Betty Kandt recounts a lifetime of wheat stories
“I have been involved in wheat all my life,” she simply said.
Betty grew up in a 4-H farm family in Sedgwick County and her family still owns wheat farms in Sedgwick, Morris and Dickinson counties. Her 4-H foods specialties were yeast rolls and preserves. Betty laughed, recalling the year she won the champion ribbon with her jelly and took home a prize of 100 pounds of sugar.
Today, Betty prefers baking pies. To earn money to pay for her vocational degree in home economics and a master’s degree in family economics from K-State, Betty worked the summer break helping a neighbor prepare harvest meals. There, she learned how to make any kind of pie and delicious dinner rolls – four to a plate.
After graduating from K-State, she worked as the Geary County extension home economist for 10 years then at the junior high/middle school on Fort Riley for another 26 years. As part of her class, she taught seventh and eighth graders how to make yeast rolls, cinnamon rolls and pretzels, which her students would send all over the building for others to try. As part of that bread unit, Betty would bring in guest speakers like Kansas Wheat's nutrition educator, Cindy Falk.
When Betty retired, she recalled Cindy telling her, “You come see me.” After all, Betty explained, the purpose of the Speak for Wheat spokespeople is to educate and disseminate information, something she did her entire career.
For her first project, Cindy instructed Betty to create and demonstrate a quesadilla recipe. Armed with Mama Lupes whole grain tortillas and an electric skillet, Betty demonstrated and handed out samples at Dillons on Saturdays.
Her work as a Speak for Wheat spokesperson continued. Betty demonstrated whole wheat pizza crust at Youth Ag Days, cloverleaf and bowknot rolls for high school students and even whole grains at the American Royal livestock show. Every year, she judges wheat foods at six or seven county fairs as well as the Kansas State Fair, where she stays the weekend to help work Agriland and the Kansas Wheat booth.
“I love to teach,” she said. “You have to have a passion for it.”
“I use this Kansas Wheat Commission recipe book all the time,” she said, pointing out the recipe for the whole wheat sugar cookies on the table.
She also helped produce the Kansas Gold book, 50 years of wheat history and recipes from America’s breadbasket. She helped test recipes, locate recipes and market the book. She even drove with Cindy to Abilene to obtain the recipe for President Dwight Eisenhower’s mother’s bread – Ida’s bread.
Cindy also had Betty help test bake for the 2009 National Festival of Breads.
“It was fun trying and testing the recipes,” she said. “We just made recipes and made recipes and it was just so much fun.”
At the festival itself, Betty assisted Marjorie Johnson, a cookbook author with a personality as vibrant as the bright red she wore the whole weekend, with her ABC wheat bread. In 2011, she helped Patricia Harmon from Oregon with her fruit of the vine snack bread, followed by assisting Judi Berman, also from Oregon, with her challah in 2013.
“I hope to be able to work again at the National Festival of Breads in 2015,” she said.
“I love promoting Kansas Wheat and I will do it as long as I am able.”
So do we at Kansas Wheat, especially with cookies as memorable as her smile.
By Julia Debes