By Travis Mounts

If you follow the city of Cheney on Facebook, you’ve no doubt noticed all of the “Flat Burb” pictures that have been popping up since November. But if you’ve been wondering what the pictures are for, here are the details you’ve been wanting.

Flat Burb is a promotion from the Kansas Department of Travel and Tourism. Research has shown that the top reason that people visit Kansas is to see people they know. To help kick off the state’s VFR – Visiting Friends and Relatives – campaign created Flat Burb and challenged cities to take photos of the miniature two-dimensional Suburban and post them to the Kansas Travel and Tourism Facebook page.

The city with the most pictures will win the right to be the official kick-off destination for the State’s VFR campaign later this year.

The ‘Flat Burb’ pictured in front of the Farmers Coop elevator in Cheney.

The photo contest ends April 1, and as of Monday Cheney was in third place with 124 pictures. The photographs have been snapped at community events, with local people at sporting events, and inside area businesses. To see Cheney’s photos, go to www.facebook.com and search “City of Cheney.” (click here) You might even see one of a local newspaper publisher.

Danielle Young, Cheney’s city clerk, has been taking most of the pictures.

“It’s good publicity for the city of Cheney,” she said. “Even if we don’t win, our name is still out there.”
Local residents can take their own photographs. The first step is to download your own Flat Burb, which is a cutout of a real Suburban sport utility vehicle that has been painted for Kansas Travel and Tourism. It’s a takeoff of “Flat Stanley,” the book by Jeff Brown where a boy is flattened down to two dimensions by a bulletin, allowing him to travel by mail.

Download your Flat Burb online at www.facebook.com/FlatBurbKS and clicking on the “info” tab. Then print it off and take pictures at community events and sites.

For tracking purposes, Young asked that any contributors email pictures to her at dyoung@cheneyks.org rather than posting them directly. Pictures can even be taken with cell phone cameras.

Allie Twietmeyer and Caitlyn Greiving, eighth graders at Cheney Middle School, are pictured with the ‘Flat Burb’ at the CMS Veterans Day event.