Sometimes on The Local Show, we are able to share stories about something fun that you might not hear about otherwise. This week, Randy Mason and Don the Camera Guy Mayberger went downtown to tell just such a tale as we introduce you to Sketch Artist Trey Bryan.
Jazz can be found at the Hotel Phillips on Thursday through Saturday nights. You never know whether the “illustrator in residence” will be there for sure, but some of Trey Bryan’s paintings are on display.
How do you stop offenders from re-offending, especially those who have a history of drug and alcohol addictions and often times have a history of mental illness? In Johnson County, the sheriff’s department, which runs the county’s jail, has been working on an innovative project to try and reduce the recidivism rate. They call it the Second Chance/Reentry Program. With 1 in 6 of their inmates diagnosed with mental health conditions, they’re working on a federal grant to try and change the way they do business. And as we discovered in this report by KCPT Producer Sean Holmes, they are seeing some results. We will be featuring a report about the Mental Health Collaboration Program in an upcoming episode of The Local Show.
The mission of communityworks, inc. is to assist individuals of all abilities to live, work and play in the community. Twenty years ago, Janet Williams founded communityworks, inc. to help traumatic brain injury patients get back to their community rather than into an assisted living facility. Nick Haines welcomes her to The Local Show to discuss the rewards and challenges of achieving her mission.
How much thought do you give to the design of your local library? When is the last time you even went to your local library? Worried about declining attendance, the Mid-Continent Public Library system is reinventing what your neighborhood library looks like and offers.
At its newest branch called Woodneath, near fast growing Liberty, an 1850′s historic home is being re-purposed as a writing lab and self publishing center for the future JK Rowlings. The house is just part of the new project. Library director Steve Potter took Nick Haines on a hard hat tour of the library which is scheduled to open this summer.
We begin this week with a question: Which is the largest institution of higher education in our bi-state area? Is it KU or MU? You might be surprised to learn that it’s actually neither.
With more than 50,000 students enrolled in credit and continuing education classes each semester, Johnson County Community College is now the largest institution of higher education in either Kansas or Missouri.
And after 5 years at the helm, JCCC’s President Terry Calaway has announced he is retiring. Along with increased enrollment, Calaway is credited with bringing a lot of novel programs to JCCC which is consistently ranked as one of the best community colleges in the country.
People no doubt have heard about the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art which was added during his watch, but the college is also getting national attention for its culinary program which will open its own culinary academy and innovative demonstration kitchen next year. Dr Calaway sat down for a conversation with Nick Haines.
Where in the world am I? Apparently, many students in the United States have no idea.
In a 2006 Roper survey, it was found that students in the U.S. fail to understand their world and their place in it. Of Americans aged 18 to 24, seventy percent could not find Iran or Israel on a map. Nine in ten couldn’t find Afghanistan on a map of Asia. And 54 percent were unaware that Sudan is a country in Africa.
The 2002 project also surveyed 18- to 24-year-olds in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Sweden, and Great Britain. The U.S. trailed every other country in that survey, except Mexico, which did only slightly worse. Even for U.S. geography, the survey results are just as dismal. Half could not find New York State on a map of the United States. A third of the respondents could not find Louisiana, and 48 percent couldn’t locate Mississippi on a map of the United States, even though Hurricane Katrina put these southeastern states in the spotlight in 2005. About 11 percent of young citizens of the U.S. couldn’t even locate the U.S. on a map. The Pacific Ocean’s location was a mystery to 29 percent; Japan, to 58 percent; France, to 65 percent; and the United Kingdom, to 69 percent.
In order to spark interest in the subject, National Geographic hosts the National Geographic Bee to encourage teachers to include geography in their classrooms, spark student interest in the subject, and increase public awareness about geography. Schools with students in grades four through eight are eligible for this entertaining and challenging test of geographic knowledge.
This month marks the 25th anniversary of the National Geographic Bee, a nation-wide geography competition in Washington, D.C. for students in 4th through 8th grade. In that quarter century, about two percent of the competitors are girls and only two girls have won the $25,000 first prize scholarship. Education reporter Lindsey Foat sat down with two local finalists Prani Nalluri and Aviral Misra.
The National Geographic Bee will be shown on KCPT the day after the competition, Friday, May 24 at 1 p.m.
In May, Mark Zieman resigned as publisher of the Kansas City Star as he was plucked to fill a slot in the bigger management structure of the McClatchy newspaper empire.
The question….who would replace him as head of our metro’s largest news operation? Which white grey suited male would they turn to to fill the job of publisher?
Au contraire. The job would go to someone totally different…young, vibrant, hip and for the first time in the Star’s history…a woman.
Mia Parrish officially took over as publisher of the Kansas City Star in late June. Prior coming to Kansas City, she had been publisher of the company’s Idaho Statesman newspaper in Boise.
She previously held reporting and editing posts in newsrooms from Virginia to California including stops at the San Francisco Chronicle, Arizona Republic and the Chicago Sun-Times. Nick Haines got a chance to sit down with her this week on The Local Show.
Union Station has been bringing in a lot of traveling exhibits over the last couple of years. You experienced the doomed ocean liner Titanic this summer, earlier it was the blockbuster Diana exhibit. Then of course we’ve had the Dead Sea Scrolls and who can forget Bodies Revealed? What all of these exhibits have in common though is that they all came from somewhere else, first.
Well Union Station’s latest offering has never been seen anywhere else before. Starting this week, Kansas City’s historic attraction brings you the world premiere of the “Science of Rock ‘n’ Roll” – a fresh look at the history of rock from the perspective of science and technology.
Now through May, you’ll be able to see how music has shaped the tools of rock–and how those tools have changed the music. And before you ask if you will just be reading and looking, rest assured that there’s a whole bunch of playing, strumming, and getting in touch with your inner rockstar.
This week, you might say the theme is school, or what we do when it finally lets out for the summer!
We’ll start by introducing you to a new charter school that lots of us are just beginning to learn about–The Crossroads Academy. Sponsored by the University of Central Missouri, it is wrapping up its first year in operation, offering grades K-5. Eventually, they’ll expand to K-8.
Despite the name, you won’t find it in the Crossroads. This school that embraces what they term 21st Century Learning is actually smack dab in the middle of downtown.
Crossroads Academy, by the way, defines the boundaries of downtown for its student body as the Missouri River to Linwood, State Line to Woodland. Classes for next year, including the addition of 6th grade classes, are already filled up. There is currently a waiting list.
Coverage of downtown stories provided in part by the Downtown Council of Kansas City.
The Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce has made Growing Kansas City’s Medical Research, From Discovery to Cure one of its Big 5 Ideas for the metro. We’ve been tracking what that actually means on this program with chamber and civic leaders over the last several months. This week, we perhaps put the most human face on the issue as we show you how patients from as far away as New Zealand are now heading to Kansas City to take advantage of some of the cutting edge research and clinical trials now going on in our own backyard. Producer Rich Miller takes us inside KU Med’s Clinical Research Center in Fairway, Kansas for a closer look.
