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For decades, hundreds of Missourians have traveled west each year to Manhattan, Kansas. There, in the Kansas State University College of Architecture and Design, they have contributed their intelligence and enthusiasm to the school as they learned the concepts, values and skills of the environmental design professions. Many of those "Show-Me State" residents became active members of the architecture, landscape architecture and interior architecture communities in Missouri and across the nation. Kansans flocked to Missouri where they prepared for careers in dentistry. By mutual agreement, each state treated the other's citizens as though they were residents. Missouri and Kansas had developed a long-term collaborative relationship which served the region remarkably well. Then, in the spring of 1987, a series of events led to a precipitous decision to terminate the reciprocal agreement.

Paul Duffendack, long active in the civic and professional life of Kansas City, was serving as 1987 President of the Missouri Council of Architects. A 1968 KSU architecture graduate, he had almost two decades of distinguished professional practice experience and was a founding principal of the acclaimed Kansas City, Missouri, firm CDFM/Architecture. He understood the importance of the reciprocal agreement in making professional education accessible and in contributing to the vitality of the design professions in Missouri, and he set to work to restore the agreement that had so long served so many so well. He marshaled the facts, forged alliances, called, wrote, visited, lobbied, cajoled. He endured repeated delays, cancelled meetings and disappointments, but he relentlessly persisted. And in the end, just days ago, a new reciprocal agreement was signed by the responsible Kansas and Missouri officials. Once again, Kansas State is Missouri's architecture and design school.

Because Paul Duffendack was resolute, because Paul Duffendack was wise, hundreds more Missourians will travel west each year to Manhattan, Kansas, and in time will contribute to the design of our physical environment.