Ethanol Pushers

Young says it took her a year to convince 10 friends and relatives to each pitch in $1,000. The group that eventually formed is called Tenth Degree Investments. In July, the plant sent $3.4 million in revenue to shareholders. Tenth Degree's investors each made $196. Young was delighted with her check. "I've got other thousands of dollars invested in other things where we didn't get that much out of it, so we were pleased," she says. Her other relatives say they wish they'd invested.

Last month, the plant's board sent out another round of dividend checks totaling $3.4 million. Each shareholder made $159. Investors have now earned back about a third of their initial outlay.

But energy experts caution that, given the rate at which newer, bigger ethanol plants are being built, the early success of Garnett's plant likely won't last. Garnett's is one of 105 ethanol production facilities across the country. Another 50 are under construction, including two in Kansas: a 12-million-gallon plant in Garden City and a 40-million-gallon facility in Pratt. And in August, an energy company from Omaha, Nebraska, announced plans for a 100 million-gallon ethanol plant in Dodge City.

In addition, ethanol's success depends heavily on government subsidies and on the price of gasoline remaining high. If subsidies end or the price of gas drops, the demand for ethanol will decrease. Critics also point out that fuel technology could make ethanol obsolete within a few years.

Young isn't worried about that. Part of the reason that she invested was because she recognized the names of the lead farmers and businessmen involved with the project — people she trusts. "If they're going to lose money, we're going to lose money. But if they're going to make money, we're going to make money, too," she says.

Suddenly, a siren slices the air. Garnett still has a noon whistle to tell farmers it's time for a break.

Yesterday's, the restaurant where the ethanol conversation started, no longer exists.

Brown paper covers the storefront's windows. The sign over the sidewalk still reads "Yesterday's," the letters surrounded by a checkerboard pattern and a silhouette of a sundae.

"Hasn't been open for months now," says a waitress at Maloan's, a restaurant across the square from Yesterday's. "Don't think things went too well for them."

A replica of the Statue of Liberty, about 25 feet tall, stands in the square in front of the courthouse. It's surrounded by a few newer-looking businesses, such as the H&R Block on one corner, and a dozen run-down-looking façades. Two thrift stores sell old clothes and records. There's a Chinese restaurant off the square; a business sells hearing aids out of a handsome building with "1892" painted in mint-green above the door.

Inside the cool, dim Trade Winds Bar and Grill, an elderly woman takes orders behind the bar from a handful of older men. A pool table sits in back, and keno machines await gamblers up front. In the middle of the room is a "Turkey Hunting USA" game with a neon-orange gun.

In one of the only occupied booths, four high school kids sip Cokes. The girls wear thick, black eyeliner. The boys wear Anderson County Junior/Senior High School T-shirts. They're all eager to leave Garnett.

"I want to get out of here as soon as possible," Chris Nungesser says. He and his brother, Cody, who sits next to him, are two of three 16-year-old triplets. They're juniors. The girls are senior Whitney Hughes, 17, and junior Tristan Lutz, 14.

None of them care about the ethanol plant. There's only one thing about the plant that affects teenagers here, Cody says. "It stinks, that's about it."

"I don't really notice it," Tristan says.

"You don't smell that funky smell every morning?" Cody asks her.

Chris says the place will eventually bring money to town.

"But not while we're here," Cody adds. "Ten years down the road, maybe."

By then, Cody says he'll be a construction foreman. Chris says he'll join the Air Force. Tristan says she wants to be a pediatrician. Whitney says she wants to get into "some sorta psychology." All of them say they'll live somewhere else — anywhere but Garnett.

At the counter, Donna Carr, one of the sisters who own this bar, says she didn't invest in the plant. "I thought I was too poor," she says. "It helped me out financially the year they were building it. There were lots of men in town who needed a place to eat and drink. They got in about Thanksgiving time two years ago. It's been a year since they left." Business soon returned to normal.

Business also appears to be slow at the Garnett Inn, Suites and RV Park — the place that everybody in town points to as a sign that ethanol has brought Garnett good fortune. A brand-new road leads to the inn. Inside, the air smells of sawdust. The 24-room lodge opened June 5.