For Harris, having enjoyable is critical enterprise

For many in Great Bend, the face of Sunflower Diversified Services is a person who hardly ever “turns it off,” even when he’s off the clock. Whether he’s balancing a brush on his face to make individuals snicker or carrying a pocketful of raffle tickets to a neighborhood gathering, Cody Harris has develop into synonymous with the group he serves.

Harris, recognized for his “can-do” angle and his lack of ability to remain quiet in a library, was named the 2025 NextGen Leader of the Year by the Great Bend Chamber of Commerce. He joined Business of the Year Stueder Contractors Inc., Citizen of the Year Nancy Sundahl and Legacy Award recipient Mark Calcara as an honoree through the chamber’s 104th annual awards banquet Saturday, Feb. 28, on the Great Bend Events Center.

“He has a personality to him,” his spouse, Maggie, mentioned. “He likes to be, you know, kind of in the spotlight in a serious capacity. He likes to have a good time while he’s doing the work that matters, and make sure other people have a good time too.”

Sonya Rein, who nominated Harris for the award, mentioned he “puts the ‘fun’ into fundraising” and is a frontrunner at all times prepared to attempt new issues.

Harris serves because the director of deliberate giving and neighborhood help at Sunflower Diversified Services, the place his major focus is fundraising and public relations, in addition to neighborhood employment for the purchasers. It is a task, he says brings him immense pleasure, notably “seeing their faces when they get hired.”

Beyond his skilled work, Harris is a fixture within the Great Bend neighborhood. He is serving his third time period as a chamber ambassador, is president of the Noon Lions Club, spends his free time teaching youth sports activities for the Great Bend Recreation Commission and is presently serving on the board for the Great Bend Zoological Society

The NextGen Leader of the Year Award acknowledges younger professionals who display distinctive management, imaginative and prescient and a beneficiant neighborhood spirit. Harris, a self-described “man of many obscure talents” together with juggling, exemplifies the excessive customary of social duty the award seeks to honor.

Harris’ journey to management started in Deerfield, a small city 20 miles west of Garden City, the place he was born and raised. While finding out at Fort Hays State University, Harris took a job as a major caretaker for a person with an mental incapacity. The two turned shut mates, navigating the quiet rhythms of day by day life collectively, from grocery procuring to physician’s appointments.

That expertise, coupled with having a sister who additionally has an mental incapacity, solidified his calling. In 2013, Harris moved to Great Bend and married Maggie. He began at Sunflower as a direct-care supplier, working his means by job steering into his present function as a lead fundraiser.

He has since modernized the group’s outreach, introducing the annual Turkey Trot and a biennial automobile raffle alongside staple occasions just like the pancake feed and the annual gala. A big a part of his mission entails advocating for grownup purchasers, a gaggle that always sees much less donor curiosity than youngsters’s applications. Maggie mentioned her husband is pushed by a want to offer these people with a life as near “normal” as attainable.

“He’s a very outgoing person and a leader by nature, I think, but he’s really jumped into that in the last several years,” she mentioned. “He probably would not say he’s a leader by nature, but I think most people around him would disagree with that. His personality just comes out when he’s speaking to a room, especially if he’s passionate about the topic.”

That ardour extends past the partitions of Sunflower. Despite being “implants” in Great Bend – Maggie initially hails from Dodge City – the couple has made a deliberate effort to embed themselves in the neighborhood. They attend occasions and actions and say they don’t perceive those that declare “there is nothing to do in Great Bend.”

Maggie famous that her husband’s visibility is a strategic effort to make sure Sunflower is seen in a constructive gentle and to point out that the group offers again as a lot because it receives. He is thought for his fast help of different native nonprofits, fostering a spirit of neighborhood reciprocation.

Even his private type displays a mixture of critical advocacy and lighthearted showmanship. While he as soon as carried out backflips to entertain crowds, his spouse not too long ago inspired him to retire that exact trick. “I said, ‘You’re over 30 now, you can stop,’” she joked.

Still, his dedication to the mission stays high-energy. Whether he’s in a proper assembly or an informal dialog, Harris isn’t seen with out a means for neighborhood members to get entangled.

“Everyone says, ‘he’s Sunflower.’ He’s the guy that everybody knows,” Maggie mentioned. “He never stops, he never turns it off. He wants to make sure people understand the work that Sunflower does and support it as much as he can.”

His life has come full circle not too long ago. His mom, who nonetheless lives in Deerfield, determined to maneuver his sister to Great Bend so she will be able to benefit from the companies supplied by Sunflower.