ShawneeDispatch.com

Margaret Amos

A look around Shawnee Town 1929 — which draws thousands of visitors each year during Old Shawnee Days — reveals a number of achievements Margaret Amos had a hand in.

She helped the effort to move the historic Hart farmhouse from 75th Street and Quivira Road to Shawnee Town, her daughter Amy Ruo said. She helped save and rebuild the jail and helped stock the undertaker’s parlor with museum pieces. When Shawnee Town Hall was under construction, she helped supply meals for the workers.

“She has been involved with Old Shawnee Days since its beginning,” Ruo said.

In honor of those efforts and others Amos, 81, was chosen as grand marshal of this year’s Old Shawnee Days Parade.

Beyond Old Shawnee Days, Amos’ contributions to the community including helping to create the Shawnee Arts Council’s Kansas Art to You program and serving as a Shawnee Chamber of Commerce ambassador.

In the business community, Ruo said, Amos was a vital part of the Amos Family Funeral Home since marrying into the family in 1953, promoting Shawnee and its downtown “wherever she went.”

Chamber president Linda Leeper, who nominated Amos for grand marshal, said she could think of few in the community more deserving of the honor.

“Whenever a need has arisen and the call goes out, Margaret has always been one of the first in line to help,” Leeper wrote, emphasizing that Amos also was among the founding members of Old Shawnee Days more than 40 years ago. “What a great opportunity to honor an individual who played an important role in creating this event that has evolved into the grand celebration that we have today.”

Amos’ other daughter, Joni Pflumm, said her most vivid memories of her mother’s work for Old Shawnee Days almost always involved her father, Gene Amos, who died in 2009.

As a pair, she said, the two were a staple of Shawnee Town and the annual festival that calls the site home.

“Mom was always by Dad’s side, whether it was up in the undertaker’s parlor when they would give tours during Old Shawnee Days or whether it was riding on the old-time hearse with Dad in the Old Shawnee Days parade,” Pflumm said. “It was always a team effort.”

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