eric thomas creative
WRITINGS
KANSAS
REFLECTOR
Since 2021, I have written a regular column for the statewide news service.
During two of those years, I earned first place for column writing in the largest circulation category for publications in Kansas. The award was presented by the Kansas Press Association in 2022 and 2024 for a selection of columns about politics, education, media, technology and parenting. Below is a selection of my favorite columns from each year I have written for the Kansas Reflector.
2025 Kansas Reflector columns
From Eisenhower’s swivel to Trump’s glare, presidential portraits strike different poses
JANUARY 24, 2025 :
“The confrontational pose that Trump takes — one eyebrow lifted — echoes his mugshot following his booking in the election interference case brought in Georgia. By repeating the expression from the mugshot, Trump struts his way through another taunting victory dance: ‘You thought you had me in court. But I escaped to the Oval Office. Now, it’s your turn to run.’”
Staying in-bounds isn’t simple when designing Chiefs gear for the Super Bowl
FEBRUARY 7, 2025:
“This question — what is a Chiefs product? — will also be a multimillion-dollar question during the first weeks of 2025 as screen printers ship off boxes of red-and-gold products: sweatshirts, sweaters, jackets, t-shirts, tank tops, coffee mugs, hats, framed art, posters, socks, mittens and yes, socks (I bought a pair today).”
Recent news discourages college students from taking intellectual risks. They didn’t need the nudge.
APRIL 4, 2025:
“On that same day — more than 1,400 miles away in my lecture hall at the University of Kansas — I asked my students to take a First Amendment risk. Actually, asked isn’t a strong enough word. I needled and begged students to propose something risky. I coached them on how to recognize something truly risky. I celebrated the best risky ideas with applause and fist bumps.”
A Kansas sheriff’s sweet, clumsy invite to deliver drunk teens home
MAY 2, 2025:
“The post is a masterpiece of social media, attracting more than 1 million views in the first few hours. Kirsch hopes teens think, “Wait a minute guys, let’s call the Sheriff’s Office” after a night of Jägerbombs and Bongzillas. In the process, the message charmingly zigzags all over the place. ”
‘It really changed me’: Jewish Kansans weather chaotic evacuation from Israel
JUNE 27, 2025:
“Lydia Schwartz and Alexa Litwin point to the same moment.
The moment when their cultural trip to Israel this month shifted. The moment that separated a lighthearted, tourist trip from an impromptu war-time evacuation. The moment that triggered days of shattered travel plans, hours in bomb shelters and frantic text messages.”
The smiling, nostalgic face of Kansas fireworks: ‘I’m still amazed’
JULY 4, 2025:
“Instead of a brief quote, I learned about Eddie’s love of fireworks — an emotional, generational love for a side business that he started while working as a rough-in carpenter. Our talk was interrupted a few times as he paused to dry his tears and grab a drink of water.
‘I’m almost 78,’ Shay said. ‘And here I’m crying like a baby.’”
2024 Kansas Reflector columns
Mapping the presidential debate: Kansas earns mention as candidates wrestle over American landscape
SEPTEMBER 13, 2024:
“Instead of creating a giddy radio shoutout, Trump’s mentions painted these American places as apocalyptic hellscapes demanding salvation: And he is the one to revive them. The more specific that Trump got — mentioning a city or town — the darker his vision of America became and the more likely he was to drift into misinformation pushed by right-wing media. When it came to mentioning places, Harris’s approach was restrained.”
An interview with Bridget Everett as her Kansas-set HBO show, ‘Somebody Somewhere’ returns
OCTOBER 25, 2024:
“This week, I interviewed Everett about how Kansas shaped ‘Somebody Somewhere’ and how the LGBTQ+ characters surrounding Sam stamp the show with a unique Midwestern charm. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.”
Trump’s makeup mask strategically hides something that we might never see
DECEMBER 14, 2024:
“While we might worry about what drives a public figure toward an appearance as extreme and outlandish as Trump’s, I think there is a larger message here — one that will likely continue to be important through Trump’s upcoming second term.”
2023 Kansas Reflector columns
New college semester brings new questions about how to fill empty seats
JANUARY 20, 2023 :
“This week is the start of spring semester on many university campuses in Kansas, including Kansas State, Wichita State and the University of Kansas, where I teach. What you will hear in those faculty break rooms is frustration at the empty chairs in classrooms. If classes are fully registered, why are so many seats empty every day?”
Youth sports promise elite status, but they often feel like a marketing ploy
OCTOBER 25, 2024:
“Whoever names these teams and tournaments understands something essential about youth sports these days. The word “elite” sounds irresistible to parents, who must decide whether to give up their family weekends and hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in the pursuit of competitions that promise to showcase their young athletes.”
These tiny earbuds (and the questions they ask) are actually huge
DECEMBER 14, 2024:
“The fact that I didn’t confront her about the earbuds says something about me as a teacher. It also says something about college campuses, where people wear earbuds as much as anywhere I have lived or visited. In almost choreographed unison, students exit classes, meetings and buildings while reaching into their pockets to find their Bluetooth earbuds. One for each ear. Hit play on the music.”
Behold the Kansas City Chiefs’ elite quarterback — and the other one, too
FEBRUARY 10, 2023:
“He threw for thousands of yards in high school, earning scholarship offers from universities that would compete on the national stage. His talents playing baseball and basketball in high school still earn mentions when the news media profile him. In college, he set records for passing at his school, once throwing for six touchdowns in a single game. During his senior year in college, he threw for more than 3,000 yards and 25 touchdowns. He even caught two touchdowns while on the roster as quarterback.
Of course, you know who I’m writing about. ”
Our one and only: A parable of the miraculous house
OCTOBER 25, 2024:
“The house was a miracle.
The peaked roof poked out from the forest of pine trees, pointing up to the blue, cloud-streaked sky. As the wind blew, pine needles, still wet with morning dew, would slap the wooden shingles of the roof in a rhythm that sounded like a heartbeat from inside the house.”
Rewind to when Taylor Swift attended class at the University of Kansas — at least for one day
JULY 7, 2023:
“As soon as class was over, it was like somebody had turned on a vacuum,” Marsh said. “Everybody ran in that direction. And I turned to my graduate students, and I said, ‘What’s going on?’ They said, ‘That’s Taylor Swift.’”
2022 Kansas Reflector columns
Screaming on the sidelines: Confessions of a semi-reformed sports dad in Kansas
JUNE 3, 2022:
“What followed was a predictable shower of yellow cards and red cards, eventually sending off three players. That’s where the drama should have ended. As someone who didn’t care a bit about which team won, I judged that the referee had done his job. Tempers subsided.
But then, the dad from the sidelines piped up.”
Youth sports promise elite status, but they often feel like a marketing ploy
JUNE 10, 2022:
“Whoever names these teams and tournaments understands something essential about youth sports these days. The word “elite” sounds irresistible to parents, who must decide whether to give up their family weekends and hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in the pursuit of competitions that promise to showcase their young athletes.”
From Kansas to Michigan, the devilish conformity of our American suburbs
JUNE 24, 2022:
“The siren call of our suburbs is different than what calls us downtown to American cities: a thumping R&B beat, backed by streetside vendors and fire escape cigarettes. And it isn’t the rural charm of the wind rustling the tall grasses beside a prairie pond.”
What those Kansas abortion amendment yard signs are really saying
JULY 15, 2022:
“Maybe you are using the signs to suss out your neighbors’ politics so you don’t say the wrong thing during the next Little League game. (You might alternately learn exactly who you want to confront at that same ballfield.)
Me? I’m obsessed with the design of these posters and what those decisions say about the groups that made them.”
We’re melting as we banter about the weather in Kansas
JULY 22, 2022:
“The details of our weather — temperature, forecasts, rainfall and, with my dad, even barometric pressure — are the polite metrics that lubricate our conversations.
However, that genial mood surrounding our chats about the weather may be in jeopardy because, increasingly, we really aren’t really talking about the weather. We are talking about the climate.”
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly’s reelection could affirm political progress for women
SEPTEMBER 23, 2022:
“Leaving behind those scattered notions of early female governors, the progress since 1975 has been an almost entirely straight upward line. The increasing willingness of voters to elect women — paired with more women on the ballot — is clear.”
2021 Kansas Reflector columns
Audio Astra: Thoughtful thanks to our pandemic-era educators in Kansas
NOVEMBER 12, 2021:
“Many parents and community members have worked to derail your work. As you learned the impossible jiu-jitsu of teaching elementary school students through remote iPad screens, parents dissected your word choice, critiqued your patience and second-guessed your interior decorating. ”
Audio Astra: A Kansas native and his messy road map for compromise on guns
DECEMBER 3, 2021:
“Occasionally, an insider from a secretive corner of the world comes clean, revealing secrets from a tobacco company, a social media giant or a corrupt corner of government. In hearing the stories of these repentant insiders, I sometimes wonder how they could be so aware now of the sins of their past lives, but previously so supportive of what they now expose and criticize.”
Audio Astra: Podcasts provide recipe for post-pandemic conversations
DECEMBER 17, 2021:
“I get it. After months of only seeing my immediate family, I sometimes struggled to relax and settle into the kinds of long chats that were common in pre-pandemic life. After all, Zoom screens became our work places, happy hours and birthday parties. Having a conversation sometimes seems to trigger a timer in my head, and after a few minutes, I shut down.”