Overland Park considers naming golf course after former leaders

The Overland Park Golf Course would undergo a name change if a proposal to honor two early city leaders is approved.

Larry Flatt, a former community development and parks director, is asking that the recognition be extended to a former City Council member, Wendell Lady, and the late former mayor Ben Sykes. Lady later served in the Kansas House of Representatives and for several years was speaker of the House.

The two were advocates for parks in the late ’60s and early ’70s, and worked to gain passage of proposals early in the city’s history that paved the way for development of major present-day recreational facilities.

“Both those guys were instrumental in my mind in establishing a mindset for parks and recreation in Overland Park,” said Flatt, who left the city in 1989 to start his own business, called Flatt Golf Services, which today is based in Jefferson City, Mo.

The Citizens Advisory Council on Parks and Recreation has recommended that the City Council’s Community Development Committee consider naming the golf course, at 125th  Street and Quivira Road, after the men. It was scheduled to discuss the idea at its Nov. 4 meeting.

Flatt said Sykes and Lady were the strongest advocates for a 1967 bond issue that funded purchase of eight park properties and several swimming pool projects.

After Lady took his seat in the Legislature, he was responsible for securing several grants that funded other major park purchases and park development projects, he said.

Sykes lobbied vigorously to convince fellow council members to approve the city’s 1971 purchase of almost 300 acres of land along 135th Street that included the St. Andrew’s Golf Course and adjoining property that today is home to the popular Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead and the newly opened $36 million Overland Park Soccer Complex.

“That whole complex down there wouldn’t have been possible without that purchase. Ben politicked those guys (fellow council members) and did a great job getting it approved,” Flatt said.

The motion to buy the land was approved on a 6-5 vote.

“It really was a tough sell because we’d just purchased the Overland Park Golf Course, and here we were trying to buy another course about a mile away,” Flatt said. “Ben, to me, is like the father of parks in that community. All the leadership he provided was just amazing.”

Half the money for that $1 million purchase came from a state matching funds grant that Lady had obtained for the city, said Flatt, who added that Lady also helped gain a grant  allowing the city to obtain property for more swimming pools and the par three golf course also at 125th and Quivira.

Sykes served one term as mayor from 1977 to 1981.

Lady, who still resides in Overland Park, said last week that he would prefer Sykes be the lone honoree if the golf course were renamed.

“I really think that Ben ought to be honored because he’s the one who really had the vision. The rest of us just helped make it come to reality. Besides, I’ve had enough recognition for two lifetimes,” Lady said. “Those acquisitions were important not just because of the golf that now is played by thousands of people every year but because it preserved a lot of green space for posterity.”

Only in recent years have prominent figures in the city’s history been honored by having names attached to public facilities.

The ballroom at the Overland Park Convention Center is named after former Mayor Ed Eilert; a conference room at the center is named in honor of former City Manager Don Pipes; the public works building is named after one of that department’s former directors, Dennis Garrett; the new Justice Center honors former councilman W. Jack Sanders; the former justice center that now has both city police and administrative offices is named after former police chief Myron Scafe; and Fire Station 2 is named in honor of former fire chief James G. Broockerd.

Contact Loren Stanton at 385-6068, or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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