LARNED — The story is still being told in certain marathon runners’ circles of a woman who in 1989 ran across the state of Iowa along old highway 92, making the 276.6 mile trip in 12 consecutive days, averaging 25 miles a day. For those who continue to run across the state, the story is now lore, if not legend.

The story is true. The woman, now 79, resides in Larned. After studying fabric and textiles in college led her to a career as a clothing buyer in the fashion industry, the job allowed her to become a world traveler, as well as took her across the country and around the world. 

When that job ended, she became a flight attendant for American Airlines, making regular trips from New York to London. She then came back to help her mother with a longtime antique store business on Broadway Street in Larned.

These days, Dorothy Ann “Dody” Burkey is off and running on a new venture, helping local entrepreneurs and artists get started in their own businesses. Finding Dody around town is easy; after regularly running the streets of Larned, she is usually at Hillside Envisions, 502 Fifth Street (formerly Hillside Elementary school, now a non-profit business incubator).

After regular swims in Great Bend, she comes back to check on her cats and then maybe move some more things into the three-story Victorian home she is restoring across the street from Hillside. 

The finding is easy; keeping up with her is harder to do.

Learning to run

“People think that I’ve lived here all my life, when actually, I haven’t,” she said. “Maybe that’s because of my mom.” Dody went to elementary school and high school in Evansville, Ind.

Her mother Margaret Corbet came to Larned in 1964, hired as a dietician for Larned State Hospital, when Dody was a sophomore in college at Michigan State University. While there, Dody majored in clothing and textiles. 

“I almost went to Northwestern to major in journalism, but I didn’t want to stay up all night writing articles,” she said. 

Dody started running when she worked as a buyer in New York, which her company supported. “I would be at a race and the president and vice-president would come out and cheer me on,” she said.

“I was able to travel and time my buying trips with things I wanted to do. I would leave a note on a yellow legal pad that said I’d like to be gone 10 days or two weeks to go to the Soviet Union to run a marathon (in 1982). I would get a little note back on the side of the page that would say something like ‘Sounds great, have a good run,’” she said.

Running in marathons began to grow in appeal. Through the 1980s, Burkey ran in the Boston Marathon, which she really liked, and the Ultimate Challenge in Hawaii that was a grueling, three-day mix of running, biking and swimming.

In the 1990s when she was in her 40s, Burkey was tested at the Cooper clinic for biometrics such as speed, muscular strength and endurance. “I was average speed and average strength, but I was in the 99th percentile in endurance,” she said. “You can train muscles but I very clearly had slow-twitch muscle fiber. I was really happy in long distance.”

Helping out mom

Burkey noted that her mother and grandmother appreciated fine clothes and she learned to like them. When her mom built the Harvest Inn in 1973, sold it in 1983 then later opened Antiques and Artifacts on Broadway Street in 1993, Dody would come home when she could to help.

In 2000, at the age of 55, she became a flight attendant for American Airlines, which took her from New York to London and back again. “I hadn’t worked at a regular job for about 14 years,” she said. She was teaching beginning running classes, “rookie runners,” health classes, a track class and a first-time marathoner class.

“I wasn’t really ready to stop running,” she said. “But when you’re running slower and slower, and you want to do your best, it matters.”

Her travels to London allowed her to experience a different culture. “I didn’t really bring things back, but I loved the museums. The hotel was not far from the Victorian Albert Museum and the Museum of Natural History. It was less than a mile to Hyde Park and St. James Park in London.”

Meanwhile, back in Larned, her mother came upon one of the original 58 Japanese Friendship Dolls sent by Japan to children in the United States in 1927. In 2003, Dody and her mom traveled to Japan to visit, and brought the doll along to display. 

The doll was actually on display at Hillside when the school was still in use, she said. “The students could see her,” she noted. “They probably didn’t know what they were looking at at the time.”

In 2007, her mother began to fail, and so Burkey started coming to Larned to help run the store. Corbet passed away in 2009, leaving the store to Dody.

“My job at the store was always taking care of all the linens,” she said. “I liked that because that was what I had studied. I would also have to look up glass patterns. Glass is not at all popular now, unfortunately. There are too many reproductions around.”

The Hillside vision

After closing the antique store, Dody was looking for a way to encourage public interest in both entrepreneurship and the arts in Pawnee County.

The opportunity came with the purchase of the former Hillside Elementary School building. The building, which was constructed in the 1950s, is not without its trials, but Dody is experienced at going the distance.

“We want to accomplish a lot of things on multiple levels,” she said. “One day, we will be fully sustainable and be able to provide a positive impact for the neighborhood, for Larned, for Pawnee County and for surrounding communities.”