The Great Seal of the State of Kansas in the Governor's office in Topeka. Ad Astra per Aspera on the seal is a Latin phrase that means "To the stars through difficulties" and is the Kansas state motto.
The sunflower is the state flower of Kansas and the state is known as The Sunflower State
The Western Meadowlark is the State Bird of Kansas...it was chosen by the state's schoolchildren on Kansas Day in 1925 and approved as the official state bird by the State Legislature in 1937.
A field of Sunflowers in Washington County
The Kansas State Capitol in Topeka...
Construction began in 1866 only 5 years after Kansas statehood and one year after the end of the Civil War, it was completed in 1903.
Detail of the east front of the Kansas Capitol building
A mural in the Kansas Statehouse of a larger than life John Brown flanked by contending free soil and pro-slavery forces entitled Tragic Prelude, the mural is one of several in the capitol done by Kansas artist John Steuart Curry.
The Kansas State Senate Chamber
Looking up into the Capitol Dome
Inside the upper portion of the dome showing the top of the interior dome that is seen in the center of the last photo and also a small part of the stairway to the top of the dome is seen on the left.
Another view in the upper unfinished part of the dome.
The Kansa Warrior "Ad Astra" keeps watch over Kansas from atop the Capitol Dome. Ad Astra is 22 feet 2 inches tall and weighs 4,420 pounds. Kansas was named for the Kansa Tribe who lived along the Kansas River.
A Kansas Soybean Field in Strawberry Township, Washington County
My hometown of Linn, Kansas in the background with a field of ripening wheat in the foreground
A beautiful Kansas Sunset
