NYTimes | In
national politics, playing in Charles Koch’s arena can mean saturation
advertising against vulnerable Democrats, calls for tax cuts, demands to
roll back government regulation and bitter clashes over climate change.
Here in the windswept hometown of the Koch family and Koch Industries, playing in Charles Koch Arena means something else entirely.
“I
would be hard-pressed to find two things that are more important to
this community than Koch Industries and Shocker basketball,” said Gregg
Marshall, coach of the Wichita State University men’s team, which packs
the arena, a house that Mr. Koch restored with his donations. “They put a
nice chunk of change into this building.”
Welcome to Kochville, where the family name conjures up something
decidedly different from the specter raised by Democrats of secretive
political operations funded by tens of millions of dollars in anonymous
campaign money. For many living here in Wichita along the Arkansas
River, it stands instead for well-paying jobs, extensive philanthropy
like the $6 million for the arena renovation, and Kansas pride in being
the headquarters of Koch Industries, the nation’s second-largest
privately held company, which produces oil, fertilizer and common
household items.
Outside
of Kochville, the brothers Charles and David Koch, whose worth is
estimated at more than $50 billion each, are ready villains. Senator
Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, the majority leader, regularly skewers
them on the Senate floor. Others have proposed a constitutional
amendment aimed at diluting their influence. The two are even the
subject of an updated documentary titled “Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014
Edition.”
But
the charged atmosphere surrounding the Kochs elsewhere dissipates
markedly in the city where their father, Fred Koch, started his business
in 1925, even though the positive sentiment toward the Kochs is hardly
universally shared.
