Owner Comments:
Caption: None
Release date: August 29, 2005
Entered Statehood: January 29, 1861
Mintage: 563,400,000
Reverse: American Bison (state mammal), Sunflowers (state flower).
Engraver: Norman Nemeth
Interesting fact: Kansas was home to industrial and intellectual pioneers Walter Chrysler of automotive fame, Clyde Cessna and Lloyd Stearman (aviation pioneers), Jack Kilby (microchip inventor, The Nobel Prize Winner in Physics 2000), George Washington Carver (educator and scientist), Earl W. Sutherland, Jr. (The Nobel Prize Winner in Physiology or Medicine 1971), and Vernon L. Smith (The Nobel Prize Winner in Economics 2002). Also from Kansas are General Richard Myers (Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2001–05) and Robert Gates (United States Secretary of Defense December 2006–Present). In addition, Kansas is the home of "Top Cop" Vern Miller who raided an Amtrak train on July 20, 1972, and confiscated all the liquor on board. He charged Amtrak with selling liquor-by-the-drink, illegal in Kansas at that time and the case was eventually declared, "al certiore," validating both the lower court's conviction and the flamboyant Miller's stance that, "If you don't like a law, get it changed...don't break it."