: Yes.

RB: And they’re still there.

SM: Well, some are. Some have been maybe sold to feed yards or fire destroyed some.

RB: That also got a fair amount of U.S. Department of Energy funding, right?

SM: Yes.

RB: Were you involved in these processes much?

SM: Not in that part of it.

RB: That was really going to be a big economic impact had that worked because they were talking about bringing in feedstock from a really large radius around the plant.

SM: Yes, and they’d started that process before that bankruptcy came along. I don’t know whether there’s other plants around the country that are doing that, but it was one of the few at the time.

RB: You know, that’s a good question, I don’t know either. There are obviously biofuels plants, but I don’t know that any… Part of it is just the amount of energy that it takes to feed the feedstock and haul the feedstock to the location, and this is not a real energy rich feedstock.

SM: That’s right.

RB: The physics are a struggle. It was just interesting to watch from a distance to see if it was going to work or not. In the long run it didn’t as far as cellulosic was concerned.

SM: That’s right. I just assumed after that plant went out the interest in [producing] ethanol that way sort of died down.

RB: Yeah, I always assumed it would turn into kind of a traditional ethanol plant. It doesn’t quite do that, but biodiesel is somewhat of a similar thing. Any other issues that come to your mind in terms of the time you were on the Energy Committee?

SM: Montezuma [Gray County Wind Farm]. I don’t know whether it was the first wind farm in the country, but it was one of the first.

RB: It was definitely the first in Kansas.

SM: Yes. Florida Power and Light built that facility. It’s still going strong. The [windmills] are actually smaller than the newer ones. I think they are smaller than the ones around Spearville [KS]. So that was a pretty strong issue back in the mid-1990s when it was built.

RB: How did that manifest itself to your community? Were there questions about taxation, tax breaks or regulation. Do you remember what came forward?

SM: It didn’t really affect my home community, but it certainly would have affected Gray County, where Montezuma is. I don’t know for sure, but I think maybe [the wind farm developers made payments] in-lieu of property taxes [(PILOT)] — a payment that they paid to the school district and the county. I think that was typical for a lot of those wind farms around the country.

RB: Right. It was almost like a voluntary tax that they would come back and contribute to the community. In a lot of respects those things have kind of changed the landscape of Kansas because there are so many of them.

SM: That’s right. Some people are against it because they don’t like the landscape, but I think it helps our landscape.

RB: Out in this part of the world I would probably, obviously there was disagreement about whether they should be in the Flint Hills. That was in the Sebelius administration, that was while you were in the Senate. Were you involved with that at all?

SM: I remember the discussions, but I wasn’t involved. I know there was some opposition to putting them in the Flint Hills.

RB: One other issue I remember that you and I talked about one time was natural gas escaping from a field near Cunningham, Kansas down by Wichita. There was kind of natural underground storage that was going on there. Do you remember that?

SM: Yes, I’m trying to recall the actual issue.

RB: The question was sort of who owned the gas that got away from the natural storage of it. I guess my point is not so much the issue. As I remember, the conversation you and I had I was really impressed at your grasp of the details associated with that.

SM: There was one instance, I think Northern Natural Gas was involved in one of these fields. Property tax was an issue. They didn’t think they should have to pay property tax on that gas that was stored. I think that was maybe part of the issue. I remember one time that the CEO of Northern Natural Gas came to my office. He was going to tell me sort of how the cow ate the cabbage, but it didn’t work out that way.

RB: I remember a couple of hearings that were a little contentious that way about folks coming in. What about water issues during your time, because this landscape has changed completely. You were talking about growing up on a farm, it would have been completely dry land farming, right?

SM: Yes.

RB: Did your father eventually begin to do irrigation?

SM: He didn’t, but when I returned from active duty, my brother and I started irrigating on his land and the land that we rented. I think the late 1960s is when the irrigation boom started. Actually, my father and my grandfather had a farm in Grant County that they started irrigating right after World War II and it was flood irrigation back then. So, they had one of the first water permits in the state to do that. But irrigation’s still sort of the lifeblood of agriculture out here. There’s been a lot of discussion about the Ogallala reservoir and the depletion of the reservoir and different scenarios have been proposed to deal with it. But it’s very hard to try to come up with a policy that fits everybody. We have what’s called a Groundwater Management District out here. People that are on the board on the north part of the district are somewhat jealous of the people that are on the board from the southern part of the district. The reason for that is that southern Stevens, southern Morton, and southern Seward counties have really good high-capacity irrigation wells. The further north you go, the smaller the wells are, and the more depletion has taken place. There’s been proposals to, I don’t know about the percentage, but say reduce your take by 25%. Other people that have these wells that have already been depleted that doesn’t hurt them because they’re already at that level. But it would really damage the people that have the better wells that’ll probably never go dry. The economics of irrigation determine the use of those wells eventually. They’re like 3,000 gallon [per minute] wells or more that they would run maybe two or three sprinklers and to take 25% from them, for instance, would be sort of devastating. One size-fits-all is not a viable process. I will say that you almost have to have a separate policy for each well, which would be very time consuming. It’s an issue that’s still there. I know that the Legislature’s dealing with it. The Governor’s dealt with it. I think [Governor Kelly] has a task force on water. I don’t know what the answer is, but it’s certainly still an issue.

RB: So those are center pivots that you and your brother installed?

SM: Yes.

RB: Did you go to corn at that point?

SM: Yes.

RB: Are those wells still in operation, do you have any idea?

SM: Yeah, the wells we had, yes.

RB: Still.

SM: We were fortunate, they were some of the big wells.

RB: A lot of people have this idea the Ogallala is like this big underground bathtub, but it’s highly variable from place to place.

SM: It is.

RB: If you’ve got a lot more saturated thickness to start with, you can pump at higher rates for longer periods, you’re right.

SM: Nebraska is very fortunate. The whole Ogallala reservoir in Nebraska is much deeper than it is in Kansas, and so they don’t have the same issues there.

RB: Right.

SM: But you go south into Oklahoma and Texas, particularly Texas I think they have more issues like we have here. The Oklahoma Panhandle, I think, has pretty good water.

RB: In some respects, this goes back a little bit to what we were talking about southwestern Kansas versus the world, which is in Kansas water is regulated by the State, in Topeka through the Division of Water Resources. Again, it turns out to be people in Topeka making decisions for people in southwestern Kansas. This landscape must look completely different to you in a lot of respects than it did when you were a kid growing up. Do you think about that?

SM: Yes.

RB: Talk a little bit about that.

SM: In the 1950s, when I was growing up, in the 1960s, early 1960s, we had a lot of years that were dry. It was the mid-1950s I think were probably not quite as dry as the 1930s, but they were dry, and we had dust storms. I can remember maybe seems like it was February 19, 1955, it was about two days you couldn’t see. It was totally dark; the storm was so bad. I remember all those dust storms and we still have dust storms. But we don’t have it now and I think with the irrigation over time it’s made a really significant difference. That and the CRP [Conservation Reserve Program] where a lot of the marginal land was put into grass. So that landscape looks significantly different than it did back in the 1950s, when basically everything was farmed and you just had to depend on the rain.

RB: In addition to all these cornfields that didn’t used to be here, there are also all these feedlots that didn’t use to be here, and later, dairies like we were talking about a little bit ago, all of that looks completely different today, doesn’t it?

SM: Well, it does, and I don’t remember opposition to the cattle feed yards, but back in the mid-1990s hog production was coming into focus and Seaboard Corporation in this area was proposing a number of facilities to raise hogs. There was a lot of opposition to that because of the smell. I don’t know whether there’s much difference between the smell from a cattle feed yard versus a hog facility. But at anyway, there was so much opposition here in Stevens County that they built their headquarters in Rolla, in Morton County. There was opposition for several months maybe, even a year. But now you don’t hear a word. They raise something like 4 million hogs a year in this [region], the Oklahoma Panhandle and southwest Kansas, so that’s a pretty big economic development for this part of the world.

RB: I think one of the other sources of opposition to those hog units was shallow groundwater contamination and then there were developed rules about liners on lagoons in order to avoid that.

SM: Yes.

RB: So, a lot of those probably operated fairly well without the kind of environmental catastrophes people are concerned about.

SM: Most of the static water levels are about 150 to 200 feet out here, so it really wasn’t a factor.

RB: It was quite a ways deeper. In some respects, when I drive through here every January measuring water levels, this part of southwestern Kansas feels – and I hesitate to use this term – almost like an industrial landscape between the dairies and the hog farms and the cattle feedlots and the amount of center pivot irrigation and then obviously still remaining natural gas. You get out on the roads and they’re full of trucks.

SM: That’s very true. The number of cattle trucks is amazing. I remember hearing on the news here a while back, and I don’t know where the livestock facility was, but they sold, I don’t know, a number of cattle and they figured they’d have to have 600 loads of cattle to get those cattle out of there that were sold. 600 loads. That’s a lot of cattle trucks.

RB: Well, so, if Holcomb was within your district, then so was the packing plant at Holcomb obviously, which at one time was I think the largest packing plant in the world.

SM: Yes.

RB: As you look back on that, nobody must have seen that coming did they, when you were a kid?

SM: No, but it’s been very significant for the people of southwest Kansas to have those facilities, and it’s certainly helped the property tax. There’s an issue now with, particularly with Stevens County and Grant County and others that don’t have these large plants with higher mill levies but still overall it’s been good.

RB: What is the future here? I mean, you’ve sort of lived through the time of natural gas peaking and then going down the other side. In some respects that economy has been replaced by water economy with corn and feedlots. With depletion of the Ogallala, what’s the future of communities out here, do you think?

SM: Well, you and I were talking earlier about the dairy plant that went bankrupt here. Our Economic Development Director’s been talking to people in California about trying to buy that, but there’s an issue with having enough water. The way that plant operated, they used recycled water, and they didn’t have to have a lot of water from the reservoir. But I guess that anybody that’s buying it now is going to need more water, so that’s an issue now they’ve been trying to maybe talk to some irrigators about buying water rights and that kind of thing. To answer your question, I think the dairies and the dairy plants are going to be huge for this area and there’s a new one going in in Dodge City, maybe you saw that coming out here. I don’t know how it compares to the one in Hugoton but judging by the number of workers that you see, the number of cars that are sitting there, it must be very good sized. There’s one in Garden City that’s operating. I see more and more dairies in this area. A lot of companies in California and other states like the environmental regulations here better than they do in some of those other states. That’s one reason why you see that development going on here.

RB: What is the future for communities like Hugoton do you think? I mean, obviously you grew up here, you in effect made your life here. How has the community held up demographically and where is it headed?

SM: In 1990 the Hispanic population was maybe 5% here. It’s 55% to 60% in these towns now, which is very significant. Our high school’s a 4-A high school we would be probably a 1-A high school if it wasn’t for Hispanic population. So that’s been a very big development over time, to see the Hispanics coming in. They’re interspersed with working at the feed yards and construction and other occupations. We also have a lot of German Mennonites around here now that didn’t used to be here. There’s a new church right next door to the hotel where you stayed in last night. There’s a Mennonite church that’s been built there. I don’t know what the percentage of the population they make up now, but it’s growing. So, I think those populations say that we’re going to be viable for a long time.

RB: Is it a case of viable in places like here and Liberal and Dodge [City] and Garden [City], but the smaller outlying communities are going to struggle?

SM: Yes, and I think property tax is a big issue. When you have very high mill levies like we do now, it’s… And they keep going up. We really need help from the Legislature on property tax reduction because I think that’s going to really affect smaller towns. For instance, Stevens County, our valuation used to be huge, and it keeps dropping.

RB: Right.

SM: So, people that own houses and small businesses have to take up the slack. And that’s the case for a number of communities out here. Communities like Garden City are sitting pretty well because they have certainly the Holcomb [power] plant and the packing plant, and they’re getting a lot of retail development that’s coming in that’s really viable and I think exciting for the city of Garden City. And Dodge City to a certain extent, but Garden City’s probably growing faster than Dodge City or Liberal. But Liberal’s got a packing plant and so does Dodge City. So, I think those industries that those three communities are going to keep doing well. The smaller communities are going to have to figure out ways to deal with issues.

RB: So, your district, did it include Garden City?

SM: Yes.

RB: You must have covered a lot of territory during your time out here.

SM: Yes. I had seven counties. It’s a lot bigger now since redistricting’s taken place. It’s 10 counties now or 11, but it went from… They didn’t have Liberal. But we had Stevens and Morton and part of Haskell, Grant, Hamilton, Kearny, and Finney.

RB: Did you have to spend a lot of time campaigning in Garden City given the magnitude?

SM: Yes.

RB: That would be the population center

SM: It is.

RB: You weren’t probably as well-known over there as you’ve been over here obviously. Did that make it easier to campaign because so much of that population concentrated over there?

SM: I don’t think there was anything easy about campaigning.

RB: [Laughter]

SM: But I can remember going door to door the first time we ran in Garden City, and we tried to cover almost every home in Garden. I don’t know whether we accomplished that or not, but. This time of year, we started that. The hot weather sort of gets to you after a while, but it worked out.

RB: Did you enjoy doing that?

SM: Actually, I did. You have side benefits you don’t think about. I knocked on a door one time and this elderly gentleman answered it. His name was Leopold and he was a retired doctor and turned out he was the doctor that delivered me in Garden City.

RB: [Laughter]

SM: Another one, I visited with an elderly lady, and she called me a couple days later and said she was going to vote for me. She said I was the first Republican she was going to vote for since Calvin Coolidge.

RB: [Laughter] Calvin Coolidge. Wow. So, you wind up then losing to Larry Powell, was it 2016?

SM: 2012.

RB: 2012, OK. Environmental issues play any role in that election?

SM: No, the Americans for Prosperity and the Kansas Chamber sent out I think something like 40 negative large postcards in the last two weeks of the campaign. People had never seen something like that before and they assumed that all those things were true, which they weren’t and that’s what… And it wasn’t just my race. We had a number of races around the State that they did the same thing. It ended up with a very conservative Legislature because of that.

RB: Do you miss it?

SM: I miss the good people that we worked with. I miss people like Mary that I worked with. Good to see David Heinemann — he and I served together for several years before he retired from the Legislature. You miss the good people.

RB: Is there some aspect that you don’t miss?

SM: Well, there was some heartburn from time to time. But overall, it was a good experience.

RB: How did you wind up as President of the Senate, because you hadn’t been in the Legislature all that long and you’re from a part of the world that a lot of people in eastern Kansas barely know exists.

SM: Well, for some reason I’ve always been fortunate. I ended up being President of the K-State Alumni Association when I was on it. I was active in the Council of State Governments and NCSL [(National Conference of State Legislators)] and I ended up being President of NCSL. I don’t know how to explain it but I just, the right place at the right time, I guess, to be able to take advantage of those leadership positions.

RB: But it’s more than that, OK, obviously people value sort of the, you have a fairly staid demeanor that inspires certain confidence in people, I think. Don’t you think that? I’m not trying to put you on the spot here, but isn’t that some of it?

SM: It could be. Being a chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and I was on Ways and Means from the time I entered the Legislature, and serving on that committee, you get to be familiar with all the state agencies and how things work, and I think that helped. Because I had a sort of an overall view of State government, and I think that was a factor also.

RB: Were your parents Republicans?

SM: My dad was a Democrat, and my mother was a Republican.

RB: So, a split family. How did you decide for you?

SM: When Bob Dole ran the first time for Congress, he was in and out of our farm home two or three times. That certainly affected me. My mother was the vice-chairman of the county party and I tagged along with her to different events. It was sort of a natural progression. But I have to say now that the party’s left me. My wife Barb and I are still registered Republicans but sometimes we wonder about that.

RB: It must be hard to watch, I guess. Any other things we haven’t covered here in terms of particularly water and environmental issues that and energy issues that come to mind? Just to go back real quickly on the water side, so the Groundwater Management District is the primary force out here, but by and large there hasn’t been a huge reduction in pumping in southwestern Kansas like we had maybe seen in other parts of the State.

SM: Well, in a way there has been a significant reduction because of the way the pivots are designed.

RB: More efficiently.

SM: Yes. So, when the pivots first came out, they had high pressure nozzles on top of the pipes and that went to eventually to low pressure nozzles. Then it went to drop nozzles and I think Teeter Irrigation, which has been prominent out here, — I don’t know if it’s still pushing this or not — but sort of a, I can’t think of… it was a different concept and I’m not sure.

RB: Some of these folks went with what they call Dragon-Lines.

SM: Yeah, Dragon-Lines.

RB: Basically, put the water as close to the ground as you could get it, just dragging it behind the center pivot system.

SM: There’s been a few places that have put drip systems in, but that’s not really economically feasible for this part of the State. But I think because of the advancements in those efficiencies, it’s probably saved maybe 40% of the water.

RB: I want to end with a question that I get from people fairly regularly. Let’s say we’re sitting here 50 years from now, what’s it going to look like out here at that time?

SM: That’s a good question, I haven’t really thought about that.

RB: We spend a lot of time talking about how, I mean, the landscape has changed a lot in the last 50 years corn instead of milo. You talk about dairies, hogs, cattle, maybe a lesson.

SM: I think there’s always going to be a demand for processed beef. So, I think those packing plants will be a big part of what’s there 50 years from now. The dairy industry, I see that expanding, not just because of milk but cheese and other dairy products. I think that would be something to look forward to in the future. Maybe at some point people will be less opposed to solar farms and wind energy, things like that. I sense that there’s not a lot of opposition, particularly in central and eastern Kansas, to solar farms and wind farms. But I think you may look at that down the road.

RB: Is there much opposition to those nowadays out here?

SM: If there is, I haven’t heard about it. I think there’s a solar farm in Stanton County right now. I don’t know how big it is. I assume there will probably be more at some point.

RB: To go back to 50 years from now, do you think, surely there’ll be a lot more dryland farming than there is today, don’t you think? There has to be.

SM: Yes, I don’t know whether those wells will be economically viable at that point or whether the cost to actually pump gas would be worth it. You may see more grasslands and dryland farming. It’s sort of hard to predict.

RB: But if that were to be the case, then it’s harder to support all the ancillary economic activity in terms of packing plants and everything else that comes along with it. I guess my question then, demographically, what’s the future.

SM: Well, I mentioned the Hispanics. I see more and more of a percentage population turning to be Hispanic in this part of the world. The schools. Garden City I think is maybe 80% Hispanic. I really don’t know what to think about that population, but they’re going to be a big force in whatever happens.

RB: They obviously already are and growing as time goes by, yeah. That crystal ball question is a tough one, and I struggle with it too, but it’s also a reasonable one, I think, because I think what we do now affects who’s going to be able to live here and what they do 50 years from now and I think water’s kind of central to that whole question.

SM: Exactly.

RB: Anything else that we should talk about, do you think?

SM: There probably is but I can’t think of it right now.

RB: [Laughing] Well, I appreciate you having this conversation because the perspective you bring to this from southwestern Kansas is not a perspective that gets heard – as you’re well aware – back in eastern Kansas.

SM: Yes.

RB: Probably as the population shifts continue that’s more and more true all the time. I was always just impressed at your ability to represent this part of the world, to do it in a dignified and thoughtful way.

SM: Thank you for saying that.

RB: With that, I appreciate again the chance to talk to you and to do this here again today.

SM: It’s good to talk to you, Rex. I remember going back to the Geological Survey Council days I was fortunate enough to serve on that several years. That’s where we first became acquainted.

RB: It was always good to have you on there. Again, I think just having folks from this part of the world represented. Southwestern Kansas, I always tell people, is culturally very different from eastern Kansas.

SM: It’s true.

RB: Every once in a while, I talk to somebody about Garden City in eastern Kansas and they’ve never even been to Garden City, let along to Hugoton.

SM: True. I remember Leadership Kansas I was in 1991 and everyone thought that the visit in Garden City was the best visit they had.

RB: I did that in 1995 and that’s what I thought. [Laughter] Actually the tour of the packing – it was the IBP packing at the time – I still think about that. But there were some great people we met, and there was so much going on in Garden City that it was like the rest of the State didn’t always know about it or appreciate it.

SM: True.

RB: A lot of that’s true throughout southwestern Kansas. Well, thanks Steve, I appreciate it.

SM: Thank you, Rex.

RB: Thanks for letting us come into your home.

SM: Sure.

[End of file]

Interviewee Date of Birth

January 4, 1946

Interviewee Political Party

Republican

Interviewee Positions

Member, Senate Ways and Means 1993-2000
State Senator, Kansas Senate 1993-2013
Member, Senate Energy and Natural Resources 1993-1992
Vice-Chair, Senate Agriculture 1993-1996
Member, Computers and Telecommunications (Joint) 1994-1994
Chair, Computers and Telecommunications (Joint) 1995-Present
Member, Joint Committee on State Building Construction 1996-2000
Member, Senate Utilities 1997-2000
Member, Senate Organization, Calendar and Rules 1997-2004
Vice-Chair, Senate Energy and Natural Resources 1997-2000
Chair, Joint Committee on Special Claims Against the State 1997-Present
Chair, Senate Agriculture 1997-1992
Chair, SRS Transition Oversight (Joint) 1998-Present
Member, Children's Issues (Joint) 1999-2000
Chair/Vice-Chair (rotating), SRS Transition Oversight (Joint) 1999-2001
Chair, Senate Ways and Means 2001-2004
Member, Joint Committee on Pensions, Investments, and Benefits 2001-2004
Member, Senate Agriculture 2001-2012
Vice-Chair, Joint Committee on State Building Construction 2001-2004
Vice-Chair, Legislative Budget Committee (Joint) 2001-Present
Member, Joint Committee on State Building Construction 2005-2008
Member, Legislative Budget Committee (Joint) 2005-2008
Chair/Vice-Chair (rotating), Joint Committee on Pensions, Investments, and Benefits 2005-2012
Chair, Senate Organization, Calendar and Rules 2005-2012
Chair/Vice-Chair (rotating), Legislative Coordinating Council 2005-2012
Chair, Senate Interstate Cooperation 2005-2012
President, Kansas Senate 2005-2012
Member, Senate Ways and Means 2005-2008
Member, Senate Natural Resources 2009-2012
Member, Senate Federal and State Affairs 2009-2012
Chair, Select Committee on KPERS 2011-2012

Senate District Numbers

Interview Location

Hugoton, KS

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Interview of Steve Morris, August 22, 2024

Interviewed by Rex Buchanan