Overland Park ? When reading down the list of business icons that collect enough money to earn a place on the Fortune 500, there’s just one entry for the state of Kansas: Sprint Corp.

Not any more.

The telecommunications giant that made its mark for a long-distance network of buried wires that carried calls so clear you could “hear a pin drop” said Wednesday it was merging with Reston, Va.-based Nextel Communication Inc. and transforming itself into a company focused on wireless technology.

While Kansas is suffering the symbolic blow of losing its only Fortune 500 company, the feelings are likely intensified in the two-state Kansas City area. Sprint is based in suburban Overland Park. The Kansas City area has lost a series of big-name corporate headquarters in recent years, the bankrupt Farmland Industries Inc. among them.

The area still is home to Hallmark Cards Inc., the privately held purveyor of greeting cards and good feelings, and tax preparation giant H&R Block Inc., No. 449 on Fortune’s list. And there are several young firms undergoing rapid growth, medical software provide Cerner Corp. among them.

But only one could crack the iconic Fortune list anytime soon. In 2003, Denver’s Newmont Mining was No. 500 with $3.2 billion in annual revenue. Overland Park-based Yellow Roadway Corp. was just behind with $3 billion.

In the 45 years since Sprint settled in the Kansas City area, the company has become the region’s largest employer and a major part of the city’s business and civic life. Gary Forsee, Sprint’s chairman and chief executive and the new CEO of Sprint Nextel, said Wednesday the merged company would continue to support the community.

For example, he reiterated the company’s pledge this summer to pay up to $62 million for the naming rights to a downtown sports arena.

“You know my commitment to Kansas City personally,” said Forsee, who grew up in the area. “Sprint Nextel will be committed to our communities around the country and specifically to Kansas City and Washington.”

And although the new firm’s corporate headquarters will be in Nextel’s home of suburban Washington, thousands more employees of the combined companies will work at Sprint’s vast 200-acre campus in Overland Park. The campus will serve as Sprint Nextel’s operations headquarters, and will also house Sprint’s local telephone division, which serves customers in 18 states, after it is spun off into a separate company after the merger.

“Sprint has a huge investment in the campus,” said Doug Pritt, a former Sprint PCS president who now runs a startup technology company in Overland Park. “I think if this is an operating center, I would think the operating center would grow while the headquarters would shrink.”

Overland Park Mayor Ed Eilert said he didn’t care where the company had its mail delivered, so long as his city, which as suffered through years of layoffs at Sprint, is safe from a mass exodus.

“My first concern, my first priority was that the jobs stay in the community,” Eilert said.

Still, the symbolic loss stings.

Kansas City potentially lost a Fortune 500 company earlier this year when Interstate Bakeries Corp., the country’s largest wholesale baker with brands that include Hostess Twinkies and Wonder Bread, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company is trying to reorganize.

Farmland, at the time the nation’s largest farmer-owned cooperative, filed for bankruptcy in 2002. After attempting to reorganize, the company last year decided to sell off all of its assets, leaving empty a large headquarters building.

That building could become home, however, to one of the regions leading up-and-comers. Cerner, which boosted its revenues by 11 percent to $839.6 million in 2003, is working on a deal to take over the space as it expands from its North Kansas City base.

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Among other Kansas City companies that could one day crack the Fortune list: restaurant chain Applebee’s International Inc. and Garmin Ltd., a leader in the GPS device market. Movie theater chain AMC Entertainment Inc., another large area firm, is on the path to private ownership.

In the meantime, state officials aren’t eager to let Sprint go just yet. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius planned to speak with Forsee later Wednesday and confirm that Sprint Nextel’s corporate charter would be in Kansas, which might technically keep the state in the Fortune 500.

“It’s symbolic, if nothing else,” she said.