BY MEGHAN FLYNN
Garden City Telegram
Dr. Luther and Ardis Fry are the recipients of the Finney County Historical Society’s inaugural Horizon award.
The couple were recognized at the Finney County Historical Society annual banquet and meeting on Saturday.
The event marked the 50th anniversary of the recently revised Finney County Pioneer awards program, which included the creation of the Horizon award.
Steve Quakenbush, Executive Director of the Finney County Historical Society and Museum, said the Pioneer awards committee revised the program September 2023 to change the qualifications for people to receive the Pioneer award, while others will receive the Horizon award.
“If the recipient family goes back to the period of 1879, Garden City’s founding, through 1940, it will be the Pioneer award. If they’ve come 1941 or later, it will now be the Finney County Horizon award,” he said. “There are some other criteria as well, but that’s the primary difference between the two awards.”
The other part of the criteria is that in the past recipients were required to have a presence in the community of 40 years, Quakenbush said. While that will continue for the Pioneer Award, for the Horizon Award it will be 25 years or more.
Additionally, only one award will be given each year, either a Pioneer award or a Horizon award, Quakenbush said. In previous years they’ve sometimes given two or more awards.
The awards are given to qualifying families, individuals, businesses or organizations.
Quakenbush said he believes the Pioneer awards committee made the changes it did to recognize the historical significance of these groups who may not have necessarily been in Finney County for at least 40 years.
“I think if the committee felt like it was important to make a change, this is absolutely the best time, because the awards program started in 1974, 50 years ago, so, making this alteration on the 50th anniversary just seems like an appropriate way to continue honoring the past, but also adapt to the future,” he said. “It will be fun to see how the recipients of the award evolve over the next several years since this is a change.”
Luther Fry is a native of Montezuma, where he lived and went through eighth grade before moving to Dodge City, where he attended and graduated from Dodge City High School in 1957.
Following high school, he went to college at the University of Kansas, where he also attended Medical School, getting his degree in 1967. He completed his medical internship in 1968 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Then from January 1969 through January 1971, he served in the United States Army, and spent a year in Vietnam, before returning state-side where he spent the next year in Colorado Springs.
Ardis Fry grew up on a farm just south of Lindsborg, attending school in a two-room schoolhouse, graduating in 1961. Following high school, she attended Bethany College and then Kansas University, where she completed her nursing training in 1965.
She then worked in the operating room at a hospital in Phoenix, Ariz., before finding her way to Aspen, Colo., while Luther Fry was in Colorado Springs.
Ardis Fry said she and her husband met while they were students at KU, their roommates introduced them and set them up on a blind date.
“My roommate knew his roommate and we had a double date. We didn’t date a long time after that, we got together a year or so later,” she said. “But that’s how we met.”
They spent seven or eight years in a long-distance relationship, Ardis Fry said, but it worked out.
The couple got married in 1971.
The Frys have two sons, one lives in Garden City and works as an ophthalmologist, he has a family of three children. Another son lives in Overland Park and is not married.
Ardi Fry said they have a very small family.
“(Luther) was an only child, and I have a brother that has already passed and a sister that lives here in Garden,” she said.
Eventually they moved to Dodge City, where they lived for five years, Ardis Fry said. Their two sons were born there.
Ardis Fry said while in Dodge City, Luther Fry opened his own practice in 1974, but he was coming over to Garden City on Saturdays to see a lot of patients, and after a time he got tired of doing all the managing of the office in Dodge.
“General practice people at that time were encouraging him to open an office out here, encouraged him to move,” she said. “That lasted for about a year, but then he went independent again.”
The couple opened Fry Eye Associates in 1978, and then in 1998 they opened the surgery center.
Luther Fry said life in Garden City has worked out well for them. He retired at 75, having operated on a little over 50,000 cataract patients during his career.
Ardis Fry retired once her husband stopped doing surgeries.
“I’d been a nurse for 40 years, I think, it was long enough,” she said.
During their life in Garden City, they’ve given back to the community that has been good to them, Luther Fry said. They helped start the Western Kansas Community Foundation and have been active in local charities ever since.
Adris Fry said they wanted to start the WKCF as a way of giving back to the community, just because you can. It’s something she and her husband are quite proud of.
“My biggest accomplishment is probably working with him and being one of the initial founders of Western Kansas Community Foundation … And I’m proud of our children,” she said.
Ardis Fry said her and Luther’s recognition for the Horizon award is special.
“We’re very humbled and honored,” she said. “It’s very great, we’ll remember that. One of our outstanding evenings, I’m sure.”
