From the Fidelity Bank Foundation studio, PBS Kansas Presents One on One with Victor Hogstrom.

This is where the movers and shakers of Kansas come to share their perspectives on success and the things that matter most in life.

My guest this week is mayor of the second largest city in Sedgwick County.

Randy White has been mayor of Derby since 2015.

A graduate of Cowley County Community College, White worked at Spirit Aerosystems, formerly Boeing, from 1984 to 2020.

He and his wife, Pam have lived in Derby since 1987 and have three children and eight grandchildren.

Mayor White has a long history of serving the community in various ways.

We'll discuss that and his mission to help Derby maintain a small town quality of life while also encouraging growth.

Well, we'll also discuss the man, the town he leads and the legacy he hopes to leave behind.

One on one with Randy White, mayor of Derby, starts right now.

Hello and thank you for joining us.

I'm Victor Hogstrom, and I'm so pleased to welcome Derby Mayor Randy White to the program.

Mayor White, you're very popular in the city of Derby and parts adjacent.

You seem to enjoy the job of being mayor of Derby.

It's a great job.

Now it's strictly a part time job, but it's helpful that I'm now retired, which I have a little more time to spend with it.

I love taking care of the people of Derby.

That was just one of my favorite things to do is look for opportunities when somebody has an issue.

To be able to help them to resolve it.

And I guess that's kind of what I like about my job is helping people.

You have served two terms as mayor of Derby.

This is true.

Since 2015, but you've decided not to seek reelection come Election Day.

Why is that?

Well, I started out on the planning commission for two years, and then I was elected to the council for four years.

And technically, because they changed the rules, I'm actually this is my ninth year of being the mayor, and that took 15 years.

I think I'm tired and I just like to have a little break, like to kind of clear my schedule for a little while.

You don't act like you're tired.

I can be tired.

So before we talk about your time in office, let's first talk about more about you as as a person, your personality.

How would you describe yourself as a leader?

I'll tell you a quick story.

All right.

When I first got elected as mayor, I got a call from Colonel Miller on the Air Force Base, and he wanted to meet me.

And so one morning, I hopped in my truck and I ran up to the Air Force base.

And, of course, there was somebody at the gate to meet me when I pulled up to the administration building.

There was a sign with my name on it and where to park.

Two people waiting at the door for me to enter the office.

And Colonel Miller spent about a half hour with me.

And when I left there, I realized that he was kind of feeling me out to see what I could do to support the Air Force base, which, as a side note, is one of my favorite things to do.

And so as I was driving off in my truck, I thought, man, this is not what you're used to.

You better kind of get it together here because mayors are a different gig.

You're out in front of people a lot.

You have a lot of people that has things they like to share with you and have opinions on things.

And I have a tremendous staff.

My job is pretty easy.

There are 625 cities in the state of Kansas, and most of those mayors have.

Most of the cities have populations around 500 people.

And when you call the mayor, he's not only the mayor, but he takes care of the water, the sewer and everything else.

When somebody calls me, I fire off an email and somebody else takes care of it.

So I have a easy job and I have a tremendous respect for our local mayors throughout Kansas.

So tell me, this Mayor White.

Would you describe for our audience the best type of political leadership in your mind?

Well, I think it happened last night in our council meeting.

We are getting ready to take a a question to the voters in November.

And we were trying to decide how to go about this.

And my quote was, let the people have their say.

And that's what I think our political leadership should be.

We all as political leaders, we have bosses.

And those are the people that elect us.

And that's who we're responsible to.

And I think that's who we need to focus on, is the people for my for my job.

I work for the people of Derby, Kansas.

So do you think they'll miss you as mayor?

Some of them.

You know, I'm sure I have my fans.

I get pushed pretty hard to run for mayor again.

I appreciate all those comments.

I just always kind of touches my heart.

I'm sure I'm not everybody's fan, but that's kind of comes with the job.

So, Mayor, tell us the thought, the thought that best describes you as the person.

I would say and I ran on this as my campaign, I consider myself fair.

I like to be fair.

I like to see that everybody gets their opportunity.

And I like to I love to when we can find a win win situation.

I don't like lose lose situations at all.

I realize sometimes there are compromises, but I love to be thought of as the fair guy.

I think you've talked about what you've liked about being mayor.

You can add to it if you want to.

But let's begin with what do you dislike about being mayor?

And then if you'd like to add to the parts of this, go ahead.

Okay.

One thing usually I. I feel like people have their own agenda.

They may not share with you what that agenda is, and they may approach it from a different angle.

And I probably don't like that.

I would rather just have people tell me what they're concerned with and talk about it.

And first, in every situation, I love to get educated on what we're talking about because there's quite a bit I don't know.

And I and I'm I'm open and honest about that.

I love getting my staff involved because they usually know more than I do and they may know background, but I kind of hate it when I get approached by people and they expect me to know everything.

They expect me to always want to pick their sides and they kind of want me to do their their bad fight, their battles for them.

Probably not my style.

I'm more of a tell me what's going on.

Let's go figure it out together.

And I love it when I tell staff something and they they say, well, that don't sound right to me.

And I look into it, and then I'll get a call and say, Hey, that's all taken care of.

And so I'll get back with the person that asked me the question.

And every time I can't believe it.

It only took a day to get that taken care of.

It's perfect.

Thank you.

That's.

That's the best part of my job.

Okay, so in my introduction, I said, and I read this back to you, that your mission is to help Derby maintain the small town quality of life while also encouraging growth.

How how is that possible to maintain the small town quality and yet want a big city?

It's funny you asked.

We have a local paper and it's a wonderful paper.

The Derby Informer one time put an article and they're asking people, how do you how do you feel that makes Derby special?

Being a small town with small town values?

And I gave him my email address.

I've got one comment on that, which kind of shocked me.

I thought people would really kind of flood my in-basket with ideas on how we maintain our small town feel.

And for me, it's the dynamics of Derby.

Basically, we are four miles by four miles in width and length.

We're not a very big town.

We're still somewhat a bedroom community.

Lots of families live in Derby.

Our population has grown to 26,000 and because of that we don't have a lot of industry.

We have some, but not a lot and we have quite a bit of businesses.

But a lot of those businesses are basically focus focused on taking care of the community.

So that's what makes us continue to be kind of a town with small town values and a small town feel is we're not.

When you drive into Hutchinson or Salina, you know, you start hitting industrial parts before you even get close to town.

We're not built like that.

And so that allows us to be a small town.

So that brings me to my next question then.

What are the things that matter most in life?

Matter most in life?

Well, that would be God and family for me.

Okay.

Those those are the two most important things to me.

Right.

But for the people of Derby.

For the people of Derby, yes.

We actually we did a survey asking in that question.

Their first thing on their survey was public safety, police and fire.

And we have absolutely wonderful police and fire organization and our public works department is absolutely wonderful.

I, like everybody, knows what firemen and and police do.

They don't really understand that the public works department are the people that are shoveling your streets at three in the morning.

They are the people that make sure that your water is on.

They are are the people that are making sure that your sewer works.

And so I consider them just as important to public safety as anyone else.

Okay.

So our mayor, let's now talk about you, your personal life, okay?

Your growing up days, where did you grow up, your childhood and what were you thinking of as a young boy growing up?

What what do you want to be in life?

You ask yourself, tell us that story.

Where I grew up in South Wichita, right near 31st Street, and K-15 is the area that I grew up.

I lived there since I was, I think, seven years old when we moved there.

And I finally moved out after Pam and I got married.

And as a young child growing up, we had a great neighborhood.

We had a a small field across the street where we played football and and baseball and everybody had a driveway and we shot baskets.

And my growing up was good, really was went to school this time when I was a senior, I met Pam my wife of 43 years and I ran off to K State for three and a half years.

And after that was over, I looked around and thought, the best thing in my life is my girlfriend.

And so we got married and started raising kids.

We have two daughters and a son and we're very proud of them.

They're doing really well and we are at eight grandkids and we got one on the way.

And Emily's surprises the other day when we walked in the house and there was a note to look in the oven and we looked in the oven and there was a bun in the oven, which means that we were having another grandbaby when we weren't expecting one, which was a lot of fun.

Well, congratulations.

Well, thanks.

Thank you.

So at what point did you decide to attend Cowley County Community College?

I did not finish my degree at Kansas State and so there came a point where it was time for me to go finish up my degree.

And Cowley County was right down the street.

So I enrolled for I needed to complete 15 hours in order to get a degree.

And that was why I was working at Boeing, which was even better because they paid for it in the tremendous program that they had.

And one of the classes they took was a computer class so my oldest daughter, and I was in the class together.

And the funny part about that is for years I was the keeper of the report cards.

You know, you always put your report cards home from school and dad had to look at them.

Well, everybody wanted to see Dad's report card when he was going to school, which was kind of fun.

And I did make straight A's, so.

Oh goodness.

Yeah.

I think that was a little frustrating for my son, but it was all right.

So when you were growing up, what were your aspirations?

What did you want to become?

What did you hope to become?

Was being a politician one of them?

I would say no.

I never even crossed my mind to be a politician.

I was always thinking that I would probably go into private business.

And of course you get married, you start having kids and you got to think about finances.

And so that got me the opportunity to go to work for Boeing, which was a wonderful company to work for, enjoyed my time working for Boeing, worked into management.

I love trying to help people have a good day.

And so that was my career at Boeing.

And of course then it became Spirit and I retired there three years ago.

So you worked at Boeing 35 years.

Yes.

And what was it that you picked up in your working and your skills at Boeing that propelled you into politics?

Boeing had a had several programs of wonderful and when I got into management at that particular time, they were really into promoting managers, taking classes and working on their skills presentations, working on their skills with leadership.

And so that really kind of got me started on getting the training that I needed.

And to this day, a lot of things that I have learned through that training, I applied to being the mayor of Derby, Kansas, problem solving, talking with people, communications.

That's all the training that I learned from being a Boeing manager.

After your two terms as mayor, what would you describe as your top accomplishments?

Well, I have a list.

Let me look at it.

Okay.

Some of the things that I really liked to my through my years of being the mayor is several years ago, we got to celebrate Derby turned 150.

Right.

That was.

That was I remember that.

We made books and we had landmarks, we did time capsules and it was wonderful.

I got to travel several times to different places Nashville, L.A., different types of organizations that are designed to teach you how to be a better mayor and share what other people are doing.

Grand openings have been a big thing.

Chick-Fil-A Hobby Lobby on my term and it doesn't have much to do with me.

It has to do with the leadership before me and the staff.

We opened up three parks Madison Avenue, Central Park, Warren, Riverview Park, Decarsky Park.

We built a new fire station.

Every year I get to nominate people for the Mayor Awards.

Excellent.

Which were one of my favorite thing to do is to recognize a citizen or a group or a couple on the on the contribution they have made to Derby, which is always a fun thing to do.

I already mentioned to you that I love McConnell.

I have a one liner.

Derby could not have a better neighbor.

Neighbor, the McConnell Air Force Base.

And I feel that way.

Several of us on the council are honorary commanders.

I'm one of that.

I'm honorary commander for the 931st Operations group, which is the Reserves, and they invite us out to different things.

I was at a change of command ceremony on Sunday, and they're just a special group of people.

And I absolutely love my involvement in McConnell and supporting them as a community and Derby does too, Derby loves McConnell.

Other things that have been really meaningful while I've been mayor is we went through four different STAR bond projects, which included the Field Station Dinosaurs, the Derby Sports Zone, which is the Sandbox now that is open, which is absolutely wonderful.

We have a couple other operations in work, the ROKC and the Crystal Lagoon over the next two phases of our STAR Bonds.

Those are really nice additions to Derby.

I love how Derby conducts so many studies.

We study everything, whether it be the West End study or the K-15 corridor or quiet zones or 2040 vision or Master Park plans.

I love that we're organized and that makes being a mayor a little easier.

Tell us about those studies.

What's been the most important one?

The last one has been the Master Park Plan.

We went and looked at every park we have and we have 34 parks in Derby and we looked at how we could improve them.

We looked at putting some splash pads into some of them and updating some of the older parks.

And that all comes through a good, solid study of what you have and where you want to go and what people want.

And we have some great opportunities in front of us.

So what is so unique about Derby in your mind that would want to make me move to Derby?

Several things.

First of all, is the quality of life we consider Derby to be a destination community.

And so you don't need to leave Derby if you want to go to the store, if you want to go out to eat or if you want to find some activities, we have I mentioned we have great parks.

We also have a great derby recreational center that has all kinds of activities for the kids.

We have one of the best librarie Derby has been blessed with different organizations that just give opportunities to people when they move to Derby.

The American Legion's.

They are.

They are a really good group.

They're really mission focused and take care of families and they do a wonderful job for us.

We have a water park that is wonderful.

People come from Wichita down to Derby to go to the water park, which I'm glad we have that for them.

Derby has a lot of special things in it and I think what really people really like about Derby is you don't have to go anywhere else.

Everything you need is right there.

Okay, Mayor, we do play a game on this program and, and I like to play one.

Okay, fire away.

Okay, I get my turn.

I take it.

In your dreams!

Okay.

Okay, I'll start a sentence and you finish it.

All right.

My greatest frustration is.

Negative people.

Why is that.

We all need to treat people fairly.

And sometimes people don't always act like that.

And I always try to act like that.

My favorite pastime is playing golf.

I played yesterday.

I'm playing tonight.

The proudest moment of my life was.

It's either marrying my wife or raising my three kids.

Which one?

All three of them.

I won't get in trouble.

Don't get me in trouble.

They are all doing well.

I'm proud of all three of them.

My favorite food is.

Oh, no, let's go with Mexican food.

Okay.

I had that for lunch, by the way.

So why Mexican food?

When you order Mexican food, you know, you can get all kinds of different food.

You can get-- It can come with steak or comes a shrimp or it can come it just a lot of different ways.

And so it's not like you're just in one category, you're in a full range of things that you can eat.

I like that.

My least favorite food is.

Well, I don't know if I have one.

I love to eat.

I like it all.

I wish that Kansas was...

Sometimes I wish it was, the weather was warmer.

It was a long, cold winter in Kansas.

I wish Kansas was closer to the ocean.

But the nice thing about Kansas, you're halfway to anywhere you want to go.

You want to go to the East Coast.

You want I go to the West Coast.

You want to go down to Texas?

You're about halfway there.

That is true.

I do love Texas.

By the way.

The final question in this game is, if I could change one thing about local government, it would be.

I don't think I have anything I would change for us.

We have a council of eight people.

I have a wonderful council.

We all are focused on doing what's good for Darby, no hidden agendas, and I like that a lot for me right now in the City of Derby with our local government, I wouldn't change a thing.

Any missed opportunities by the City of Derby in your mind?

I don't think we have missed many.

We got some great ones coming up.

We are talking about building a water treatment facility so we can start using the our own wells to help furnish the water to the citizens of Derby.

Currently, we buy all of our water from Wichita and we have worked out a deal with them where we're going to partner with them to supply a portion of our own water.

And that that's going to be a big thing for us.

That's going to give us the ability to say, like, if a water line breaks in Wichita, we can we can run on our own water, which be a great thing.

We're also going to make a big investment in our wastewater treatment facility.

And that's a big part of Derby's future, is make sure we can provide the services to the citizens that they need.

So a missed opportunity.

Any that you wish that you had, if you could reverse a decision and say, let's change that and make the decision for this project.

It's interesting you say that there has been a decision that I was involved in.

It had to do with the building apartments on the golf course.

I was dead set against it because that was not the original plan that we told people.

That did get passed.

And looking back, I play golf around those apartments every day and they're not hurting a thing.

So in the end, I think that turned out just fine, even though I feel bad when when we tell people one thing and you change your mind, I think that's a mistake and I'd like to avoid doing that in the future.

Mayor When one enters politics in the local community and he decides to wrap it up there, theres a next step for that person.

What is your next step in politics?

You have your eye on something.

Well, my next step is I want to take a break.

From what?

From politics for a couple of years, possibly get back on the council.

The part that is in I'm kind of regretting by not being the mayor is I became kind of the the wise old man, so to speak.

I know how we got here.

Ive got a pretty clear vision on what we need to do, and I would like to continue to share that.

And I hope to get opportunity to maybe in some capacity to do that.

I don't know exactly what that looks like, to be honest with you.

I have never really thought about access.

I did look into running for one of the House or Senate position at a state level, but I don't think that's my thing.

I really don't feel a calling to go do that.

And and the only reason I would do that if I thought I could really be effective and there are a lot of people that up there that are extremely effective and they're really, really good at that doing that.

I don't know if I could run in that league or not.

And so I have kind of... You never know until you try.

You never know til you try.

I have to tell you, being the mayor has been a growing experience for me.

And looking back, I have it has changed my life.

I do a lot of things different than I used to do.

And I'm I'm pleased with that.

I feel good about being the mayor of Derby, Kansas, and what I and what it personally meant to me to help people and support our staff and really to help the citizens of Derby.

So when is your last day as mayor?

It would be the end of the year.

End of the year.

What advice do you have for the next person who will take your seat as mayor of Derby?

Currently, there are three people that are signed up to be the next mayor of Derby, Kansas.

My advice would be have no agendas, just take care of the people that you work for and work with your staff and helping them get things done for the for the citizens.

Because, after all, that's what government should do.

Mayor Randy White, mayor of the Beautiful city of Derby.

Thank you.

Sir.

It's been my pleasure.

One on one.

All right.

This was easy.

Thanks for having me.

I make it easy.

You do make it easy.

Thank you.

And I'm glad you took the time to watch.

oneonone@kpts.org is our email address if you have a question or comment.

Until next time I'm Victor Hogstrom, be well and I'll see you again soon.