A former member of the Santa Fe Trail Amateur Radio Club, Wayne Olsen, KCØZWE, recently found himself on the receiving end of a surprise birthday party when some of his colleagues from the world of mediation gathered in the Community Room at the Johnson County Courthouse in Olathe to honor him on his 90th birthday.

     Wayne, a past president of the Heartland Mediators Association, had just wrapped up a mediation session elsewhere in the courthouse when he walked through the door to the Community Room on the second floor right around noon on Tuesday, August 4, Election Day. He immediately got a warm greeting from the 20 or so people who had been waiting for him to arrive, and they followed that up by singing "Happy Birthday to You" to him. A catered lunch consisting of submarine sandwiches and an assortment of chips was made available to the attendees, and for dessert there was a custom-made cake with a photograph of Wayne centered on the top of it.

     One of the attendees was Ronnie Beach of North Carolina, who used to be the mayor of Pittsburg, Kansas and was the one my mother, Peg Nichols (KDØVQO, SK), turned the Johnson County mediation program over to when she stepped away from this important work that was near and dear to her heart. So my mother knew Wayne through both amateur radio and mediation.

     In the picture that accompanies this story, Wayne is on the left and Ronnie is on the right.