These famous Kansans were all born in late July
Late July produces some of Kansas' hottest weather all year.
It has also produced five of the Sunflower State's most famous residents.
Amelia Earhart, Bob Dole, Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker, Dr. Karl Menninger and Martina McBride were all born between July 22 and July 29 in Kansas.
Karl Menninger was born July 22
Menninger spent “six decades as the dominant figure in American psychiatry,” according to his obituary in the New York Times. He was born July 22, 1893, in Topeka.
Menninger (pronounced with a hard “g”) teamed up with his father, C.F. Menninger, and brother Will Menninger to create and run Topeka’s Menninger Foundation, which became one of the world’s most famous psychiatric hospitals. The organization remained in Topeka until moving in 2003 to Houston.
Karl Menninger became famous in particular for writing books that included “The Human Mind,” published in 1930, which sold more than 200,000 copies while contending mental illness could successfully be addressed through treatment. He died four days short of his 97th birthday, in 1990.
Bob Dole was born July 22
Dole was born July 22, 1923, in Russell. Standing 6-foot-2, he lettered in football at the University of Kansas before serving in World War II, where he suffered permanent, disabling wounds in battle in Italy. After the war, Dole earned a law degree and served as Russell County attorney.
A Republican, Dole served from 1961 to 1969 in the U.S. House of Representatives and from 1969 to 1996 in the U.S. Senate, where he became a political icon and spent 11 years as majority leader. He left the Senate after it became clear he would be his party’s candidate for president in 1996.
Dole lost that year’s presidential election to Democratic incumbent Bill Clinton. He had also run unsuccessfully for vice president in 1976 on the Republican ticket led by incumbent Gerald Ford. Dole died at age 98 in 2021.
Amelia Earhart was born July 24
Amelia Earhart is known as one of history's most famous female pilots. She was born July 24, 1897, at Atchison.
After becoming the 16th woman in the U.S. to be issued a pilot’s license in 1923, Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, the first woman to fly non-stop across the U.S. and the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland.
Accompanied by navigator Fred Noonan, the 39-year-old Earhart tried in 1937 to become the first woman to fly around the world and the first person to do that using a route that was roughly equatorial. Their trip was more than three-quarters finished when they vanished July 2, 1937, in the South Pacific, Their fate remains one of the world's great unsolved mysteries.
Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker was born July 29
Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker in 1978 was the first woman elected to a full term in the U.S. Senate whose husband hadn't previously served in that body. She also was the first woman to represent Kansas in the Senate.
Kassebaum was born July 29, 1932, in Topeka, the daughter of Alf Landon, who served from 1933 to 1937 as Kansas governor and ran unsuccessfully as the Republican Party's presidential candidate in 1936.
She served on the board of education at Maize, a Wichita suburb, and spent about a year as a staff member for Republican Kansas Sen. James Pearson before she won election in 1978 to the seat Pearson was vacating.
Kassebaum served three terms in the Senate before leaving in 1997 after choosing not to seek re-election. Now 91, she lives on a ranch in Morris County in central Kansas.
Martina McBride was born July 29
Country music singer and songwriter Martina McBride has sold more than 18 million albums.
McBride was born July 29, 1966, at Medicine Lodge in Barber County in south-central Kansas, Since relocating in 1989 to Nashville and putting out her first album in 1992, she has put 20 songs in the top 10 on Billboard Magazine's Hot Country Songs charts. Five of those reached No. 1, all between 1995 and 2001. Another of her songs reached the top spot on Billboard's Adult Contemporary charts in 2003.
McBride has been nominated for 14 Grammy awards but hasn't won any. She has four times won the Country Music Association Award for Female Vocalist of the Year and has three times been named "Top Female Vocalist" by the Academy of Country Music.
How common is it to be born in July?
July is the second-most common birth month in the U.S., behind August, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control.
People born during the summer tend to have more "excessively positive" attitudes than their counterparts, according to a study conducted by the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology.
Those born in the summer tend to be taller and healthier, concluded a study conducted by Cambridge University.
Which famous Kansans were born in mid-July?
Extremely famous Kansans born in mid-July include the following:
Arthur Capper, a governor, senator, newspaper publisher and radio station owner, was born July 14, 1865, at Garnett. Capper died in 1951.
Retired Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders, 56, who is the fourth-leading rusher in the history of the NFL, was born July 16, 1968, at Wichita.
What other well-known Kansans were born between July 22 and 29?
Other well-known Kansans born between July 22 and July 29 include the following:
Sprinter Maurice Greene, 49, who was born July 23, 1974, in Kansas City, Kansas. Greene set world records in the 60-meter dash and 100-meter dash. He won two gold medals at the 2000 Olympics and won one silver and one bronze medal at the 2004 Olympics.
Actress Vivian Vance, who was born July 26, 1909, at Cherryvale in Montgomery County in southeast Kansas. Vance won a Primetime Emmy Award in 1953 as Outstanding Supporting Actress for her performance as Ethel Mertz on the popular TV sitcom "I Love Lucy," which aired from 1951 to 1957. Vance died in 1979.
Baseball shortstop Joe Tinker, born July 27, 1880, at Muscotah in Atchison County in northeast Kansas. He was known for being part of a Chicago Cubs double play combination that included second baseman Johnny Evers and first baseman Frank Chance. All three entered the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946. Tinker died on his 68th birthday in 1948.
Jazz singer Karrin Allyson, 60, who was born July 27, 1963, at Great Bend in Barton County in central Kansas. Allyson has been nominated for five Grammy awards but hasn't won any. She moved in 1998 from Kansas City, Missouri, to New York City. The New York Times has described her as a "singer with a feline touch and impeccable intonation."
Singer, songwriter and musician Randy Sparks, the founder and driving force behind the popular folk group the New Christy Minstrels, who was born July 29, 1933, at Leavenworth. Sparks led that group from its founding in 1961 until 1971, then from 1976 until he died last February at age 90.
Contact Tim Hrenchir at [email protected] or 785-213-5934.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Amelia Earhart among famous Kansans born in late July. Here's who else
