The events of the last six months have been startling both professionally and personally, and continue daily to take my breath away.  I have been unsure how to respond across a large platform but I have had many interpersonal conversations with Kansas residents and with librarians across the state and nation. 

The common house fly would become the antagonist in a life and death battle waged by the Kansas State Board of Health in the early twentieth century. The fly was the "enemy of the human race" and newspapers urged it's readers to not allow a single fly in their homes any more than they would "a rattlesnake or a cat with the rabies"'. A light bulb moment at a local baseball game would inspire a catchy phrase that would travel worldwide, "Swat the Fly".