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‘Garden City’ film shows what makes pluralism work, what threatens it
LAWRENCE — Screening March 29 at Kansas City FilmFest International, “Garden City, Kansas” touches on the thwarted 2016 domestic terror plot to attack Somali immigrants in the area. Yet the heart of the film is about what it takes to make pluralism work and what it takes to keep communities alive, according to director Robert Hurst, associate director of film & media studies at the University of Kansas.
KU Law to honor 3 distinguished alumni
LAWRENCE – Three University of Kansas School of Law alumni will receive the law school’s highest alumni honor, the Distinguished Alumni Award, this year. The award celebrates graduates for their professional achievements, contributions to the legal field and service to their community and the university. David Elkouri, Janet Justus and U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran will receive the 2023 Distinguished Alumni Award at a private dinner April 1 in Lawrence.
Full stories below.
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Contact: Rick Hellman, KU News Service, 785-864-8852, [email protected], @RickHellman
‘Garden City’ film shows what makes pluralism work, what threatens it
LAWRENCE – Garden City is something of a misnomer, sitting as it does on the parched high plains of southwest Kansas. But as the title of the new documentary by Robert Hurst, “Garden City, Kansas” serves as a metaphor.
“Garden City is a metaphor for … a common goal. That’s what pluralism is,” said Hurst, associate professor of film & media studies at the University of Kansas. “You have differences, but you find commonalities to work toward. And if somebody has a different religion or a different diet, it’s not a threat to you.”
A fine sentiment. But it was a threat to that way of life — a conspiracy by a handful of would-be domestic terrorists to attack and kill Somali immigrants — that set Hurst’s film in motion, and it’s an inextricable part of an otherwise upbeat film, said the director.
When news broke that the plot by an offshoot of a so-called “Three Percenter” militia group had been thwarted by federal law enforcement agents in October 2016, Hurst started sniffing around the story.
“There have been other stories, smaller films, made about Garden City, but none of them really had a national reach,” Hurst said. “So there were a lot of elements we took into consideration before we decided that we had something.
“Garden City is kind of unique as far as its size, its relative isolation and that it’s a majority minority … non-European-descent community,” Hurst said of the city of 25,000. “There are Mexicans and Somalis and their descendants from the Horn of Africa, Eritreans, Sudanese, people from Burma, Thailand, Vietnam. And then, you know, Central America, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and people from Cameroon. We met people from Haiti, from Cuba, from the subcontinent of India and Europeans, too.”
The attraction for all the immigrants — including some from other parts of Kansas — is the Tyson beef-packing plant that employs about 4,500 people. Hurst toured it and found some archival footage of inside to show the grueling work done by the almost exclusively immigrant workforce.
And yet some, like the Three Percenters, resent the immigrants, going so far — long before the bomb plot — as to spy on them in hopes of ferreting out some nefarious deeds like drug dealing or human trafficking.
“It’s sort of like they want to attract people but then reserve the right to belittle them and mock their religions and suspect them for not being the same,” Hurst said.
And while the explication of the bomb plot takes up only a minority of the film, Hurst said it was necessary for the film’s dramatic arc.
At its heart, he said, the film is about what it takes to make pluralism work and what it takes to keep communities alive.
“It’s about the dynamic of immigration and how it’s not perfect,” Hurst said. “How do the people who are already there treat the people who are arriving in the city? What does it take to make their own lives work? To make the city work?”
Hurst said COVID-19 lockdowns threw a monkey wrench into the film’s development. But now it’s hitting the film festival circuit, starting with the Kansas City FilmFest International on March 29 and including Lawrence’s Free State Festival in June-July. See here for KC FilmFest tickets and other details.
“We were a little concerned that its relevance would fade if we got too far away from the event, but that doesn’t seem to be the case,” Hurst said. “Unfortunately, I think it’s still really relevant. Three of the conspirators were deeply into alternative news sources and alternative facts and conspiracy theories. And that’s sort of mainstream at this point.”
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Contact: Emma Herrman, School of Law, [email protected], @kulawschool
KU Law to honor 3 distinguished alumni
LAWRENCE – Three University of Kansas School of Law alumni will receive the law school’s highest alumni honor, the Distinguished Alumni Award, this year. The award celebrates graduates for their professional achievements, contributions to the legal field and service to their community and the university.
David Elkouri, Janet Justus and U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran will receive the 2023 Distinguished Alumni Award at a private dinner April 1 in Lawrence.
David Elkouri, L’78, has spent the last 12 years of his career serving as executive vice president and general counsel of two Houston-based, publicly traded corporations, Petrohawk Energy Corporation (Petrohawk) and Battalion Oil Corporation (formerly Halcon Resources Corporation). As one of the key members of the executive management team of Petrohawk, he was instrumental in growing the company from an initial investment of $60 million in 2004 into a company with a $15 billion enterprise value before it was sold in an all-cash transaction to BHP Billiton in 2011. Elkouri has been listed numerous times by “Best Lawyers in America” and has consistently been named a “Super Lawyer” in the areas of mergers, acquisitions and corporate governance. He has been a frequent speaker on topics involving corporate law and complex transactions. Elkouri served several terms on the Law School board of governors and taught a course on business transactions at KU Law. He served on the Wichita Airport Authority for eight years and was president for three years. He has been active in numerous other charitable and public boards over the years on the local, national and international levels.
Janet Justus, L’81, has more than 25 years of experience in sports law and higher education as an NCAA national office senior administrator, law firm counsel, consultant and university athletics administrator. During her 15 years with the NCAA, Justus held several leadership positions, including director of eligibility where she was the first woman director on the enforcement staff. She was the director of education outreach and produced the inaugural NCAA Achieving Gender-Equity Guide. Justus also served as the national spokesperson for the NCAA on Title IX and gender equity issues. Justus directed the development and growth of several NCAA program areas including Title IX education and advocacy, the National Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, the NCAA CHAMPS/Life Skills Program and student-athlete eligibility appeals. Her leadership within the national office and respect among NCAA member institutions influenced policies and legislation that made the association more gender-equitable and student-athlete centered. Justus received the Alumni Achievement Award from KU, was named the NACWAA (now Women Leaders in College Sports) National Administrator of the Year, was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by the United States Sports Academy, was named the WIN for KC/Greater Kansas City Sports Commission Mentor of the Year and received the Kansas City Harmony Humanitarian of the Year award.
U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, L’82, has served Kansans in the U.S. Senate since 2011. He represented Kansas’ 1st Congressional District for seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. He also served eight years in the Kansas State Senate – spending the last two years as a majority leader. In addition to his 14 years practicing law, Moran has served as the state special assistant attorney general of Kansas, the deputy county attorney of Rooks County and assistant county attorney for Ellis County. He also served as an adjunct professor of political science at Fort Hays State University. Moran is admitted to practice law in the state and federal courts of Kansas and the United States. In the U.S. Senate, Moran is currently a senior member of the Senate Committee on Appropriations; the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He serves as the ranking member of one full committee and two subcommittees – the most of any member in the Senate. He is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs; the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies; and the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Aviation Safety, Operations and Innovation.
Previous Distinguished Alumni Award recipients are listed on the law school’s website.
The law school will also recognize James Woods Green Medallion honorees and members of the Dean’s Club. Named after the school’s first dean, the medallion recognizes the school’s major financial supporters. This year’s honorees include:
1. Colleen Andreas
2. Michael Blumenthal, L’92, and Julie Blumenthal
3. Edmund Gross, L’80, and Michiko Miyamori Gross
4. Shane Hamilton and Rachel St. John
5. Judith Watson Waugh
6. Robert Werner, L’83, Rebecca Winterscheidt, L’83
7. Mark White, L’85.
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