Withham, Janis and Frank's son. "It's an
area that is strictly agricultural. It's a pret-
ty rough landscape and there are no trees.
The annual rainfall here is about 18 inches.
It can be pretty rough out here. With the
people who came here and settled here,
there's still a strong connection to that
time frame. That's all part of the history of
the people from around here and our fami-
ly. The people that came out here endured
some hardships and that's all still ingrained
in the culture."
The Whithams would settle in Leoti (pro-
nounce Lee-oh-tuh), Kansas, a town with a
population around 1,500. With so little an-
nual rainfall, the Whithams could only use
their land to grow what are called dryland
crops: wheat, corn, beans, nothing that pro-
duces much in the way of income. As tech-
nology improved, a giant aquifer was found
in western Kansas and water was no longer
a problem. The cattle industry flocked to
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