By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Hoisington's Sofia Simic has the right pedigree to be one of the best high school volleyball players in Kansas. Her mother, Sarah, is a Hoisington-native who went on to play the sport at the University of Alabama. Sofia's six-foot-seven father, Milan, played college basketball at Stephen F. Austin in Texas.
But Sofia's road to Hoisington is one that stretches across centuries and an ocean. Her grandfather, Dragan, traveled from his home in Serbia to the United States for the first time just days before the Lady Cardinal volleyball team punched its ticket to state for the first time since 2018 last Saturday at the Activity Center.
"He was quite emotional when he watched her play the other day when she was hitting the ball and doing things," Milan said. "He was just overwhelmed by the feeling because he doesn't get to see her play, especially in a competitive setting like this one was."
The Simics have traveled to Serbia a few times to see Milan's parents, and Milan's mother spent a few years in Hoisington, helping Sarah raise Sofia and her two sisters. The families use technology like FaceTime to communicate, and Dragan has seen videos of Sofia playing volleyball, but nothing beat watching her play in person.
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"It was very beautiful and amazing," Dragan said in his native Serbian with Milan translating. "The entire team played really well and Sofia contributed significantly to bringing the win. I'm very proud of her."
Dragan has enjoyed his stay in Hoisington thus far, making quick friends with a group of shoppers at Town & Country Supermarket and enjoying a trip to Club 1 Fitness in Great Bend.
"The people are very kind here," he said. "They're very nice to one another and they have a very close-knit community. People are living for each other here. They're not strangers. When they meet each other, they say 'hi' and know who they are. It's not like living in a big city. That's what it's like where I come from."
Dragan is now a semi-retired farmer working some 50 acres of land in a village outside of Jagodina, Serbia, a city of nearly 35,000 in an area with nearly 65,000 inhabitants.
"The soil where we live, the land is very fertile," he said. "The climate is very good. It's not dry like here. There is a lot of rain that's come in. For the last few years, we've had plenty of rain and plenty of good things happening here. There are a lot of sunny days, as well. It's very similar to Kansas when it comes to geography."
While some family farms are selling into larger corporate farms, many of the farms around Jagodina are still self-sustaining. Dragan's property features a multitude of trees.
"The only thing we don't have is tropical fruits, but we have everything else from a continental climate - peaches, pears, apples, everything is there," he said. "The difference between here and Serbia, we are very diverse and multifunctional. We don't focus only on a single crop. We grow a lot of crops and also grow a lot of vegetables for personal reasons. We are pretty much self-sustainable that way."
Fruit from the trees not immediately used can be turned into other products, like brandy. Serbia's largest plum winery is just a mile from Dragan's farm. Other farms in the area are similar.
"Every household in the village is striving to have a wholesome, very diverse diet that comes in a traditional household," said Dragan. "We don't necessarily go to the grocery store to get our stuff. Everything is already there, from breads to milk, to eggs, vegetables, meats. All that stuff, we have it."
But it has not always been that way. Dragan says the Serbians wanted to be neutral during World Wars I and II. Instead, Allied countries supported partisans and communists who were fighting the Nazis. After WWII, the Nazis killed thousands of Serbian youth in retribution.
The end of the war gave rise to benevolent leaders like Josip Broz Tito, who served as prime minister and president of Yugoslavia and Serbia from 1943 until his death in 1980. Slobodan Milosevic, who was later convicted of war crimes, followed from 1989-1997. All the Serbians who wanted a democratic, multi-party government left the country. Those who remained had to chant their leader's name. Government-ran channels continuously praised the leaders.
Broz Tito died two years after Milan was born, but Milan still had to sing songs about the dictator several years later.
"That's why I think a lot of people need to be very thankful to be in this country, to share some of the democratic values, and to understand that, my kid going into an elementary school did not have to sing the songs and salute the benevolent leader who did not make any mistakes," said Milan. "He was basically acting like God in that country."
Milan was good enough at basketball to earn a Div. I scholarship at Stephen F. Austin in east Texas. He moved to the United States 29 years ago and has only returned to Serbia as a visitor. Milan and Sarah were living in the South upon graduating from their perspective universities. By chance, they met one weekend in New Orleans. They married and started a family. Sofia was just an elementary student with no volleyball experience when the family moved to Hoisington.
"After Hurricane Harvey happened in 2017, we came here because we did not like what was going on in Houston," he said. "It was borderline unsafe. Houston, in general, is unsafe, but we were just not feeling it so we came here."
Milan and Dragan are plenty optimistic about Serbia's future. Dragan said, without WWII, Serbia could today be as powerful as other European countries.
"If we were not the sacrificial lambs of WWII, today we would be on the same level with Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland," he said. "But we're getting there. I think we're going to get there again because we have some good leadership. There's a lot of potential and peace."
Milan, who has been a successful businessman in the United States and is now a dual-citizen, is thankful for what both countries have provided.
"That's what makes this country great are people who come from the rest of the world," he said. "Believe it or not, they support this system with more passion, more power, and more love, and they understand why this system is superior to any other system in the world because they come from a system where benevolent leaders lead, where there is a caste or class of people who are better, not based on merit, intelligence, or hard work, but just because they're born into a family. That's not the case in the United States. You can achieve a lot of great things in life just by working hard, being committed, exploiting your talents and building a business."