Kay, There’s Something You Should Know About Pumpkin Center

When Kay Barnes made her big announcement yesterday that she’s running for Congress, she made it crystal clear that she’s trying to tap into her small-town roots.

She made her announcement in her hometown of St. Joseph while standing in front of her mother’s home, with four generations of her family nearby. According to a statement on her Web site, the former Kansas City mayor said: “I never forgot I was a daughter of St. Joseph, and its values were never far from my mind.” Then, according to the site, she said she couldn’t wait to visit “communities in which our family, the Cronkites and Morfords, have roots, and they include, of course, my hometown of St. Joseph, plus Albany and Oregon, and Skidmore and Maitland and my favorite, Pumpkin Center, where my mother was born.”

Wait. What?