We will all miss Gypsy Claar

By SJ Otto

I first met Gypsy Claar (Tracy Elizabeth 'Gypsy' Claar/ her official name) some time after I began publishing my so call ‘counter culture newspaper’ called the Public Voice. I had modelled that paper off of a counter-culture newspaper called the Public Notice, in Lawrence, KS.

This was more than just a Marxist-Leninist newspaper. A lot of young Marxist-Leninist or socialist political activists don’t understand how it was to be a member of the 1960s-1970s counter-culture. For a while it was just a given that anyone who grew his hair long, wore “hippie clothes” or what we might call today “freak clothes” belong to a kind of counter-culture. It was mostly a cultural thing based on trendy ‘60s or ‘70s stuff. 

Not everyone who belonged to that counter culture movement was a leftists. In fact as time when on, for me, it was a shock to see how many right-wing “hippies” and “Freaks” there were around me.

But Gypsy worked with me and Tim Pouncey, who was as much a left-wing hippie as I am today. They (Tim and Gypsy) both worked on my newspaper, the Public Voice, with lots of articles and satire that was needed to defend the working class of Wichita and offend the right-wing ass holes we all fight against today.

I don’t know how many of my readers knew 'Gypsy' Claar. She was a political activist for the homeless. She was not as much a political person as she supported people’s human rights. And she was an old hippy, as some of us actually knew her and some of us actually are today. She died a little over a month ago. She was about 73. I knew her well and at one time she did some work for the old Public Voice Community News paper, of which I was the owner and Editor of.

I knew Gypsy from way back in the 1980s. I went to one of her parties in one of her ranch homes north of Wichita in the rural parts of Sedgwick County. It was one of the best parties I ever went to and I went there with my old friend Tim Pouncey. I also met up with her and her sister years ago when we lived in Hutchinson, KS.

I remember when she was taking journalist classes at Wichita State University. She did a lot of photography. Gypsy was a good friend. She got along with just about everyone she knew. She dated a few friends of mine. She will be missed by this community.

As her obit says:

“She is survived by: daughters, Elizabeth ‘Kathy’ Renner, Wichita, Christina ‘Teena’ Effenbeck, Mt. Hope, and Mariah Claar, Wichita; six grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

It is always difficult to loose an old friend, but we all have to die some time and at least she had a fairly long life, and she lived a life most of us would be proud to have lived.