App offers free visit to local waterpark

Jun. 21—Barton County has joined the Sunflower Summer lineup offered by Kansas Tourism and that means people can use an app for one free family visit to the Wetlands Waterpark at Great Bend.

Christina Hayes with the Great Bend Convention and Visitors Bureau said three facilities in or around Great Bend are part of it.

"This is an app that anyone who has Kansas (school-age) children can download. You can enroll your kids and you can go to any of these attractions in the state of Kansas. The three that we have our Kansas Wetlands Education Center, the Great Bend Brit Spaugh Zoo and our Wetlands Waterpark.

"Seems kind of crazy that we would have two free facilities there. However, if people use the app and they show the app at the front desk, our free places benefit as well."

The main purpose of the app is to promote tourism in the state, so "hopefully it will welcome a lot of people outside Great Bend to come to Great Bend," she continued. "Our visitation online has tripled — actually quadrupled for our waterpark. There are a lot of people that are looking to come to town and that's exciting."

Learn more about Sunflower Summer online at sunflowersummer.org or download the app for Apple or Android cellphones.

The program continues through Aug. 11 and features more than 220 places. Other area attractions include the Ellinwood Tunnels, Geneseo City Museum, Rush County Historical Society, Stafford County Museum, Pawnee Rock State Historic Site, Coronado Quivira Museum in Lyons and Hedrick's Exotic Animal Farm and Bed & Breakfast Inn in Nickerson.