Joe Boyter and his wife, Iree, were newlyweds when they came to Medicine Lodge in
   the fall of 1947 to check on the purchase of a tire recapping business here. The
   "business" consisted of a few pieces of used recapping equipment stacked in a tiny
   building located across the alley west of the First National Bank on Kansas Avenue.
   Although only 21 years old, Joe already had several years experience in the tire 
   business, working in his father's tire shop in Dodge City, and was a veteran of two
   years service in the Navy as a yeoman on a minesweeper, the USS Reform, in the
   South Pacific during World War II. He was eager to get on with the business of 
   making his fortune. The tire business seemed a good way to do it, and Medicine Lodge
   was the place to start. In order to finance their venture, Joe and Iree traded their
   pride and joy, a maroon 1941 Studebaker coupe with two jumpseats in the back, for
   the recapping equipment, borrowed $200 from Iree's parents for "operating capital,"
   and with optimism born of youthful enthusiasm and ignorance Boyter's O.K. Rubber
   Welders (now Boyter Tire, Inc.) opened for business.
      Business was not booming. Over the years, while Joe was gradually building the
   tire store from a fledgling non-profit organization into a profitble business, Iree
   worked as a legal secretary to supplement the family income, and they have both
   been active in the life of the community. Joe served ten years on the City Council,
   and Iree was elected to two terms on the Council, one of the first women elected to
   the City's governing body. Iree has been active in the work of the Church of Christ;
   and Joe, an avid golfer, is an enthusiastic supporter of the Medicine Lodge Golf
   Association.
      They Boyters have two sons, Mark and Lane, both of whom live in Medicine Lodge
   and are associated with Joe in the family tire business, and one daughter, Joree,
   who lives in Pratt. Mark married Marilyn Voss of Pratt, and they have two children,
   Katrina and Matthew. Lane married Jacque Johnson of Wichita.
      That decision made in 1947 to make Medicine Lodge their home is one that the
   Boyters have never regretted. One pleasant summer evening years ago, the family
   was sitting in the cool grass of their front yard watching the lights one by one
   gegin to twinkle on in the surrounding houses as the darkness enveloped the town,
   when their youngest son suddenly exclaimed "Oh, I don't ever want to move from
   here! This is the best place in the whole world!" Those words spoken in childish
   enthusiasm that summer night still express the Boyters' feeling about Medicine
   Lodge; for them it is the best place in the whole world.
               
     Source:Chosen Land - Barber County, Kansas,  pg. 112