Bradshaw - Mr. ‘Walk Kansas’ - retires
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
“I guess I’ll be remembered for seat belts and walking,” laughed Michael Bradshaw, who retires this summer after 37 years at K-State.
The Extension health and safety specialist in Family Studies and Human Services has spearheaded many projects. One of the first was convincing Kansans to wear seatbelts.
“In the ‘70s, only 11 percent of Kansas wore seatbelts,” he said. Extension got funds from the Kansas Department of Transportation to up that number. Today, Bradshaw said, the figure is 75 percent. Better but not good enough, he said.
Bradshaw may be best known for Walk Kansas, a fitness challenge in which 6-member teams collectively walk 423 miles, the distance across Kansas.
He developed the program for the Extension service in 2001. Last year 101 counties offered the program. More than 20,000 Kansans have participated each year for the past three years, Bradshaw reported.
Walk Kansas motivates people through groups, encouraging family members, schoolmates, co-workers, friends, and neighbors to come together as a team, he explained. Participants set goals for health and fitness.
“Our society has changed so much,” he said. “We are no longer a physical labor society. We sit staring at a monitor all day long.”
“We don’t take care of ourselves until it’s too late,” he added.
Bradshaw’s answer is as simple as burning 2000 extra calories a week. He does it by walking for 30 minutes a day at 4 miles-an-hour. That’s a slow jog or fast walk, he explained.
What’s next in the field of health and safety education in the state?
The health specialist believes it will be restaurant food. The food industry will “come on board.” Some of the changes to healthier food will have to be legislated, he added. Like laws that limit smoking in public places, first comes public awareness, then industry awareness, then legislation.
“We want to be able to make choices, especially when we eat out,” he added.
What’s next for the retiring Bradshaw?
“We’re moving. We’re joining the boomerang generation,” he said. Bradshaw grew up in Lyman, Wyoming. He and his wife, Sally, who grew up in Utah, will help care for Bradshaw’s 88-year-old mother and they will be closer to their 9 grandchildren.
“The kids already have a camping trip to the mountains planned for August,” Bradshaw said. He uses the term “kids” to encompass his seven children and his grandchildren.
He’ll fly fish for mountain trout. “Sally always packs lemon,” he said of his optimistic spouse. He will hunt and learn auto mechanics from a high school buddy who owns a garage. “I always wanted to do more mechanical things,” he said.
And, of course, he’ll wear his seat belt and walk 2 miles a day.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 and is filed under Dean's Blog.