Fairway’s First Mayor
The first mayor of Fairway had a rather unassuming office space from which to lead the newly incorporated city. Robert Sanders was elected mayor in April 1949 by a margin of 347-75 votes. The mayor and the city council held their first meeting on July 5, 1949, in the basement of Barvetta Smith’s children’s shop. The city leaders realized that a more accessible space was needed. They approached the J.C. Nichols Company about renting a construction shed for use as their city hall. Nichols instead offered to build a small white frame structure for their use. Shown in the accompanying photograph, this first city hall stood near the site of the present city hall at 5252 Belinder.
Robert Sanders was raised in the Argentine community of Kansas City, Kansas. He married Lois Emilie Hutchins, also of the Argentine neighborhood, in January 1929. They moved to Fairway in 1940-1941 and lived there for nearly twenty years before moving to Mission Hills. Robert was an executive at Kansas City Structural Steel Company. He was also active as a volunteer, serving as vice-chairman of the Shawnee-Mission American Red Cross chapter and belonging to the Co-Operative Club, Wyandotte Masonic Lodge No. 3, and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. He served as Fairway’s mayor until 1955.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in music at the Kansas City Conservatory of Music, Lois became a well-known singing personality. For five years she had her own local radio show under the name of Donna Jean Wendell.
--ALBUM vol. 8, no. 4 (fall 1995)