“Ad Astra Per Aspera” is Latin for “to the stars through difficulty.”

The founders of Kansas who chose that phrase as the official state motto must have suspected that the trials that had been part of the state’s entry into the Union wouldn’t be the last challenges faced by the 34th state.

On Saturday, Kansas will mark its 150th birthday. During those 150 years the state and those who call it home often have reached for the stars and built a proud heritage for Kansas.

Amid the pre-Civil War fight over slavery, the U.S. Senate rejected three constitutions to make Kansas a state before accepting the Wyandotte Constitution in 1861. By that time, southern states were beginning to secede from the Union and take their U.S. senators with them. According to information supplied by the Kansas State Historical Society, senators from Mississippi, Alabama and Florida withdrew from Congress on Jan. 21, 1861. The constitution bringing Kansas into the Union as a free state was approved later that same day.

Since then, the state often has taken a leading role in national affairs. The original Kansas Constitution included unusual provisions for the time giving women equal rights over their children and property. That provision led naturally to Kansas becoming the first state to give women the right to vote in municipal elections in 1887. Kansas elected the first woman mayor and first woman sheriff, as well as the first female U.S. senator elected in her own right without succeeding her husband, Nancy Landon Kassebaum.

Kansas has sent many notable leaders to Washington, including President Dwight D. Eisenhower and former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole. It has produced leaders in fields ranging from aviation to entertainment. It’s had its share of colorful characters like Carry Nation and John Brinkley, the “goat gland doctor.” It’s been home to astronauts, artists, actors, adventurers and astronomers. And don’t forget those in athletics, including Kansas transplants James Naismith and Forrest “Phog” Allen, who brought basketball to the state and nation.

Life hasn’t always been easy in Kansas. Pioneers settling across the state did battle with Mother Nature on a regular basis, living through the Dust Bowl and simply meeting the day-to-day challenges of living on the prairie. A number of Kansas communities have had to rise from the devastation caused by major tornadoes. All of the state has had to live with the tornado stigma immortalized in “The Wizard of Oz.”

Throughout it all, Kansas has persevered. Like most other states, Kansas now faces financial challenges that are forcing difficult political and philosophical decisions. The decisions government leaders make are guaranteed to make at least some Kansans unhappy.

At such a time, it’s good to remember that Kansas has faced challenges before and still found an ability to reach for the stars. On its 150th birthday, the state and its residents should celebrate the tenacity of a state that was founded amid turmoil and has produced a people full of talents ready and willing to address whatever difficulties history has to throw at us.

Happy birthday, Kansas!