Our Compromise: Rock, Kansas : It’s about halfway between New York and L.A.--and we’ve checked it out for Grammys ‘94!

L. A. vs. N.Y.

The Big Orange against the Big Apple.

Riots and earthquakes or muggings and sleet storms.

Isn’t this annual battle between the East Coast and West Coast entertainment capitals over the Grammy ceremony getting a little tiresome?

We think so--and to end the bickering, we have a proposal: Rock, Kan.

Yes, Rock, Kan.

It’s a small burg about 40 miles southeast of Wichita on Highway 77, with a population of about 100, maybe. Everyone we asked had the same description for the place--”a post office and a grain elevator.”

Why Rock? Glad you asked.

To find a compromise location for the Grammys, we opened an atlas, took a ruler and tried to find the midpoint between New York and Los Angeles.

That landed us in the general area of Wichita--and a myriad of small towns. Looking through all the little black dots, we found Rock-- excellent !

So, we turned to the phone book to find the area code (316) and dialed information to get the number for the mayor of Rock.

Alas, there is no mayor.

A town council?

No council.

Any town offices?

The only official number the operator could find was the emergency fire line, so she suggested we talk to someone in the Cowley County seat of Winfield, a city of about 15,000, some 10 miles from Rock.

There we found Gayla Eaglin, the administrative assistant at the Winfield Chamber of Commerce, who was a fount of information. She, in turn, suggested we talk to two of Rock’s leading citizens: Ednamerle Cody, the postmaster for the area, and Milton Bowman, a local farmer.

Cody, 46, sounded excited about our idea of having the Grammys roll into Rock next February, especially since that’ll put the ceremony well past tornado season.

She says the town folk love music and would go all out to make the 5,000 or so visitors welcome. She also noted that the town’s name has recently drawn the attention of rock ‘n’ roll fans . . . they’ve been sending her letters with Elvis stamps to get a Rock postmark.

But she was stumped when asked where the awards show might be held. “We only have one community building,” she said, referring to the former school gym--and it only seats 200.

Then it was to Bowman, who offered to rent the Grammy folks one of his wheat fields--and since he’s got 160 acres, there’d be plenty of room to hoist a tent. Bowman, 62, wouldn’t quote us a price, but you can be sure it would be far less than Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium or New York’s Radio City Music Hall.

“We could do that, if somebody else would clean it up after you’re through,” said Bowman.

“I’m not sure what we’d do for security,” Bowman said, anticipating the influx of stars and tourists. “There’s no police department here. But it’s a great place to live. We don’t have too many drive-by shootings. And if something happens, we all pitch in and help.”

There is one potential problem with the field, though, Bowman said. “It’s muddy here now, about knee deep.”

We suggested that maybe we could get heaters to dry the ground.

“You could use blow dryers,” Bowman said with a little laugh.

We pointed out that, indeed, the Grammys would be attended by numerous big-haired popsters toting blow dryers.

But, Bowman warned, “they’ll need long extension cords.”

Visualize this scene for Feb. 23, 1994, the night of the 36th annual Grammy Awards.

The show opens with Glen Campbell singing “Wichita Lineman,” his Top 5 hit from 1968.

Then the Who reunites for “Long Live Rock,” and special awards are given to the groups Kansas and Toto as the Price Waterhouse accountants make their always-anticipated appearance by descending in an Ozian balloon.

Maybe we could even coax Johnny Carson, a native of neighboring Nebraska, out of retirement to serve as host of the show. Tisha Fein, the coordinating producer of the Grammy Awards show, thinks Rock’s a great location.

“I’ve been to Kansas,” she says. “They have great barbecue sauce, and that would be a big attraction. And most rock stars want to find Oz anyway. We’d have a big tent party--it’d be like Woodstock IV. And we could add a tornado to our special effects.”

But what about logistics?

Getting There: Strother Field airport is available for charter flights of aircraft as big as 737s and is just a 45-minute drive from Rock--less time than it takes to get from LAX to the Shrine during rush hour. Most celebrities and executives will probably choose to fly in through Wichita.

One hitch is that there’s only one limo company in the area, Sterling Limos of nearby Arkansas City--and they only have one limo. Co-owner Jean Wadlinger says that their car holds five adults--but that doesn’t account for room needed for a rock star’s ego.

Fein doesn’t think it would be a problem. “We could get everybody in harvesters and horse-drawn carriages,” she says. “It’s good for them. The stars don’t mind roughing it. There’s only problems if one star has amenities that the others don’t.”

Where to Stay: Rock resident Bowman says that the local folks would probably be happy to put up Grammy attendees, but there are only about 30 homes there, and that wouldn’t even take care of the production staff.

Winfield is the only sizable town near Rock, and it has just three hotels and a bed and breakfast with a total of 75 rooms. Eaglin of the Winfield Chamber of Commerce, though, says that a 50-room Comfort Inn is set to open next month by the town’s new golf course. Everyone else will have to stay in Wichita.

Media Alert: Kelly Polzin-Porter, sales manager of Winfield country radio station KSOK-AM (1280) and its sister station, oldies-rock WKS-FM (108), has already volunteered to help with hookups for news broadcasts.

“We’d love to be co-sponsors,” she says. “We’d do live coverage, give promotional announcements on both radio stations, do live interviews with the stars.”

Polzin-Porter says that the area is actually fairly used to big music events.

Winfield hosts the annual Walnut Valley Bluegrass Festival, which draws about 10,000 people each September. The event’s producers could even help in staging the Grammy program.

Winfield also is the site of the Cowley County Fair in late summer--this year the musical star of the event will be country singer John Conlee.

Sponsorship: Besides the radio stations, a possible co-sponsor would be the Winfield Wal-Mart, the music center of Cowley County.

“We are the only place to buy tapes and CDs around here,” says Leroy Nally, manager of the store’s music and electronics department. The current top seller, Nally reports, is Whitney Houston’s soundtrack from “The Bodyguard,” a sure bet for a bushel of 1994 Grammy nominations.

“Country is our biggest thing, but we also sell a lot of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and the new AC/DC live set. And, in jazz, Kenny G sells real well.”

Other sponsorship possibilities: Rubbermaid, GE and Hallmark’s Binney and Smith Crayola subsidiary--three Fortune 500 companies with facilities in Winfield. They may not be able to match the New York business underwriting of Grammy events, but they’d certainly do better than L.A.’s disinterested corporate community.

The Grammy people might also want to hook up with Winfield’s state hospital for the severely disabled as a site and beneficiary for a MusiCares fund-raiser--especially since state budget cuts threaten to close the hospital, the area’s major employer.

Food: Polzin-Porter offered to have KSOK and WKS provide hors d’oeuvres, but most of the catering would probably have to come from Wichita. So record companies planning gala parties after the event should get out the Yellow Pages and start dialing now.

Some questions remain.

How will Rock rate with rockers--not to mention the rappers and pop, country, jazz, soul and classical artists who, after all, are the raison d’etre for the Grammys?

And what will the L.A. and New York Grammy committees have to say?

We checked with some musicians and they seemed agreeable.

“I’d be open to the idea of going to Kansas, especially after last year in New York (when) we waited an hour and a half in the freezing rain for a limo that was tied up in traffic,” said country singer Travis Tritt. “But what are the chances of them agreeing to change the name of the town to Country-Rock?”

Many of the musicians have probably even motored through Rock in the comfort of a luxury tour bus, but it’s not likely that many have actually stopped there.

Toto member Mike Porcaro said that the prospect of going to Kansas is “bittersweet” for the group.

“We’ve kinda been fighting this association with the state of Kansas--people think we’re from there just because of our name,” said Porcaro, noting that Toto has never actually played in the state. “But I’d love to go to Rock, Kan., just to play out the connection we have with the area.”

Phil Ehart, drummer and founding member of the band Kansas, which originated in Topeka, would be proud to be part of a Grammy event honoring the state. “We’ve never even been nominated for a Grammy,” he said. “But being from Kansas, that should make us a shoo-in if it’s held there. Maybe we could help with logistics. Catering would be tough. They don’t have any alfalfa sprouts, no tofu, no flavored mineral water. You’re talking American meat and potatoes.”

As for the Grammy committees, the notion of the show moving to Rock didn’t exactly stir fear.

“While Kansas may have its Rock and L.A. may have its roll, we New Yorkers nevertheless believe that the Big Apple is the best place to pay honor to the Grammy winners,” said Dwight Langhum, assistant press secretary to New York Mayor David Dinkins.

Los Angeles chairman Irving Azoff shrugged off the threat of Rock as a new rival. “The field is already getting crowded,” he said. “Atlanta is making a strong bid for ‘96, its Olympic year.”

We can’t promise that everyone in Rock will welcome the stampede of big-city folks for the Grammys. So, just in case, we’ve got something that is a sure-fire guarantee to open any door in town: Garth Brooks.

It seems that everyone in Rock and Winfield wanted to see Brooks when he played at the Kansas Coliseum in Wichita last summer but no one we talked to was able to get a ticket because all 12,000 sold out so quickly.

“My kids went to stand in line to get tickets for Garth in the rain, but they sold out before they made it,” said Marcia Thiel, Cowley County register of deeds. “I really wanted to go. Everyone who did get tickets said it was really something to see.”