Did Shawnee County deserve No. 78 health ranking?
When the Kansas Health Institute released a study identifying Gove County as the healthiest county in the state, some eyebrows might have gone up. But it makes sense when you think about it. Short of being clunked in the head by a piece of the Monument Rocks, it doesn’t seem like Gove County would be a particularly hazardous or unhealthy place to live. There’s no smog, not much crime and little fattening fast food to speak of, except for the menu items at a few places like the Dairy Queen out by Interstate 70 in Quinter. Yeah, things are pretty quiet in Gove County, which is home to about 2,500 people. The slideshow at DiscoverQuinter.com consists of exactly four images, including — you guessed it — the Dairy Queen. Most of the county is dry, too. So it certainly stands to reason that Gove finished high in KHI’s health rankings. We’d all probably live longer and healthier in a place where we could walk out on Main Street and read “Ulysses” from cover to cover without getting hit by a c
