Author Cheryl Unruh revels not just in the expansive Kansas landscape but also its people and places. In Flyover People: Life on the Ground in a Rectangular State, she explores Kansas through perceptive vignettes that show her affection for the state. Hers is a Kansas of small-town friendliness and helpful neighbors, a Kansas that is notorious for extreme weather as well as glorious sunsets and the beautiful Flint Hills. The author vividly describes the vast expanse of prairie with “long-tailed trains slicing through the countryside” and the setting Kansas sun “crossing the finish line in a fiery battle”. She visits little towns and big prairies that the “Flyover People” (those East and West coast jet-setters who look down as they pass over Kansas) have dismissed. She reminisces about her own idyllic summers on a grandparent’s farm and a childhood filled with friends and imagination. Here, too, are stories of pioneers who struggled and survived on the prairie and towns that rise back up after the fury of tornadoes. Cheryl Unruh’s stories appear regularly in The Emporia Gazette, and Flyover People is a 2011 Kansas Notable Book. She will be speaking at the Johnson County Library “Living in Kansas: Past and Present” program on Saturday, October 8, at the Roeland Park Community Center.