Six years and three months ago, over cocktails at the Wichita Open, Wichita Story Magazine was born. In a shrinking local media landscape, Jeff Boone and I hoped to tell some of the untold stories of our fellow Wichitans. We wanted to create something hyperlocal and relevant. I think we succeeded.

We published dozens of pieces: feature stories, news articles, short fiction, poetry, humor, podcasts, comic strips, sports features, photo essays, and more. Cameron Pinecone introduced us to Wichican and Won’tchita, a pair of fictional comic strip characters that skewered our fair city on the regular. Russell Arben Fox’s opinion columns made us think a little deeper. We zoomed in on intriguing local figures: entrepreneur and swordsman Phong Nguyen, filmmaker Lester Rowe, bestselling author Rolf Potts, MMA fighter and artist Juanta Wolfe and journalist Tom Shine.

When most of the media forgot about them, we still covered Wichita Wings indoor soccer. I wrote a piece, close to my heart, about my family’s grocery store in small-town Kansas. Our very first story was a meditation on one of the last watchmakers in Wichita. Occasionally, I experimented with audio, doing a podcast about my longtime fantasy football league and another podcast about…the movie Jaws. Ok, so we weren’t ALWAYS hyper-focused on local issues.

We spent most of our six years at WichitaStoryDotCom, and then migrated to Substack in 2024. I’ve enjoyed my time writing and editing this magazine, but I accomplished most of what I wanted to do these past six years. Though Wichita Story is ending, this Substack will continue in a different form. It will be the homebase for my writing, and not necessarily focused on local issues.

I want to thank all our subscribers, both paid and unpaid. You made it possible for me to have an audience and to pay contributors. Your support made all this worthwhile.

Yours,

Tim O’Bryhim

Wichita Story Editor