Our thirty-fourth President, Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), who spent his childhood in Abilene, has receded into history for most Kansans, even those who lived under his two terms as President, from 1953-1961. Eisenhower was the Baby Boomers’ President.  Although a Republican, and a professed conservative, he continued all of the significant New Deal programs put in place by Franklin D. Roosevelt, especially Social Security, which he expanded to cover millions more Americans. Alaska and Hawaii became the 49th and 50th states under his administration, Eisenhower oversaw the rise of the “military-industrial complex,” including the massive Interstate Highway System, begun in 1956.  His interventionist “Eisenhower Doctrine” had profound consequences for foreign policy up to the present day. He was the first… Read More »Roy Bird’s new book LITTLE IKE to be illustrated by Silver Lake librarian Gwen Battis