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Millard Harrell lives in Emporia, Kansas. West of
Emporia, Highway 50 follows the shallow Cottonwood River Valley. The
highway travels through wooded bottom lands interspaced with soybean and
sorghum fields and then it rises to reveal suddenly the stark and
surprising prairie Flint Hills . The prairie is largely treeless,
except for the wooded ribbons that parallel the Cottonwood and Neosho
Rivers. This is where he calls his home and where he carves Wood Spirits
and other works from the bark of the Kansas state tree, the Cottonwood.
After graduating from Fort Hays Kansas State College in 1963, with a
Bachelor degree in Liberal Arts, he taught school in eastern Colorado
and Western Kansas for nine years. He then owned and managed his own
business for 30 years. Upon retirement he and his wife, Onnalee, moved
to the Front Porch of the
Flint Hills , Emporia, Kansas, to be
near their grown children and small grandchildren and to take up his long
awaited passion of wood carving. He is largely self taught but through
the years he has read many wood carving books, which were available, in
addition to attending several Wood Carving Rendezvous at Branson, Mo.
and Creede, Colorado.
Millard has shown his carvings at many art shows in Eastern Kansas,
including the Botanical Garden Show in Wichita, Kansas. He is a member of
the Kaw Valley Woodcarving Club in Topeka, Kansas and periodically
teaches woodcarving classes at Flint Hills Technical College in Emporia. |
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