2025 CGSI Conference Tours

Tuesday, October 28, 2025

This tour, via deluxe 56-passenger coach bus, will have a morning stop at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library & Museum in Independence, Missouri. The group will be led by CGSI member, Linda O’Brien. (As of May 1, 2025, a Real ID or a Passport will be required to enter the Truman Library, with no exceptions.)

A panel discussion, “Czechoslovakia and the Truman Years,” will begin the tour. The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Cecilia Rokusek, CEO of the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. Panelists include Dr. Sam Rushay, supervisory archivist and leading Truman scholar at the library; John Palka of Minneapolis, Minnesota, a two-time refugee from his Slovak homeland, and Michal Razus, of Prešov, Slovakia, a professional genealogical researcher and tour guide. 

Following the panel discussion, Terry Smitka, honorary consul of the Slovak Republic, based in Kansas City, will speak about Slovaks who settled in his native community of Sugar Creek, Missouri, and the Sugar Creek Historical Museum. 

The group will have two hours to tour the library and museum, and a boxed lunch will be served there. Each tour member will receive a locally made koláč. 

The afternoon stop of this tour will be at the World War I Museum and Monument in Kansas City, Missouri. 

The group will have about two and one-half hours to take a self-guided tour of the facilities. Those who wish to pay extra can visit the open-air observation deck for a breathtaking 360-degree view of the Kansas City skyline. Please be aware that the elevator will take you only part way to the top, with 45 stairs to access the deck.

Departure: DoubleTree Hotel—7:50 a.m. Return: DoubleTree Hotel—5:30 p.m. 
$75 per person includes a Windstar deluxe motor coach, guide fees, lunch, driver tip and admissions. 

Wednesday October 29, 2025

This tour, via deluxe 56-passenger coach bus, includes three stops beginning with the Midwest Genealogy Center (MGC), Independence, MO, one of the preeminent resources for family history in the US, providing access to almost three-quarters of a million on- site materials. The tour will be led by Czech Honorary Consul Sharon Valasek. The MGC stop will include a one-hour orientation of the facility and its collections and another 75 minutes to browse individual books or materials in the facility’s collection. You may also view kroje from the Baine/Cincebeaux Collection of Czech and Slovak Folk Dress.

Second stop will be at the Strawberry Hill Museum in Kansas City, KS. The museum, the former Cruise-Scroggs mansion and later an orphanage, has second-floor rooms with cultural artifacts and clothing worn by the ethnic groups that settled Kansas City, including Slovaks, Ukrainians, Poles, Croatians, and Slovenians. The Museum is accessible on level ground from the neighboring parking lot of St. John’s Catholic Club and includes a stair glide for those with difficulty navigating stairs from first to second floor.

A Slavic catered lunch will be served at the museum, including a salad and a cabbage roll, polish sausage and sauerkraut, German potato salad, green beans, and a roll. Dessert is a slice of povitica (Croatian fruit or nut bread).

Final stop will be the Strawberry Hill Povitica Baking Company in Merriam, Kansas, famous since 1903 for its Povitica Croatian pastries. The bakery makes Povitica in variety of flavors, including English Walnut, Poppyseed, Chocolate, and Strawberry Cream Cheese. Witness the production of these desserts (pending their production schedule), taste samples, and purchase their standard size Povitica loaves, or their smaller, more awesome Povi’s.

Departure: The DoubleTree Hotel—7:30 a.m. Return: The DoubleTree Hotel—5 p.m.
$80 per person includes Windstar deluxe motor coach, guide fees, lunch, driver tip, and admissions.