‘A great lady’: Friends, admirers remember Dorothy Flottman | News

Flottman, 97, lived most of her existence in Winfield, leaving city only for a couple of yrs when she lived in South Carolina in the vicinity of her daughter, and towards the conclude of her life when she moved to Wichita.

She was also in Topeka for the eight classes when she served in the Kansas Home of Associates.

She and her sister Lorita ended up lifted in the grocery business by their mothers and fathers, Clarence and Louise Janke Higginbottom, and Dorothy labored in the business, Higginbottom Grocery Retail store & Meat Current market, as a teenager and then as a youthful grownup.

Her fascination in the nearby local community, from its enterprises and corporations to its politic scene, was lifelong.

A graduate of the College of Kansas College of Business, she labored in a variety of Winfield firms and served on many community boards. Flottman, a Republican, was Kansas 78th district point out consultant from 1983 to 1992.

Dick Bonfy, who served on the Cowley County Commission for 22 yrs, claimed Flottman healthy nicely politically in the district and was able to help men and women get alongside.

“I had good respect for her,” Bonfy stated. “She was really very well educated, and she was involved in every thing. She supported me all 22 many years I served on the fee.”

Larry Junker knew Flottman as a member of Trinity Lutheran Church.

“I can nevertheless see her going for walks down the still left aisle of the church to the seat wherever she sat every single Sunday,” he mentioned. “She was perfectly loved, and she was a fighter.”

Junker was the govt director of the Winfield Location Chamber of Commerce, and Flottman was one particular of those neighborhood users seeking to retain open up the “third hill” — Winfield Condition Hospital and Teaching Middle — in the years previous its near in 1998.

“If she considered in some thing, she’d go all out for it,” Junker said.

When Senator Dick Rock from Arkansas Metropolis determined to give up his seat in the Kansas Legislature, Junker tried using to encourage Flottman to operate for Rock’s seat, but she was not intrigued.

“I provide the community. I assistance the neighborhood,” Flottman advised Junker, and she did not consider she could provide as nicely if she were being in the Senate.

Democrat Judy Showalter was elected to Flottman’s seat soon after Flottman stepped down. She held the place right up until her death in 1995. Democrat Ed Trimmer loaded Showalter’s seat right up until he was defeated in 2018 by Cheryl Helmer, R-Mulvane.

“I didn’t know Dorothy properly,” mentioned Trimmer, of Winfield, “but she was a superb legislator. She was a excellent agent who got alongside with individuals on both equally sides of the aisle. She was incredibly considerate and really clever.”

Trimmer reported he voted for Flottman, in spite of the bash affiliation. She and Showalter ended up both of those potent females and genuinely excellent legislators who did good get the job done in the Kansas Legislature, Trimmer reported.

“And that was abnormal for the duration of the time they served. The Legislature was dominated by gentlemen,” he included.

Flottman loved the neighborhood and served on several boards and held lots of positions, such as member, secretary, chairperson and/or president, together with the William Newton Hospital Board of Trustees, Metropolis of Winfield Board of Zoning Appeals, Winfield Rotary Club and Winfield Spot Chamber of Commerce, to title just a number of.

A winner baton twirler in large college and the very first marching-band female drum main at KU, Fottman remaining her baton to the William Newton Medical center Healthcare Foundation.

She designed a identify for herself by staying the initial lady member of the Winfield Rotary Club. She’d previously worked as executive secretary for the team, so she was properly regarded to the associates, said Curtis Dick, longtime Winfield Rotary member.

Betsy Drennan’s husband Don was the district governor of Rotary for a amount of years, and he and Flottman were being fantastic mates.

“She was just somebody you could discuss to,” Betsy reported.

All the clubs ended up men’s golf equipment, she reported, till they understood it was superior to have additional wide variety in the membership.

“And we know who does all the operate,” Drennan extra.

Though some other corporations went by some social strains when girls were being very first admitted as users, Drennan explained she did not don’t forget that happening in the Winfield Rotary Club. The new gals customers have been “just element of the group” with a various standing from the members’ wives, but anyone bought together.

Flottman was “the good communicator,” Drennan claimed, and wrote letters to all kinds of individuals, generally on her electrical typewriter.

Don Drennan tried out for many years to get her to use a computer system, but she would not have it.

“It turned a joke between them,” Betsy said.

The Rev. Rick Hathaway, retired pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, and his spouse Debbie ended up longtime neighbors and mates of Flottman as very well as fellow church members. They also ended up neighbors.

In fact, the Hathaways finished up remaining listed here due to the fact Flottman’s father, by then a Realtor, assisted them locate a house when they first came to Winfield to attend St. John’s University.

Flottman took treatment of her mothers and fathers as they aged, Debbie explained. She was impartial and lived on your own right until she moved south to be with her daughter. Following she was widowed in 1979, she turned her loved ones spirit outward to the community.

She under no circumstances lost her interest in politics, Rick reported, and her suggestions of assistance arrived out of her Christianity.

“She was old university,” he claimed, “Conscientious, with firm convictions. She always believed in phrases of what was best for everyone, for the full neighborhood, not for just 1 component. We didn’t normally agree, but I admired her. She was extremely sturdy.”

A company for Dorothy Flottman will be 1 p.m. nowadays at Trinity Lutheran Church. Burial will stick to in Highland Cemetery. Memorial contributions can be produced to the William Newton Medical center Healthcare Foundation 2nd Century Campaign.