Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains by Lucas Bessire, 2022
Anthropologist Lucas Bessire returned to his roots to try to make sense of the stark realities of industrial agriculture and a seeming misinterpretations of the looming disaster and imminent depletion of the Ogallala aquifer beyond repair. While not addressing drought per se, the work explores what it means to inherit a troubled legacy from the past and ways of taking responsibility for a sustainable future. In his exploration of family as well as water, Bessire’s work reflects similar influences on drought and water scarcity on family. He says, ” “I feared putting a child through more pain than I had gone through. Yet the more I tried to avoid acting like the men in my childhood, the more them I seemed to become.”
Book Leader Hannes Zacharias Discusses Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains
Hannes Zacharias has over 40 years of experience in administering government at all levels. After working in Travel & Tourism, the U S Dept of Commerce and the Kansas Arts Commission, he served in city management for Lawrence and Hays, Kansas; and Boonville, Missouir before moving into management for Johnson County Kansas for more than a decade. Upon his retirement in 2018, Hannes embarked on his second solo kayak trip down the Arkansas River following a drop of water 2060 miles from the Continental divide in Colorado, on to the Mississippi, and concluding at Venice LA at the Gulf of Mexico.
