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Finding Family for Foster Children: Extreme Recruitment

We share the story of Demaje, a boy who was trapped in the foster care system but was recently reunited with his family thanks to the Midwest Foster Care and Adoption Association's Extreme Recruitment program.

More than half a million children are currently trapped in the foster care system.
Being removed from a home and placed in foster care is a difficult and stressful experience for any child. Many of these children have suffered some form of serious abuse or neglect.

The Midwest Foster Care and Adoption Association based in Independence is going to some extraordinary lengths, including hiring private investigators, to try and locate family members who might be willing to adopt a hard to place child who might otherwise languish for years in the foster care system.

They call their program “Extreme Recruitment” and last year they found homes for 22 foster children, including a home for 10-year-old Demaje, whose mother abandoned him in Kansas City. In January, Demaje’s uncle was awarded temporary custody by Jackson County Family Court. Demaje has returned to his family in California.

The Midwest Foster Care and Adoption Association says they hope to find homes for forty children this year as part of their extreme recruitment program.

That segment was produced by Bryan Shepard at LINC, a KCPT partner organization which works to improve the lives of children and families in the Kansas City region.

Tags: The Local Show, TLS322

Fine Art Frosting: James David Christie Debuts KCPA’s Casavant Pipe Organ

Six months after the opening of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, one of its most potent acoustic features has yet to be fully appreciated. That is until now.

We begin this week by introducing you to the newly installed musical centerpiece inside Helzberg Hall. A pipe organ considered one of the finest concert instruments in the country.

Crafted in the French romantic tradition, it features close to 6,000 pipes, 79 stops and 102 ranks.

It was built by Casavant, the 125 year old French-Canadian Firm, a company renowned for quality organs that have stood the test of time.

Tags: Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Music, TLS222

A Fond Farewell: The Lyric Opera’s Evan Luskin

He has led Kansas City’s foremost opera company for the past 25 years…now he is exiting the stage.

Evan Luskin has announced that he is retiring as general director of the Lyric Opera…just as the company prepares to move to its new performance space at the Kauffman Center For The Performing Arts. Luskin, the Company’s general director since 1998, will be retiring on June 30, 2012. Mr. Luskin’s retirement will come at the conclusion of the Lyric’s first year of residence in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, which will open this fall.

A lifelong fan of opera, Mr. Luskin received an MBA with a specialization in Arts Management in 1977 from the State University of New York at Binghamton. He then served as Assistant Director of the Tulsa Opera from 1977 to 1979, Managing Director of the Chattanooga Opera from 1979 to 1982, and Vice President for Finance and Administration of Michigan Opera Theatre from 1982 until coming to Kansas City in 1986. Mr. Luskin joined the Lyric on June 1, 1986 as its managing director, and became general director in 1998. He is looking forward to spending more time with his wife Andrea and his grand children in Topeka and Washington, D.C. He also plans to become involved in volunteer activities with children, take up the piano after a hiatus of many years, and travel.

The Lyric Opera of Kansas City was founded in 1958 by Russell Patterson. In 54 years the Company has produced numerous works including 3 world premiere operas. In the fall of 1998, the Company began performing operas in the original language, a tradition which continues today with all operas being performed in the original language with English subtitles.

On November 4, 2010 the Lyric Opera of Kansas City announced a capital campaign for the renovation of property on 18th and Charlotte in the Kansas City Crossroads Arts District for its new Opera Center.

The Opera Center complex will consist of two buildings: a Production Arts building and an Administrative building with set rental inventory storage. The Production Arts building will include a rehearsal space that will match the footprint of the stage of the Muriel Kauffman Theatre at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. The Production Arts building also will house a full wig, costume and set construction shop and facilities for educational and community outreach programs. Such an integrated and dedicated production facility does not exist in Kansas City; the Company envisions the Production Arts building becoming a resource for other local performing arts companies.

The second building on the property will be adjacent to the Production Arts building. It would provide the Company with set rental inventory storage, parking lots and outside green spaces for the Opera Center, and house the administrative staff.

In the summer of 2011, the production and administrative offices of the Lyric Opera will be moving from its home of 40 years at the Lyric Theatre to a temporary home in downtown Kansas City at 1616 Broadway. The production and administrative offices will move to the headquarters on 18th Street when construction is completed in 2012.

Opera lovers can be fans of the Lyric Opera of Kansas City on Facebook or follow us @kcopera on Twitter.

Tags: Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Music, Opera, The Local Show

Forever In Flight: The Roasterie’s DC-3

A new landmark landed on the Kansas City skyline last week. Producer Justin Bond shows you these images of a full-sized vintage DC-3 airplane now permanently mounted on top of the Roasterie Coffee Company just east of Southwest Boulevard on 27th Street. The plane, built in 1943, was used in the Berlin airlift and according to the company would still work today if you just put the engines back in. The DC-3 has been part of The Roasterie’s logo since the local company was founded in 1993.

Tags: The Local Show, TLS306

Fostering Entrepreneurial Spirit: Blue Valley School District’s CAPS Program

Recently on the Local Show, we asked where the Garmins and the Cerners of the future would come from? We took you inside the Blue Valley School District’s 12 million dollar CAPS (Center for Advanced Professional Studies) building where the next generation of engineers and life science researchers are getting a head start while still in high school.

Believe it or not, students in the CAPS program have also created dozens of businesses and products…everything from rechargeable cell phones to a prosthetic knee brace. When the Chamber of Commerce talks about making Kansas City America’s most entrepreneurial city, is this where the next generation will come from?

Lead funding of KCPT’S reporting of education issues is funded in part by a generous grant from the Kauffman Foundation and additional civic funders.

Tags: Education, Johnson County, Science, Technology, The Local Show, TLS321

Fostering Independence: The Whole Person

The Whole Person has been a local leader in representing people with disabilities. They’re also engaged in dozens of direct services that allow thousands of people with disabilities, all across the metro, to lead independent lifestyles.

If you are disabled and living in Kansas City, chances are good you know all about The Whole Person. The nonprofit agency started in 1978 at a time when the rights of the disabled to hold jobs and gain access to public buildings were poorly protected.

Their early achievements included helping persuade the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority to equip new buses with wheelchair lifts and improve physical access to polling places.

For more than 30 years, The Whole Person has been a local leader in representing people with disabilities. As you’re about to see in this profile from producer Rich Miller, they’re also engaged in dozens of direct services that allow thousands of people with disabilities, all across the metro, to lead independent lifestyles.

The Whole Person provides a variety of community-based, consumer-driven services to people with disabilities to promote consumer control and choice of services, self-direction, empowerment, independence, self reliance, self help, self advocacy and integration into the community. Services provided by The Whole Person emphasizes peer relationships and peer role models. The Whole Person services are offered without charge to all persons with significant disabilities.

Tags: Local Nonprofits, The Local Show, TLS216

Fright Sites: Haunted Houses in the West Bottoms

Producer Sandy Woodson takes us behind the scenes of the company that runs the haunted houses in the West Bottoms.

When it comes to Halloween, Kansas City’s West Bottoms could arguably be described as “scare central” in our metro.

Home to four haunted houses, including one of the largest in the country, these West Bottoms locations are big business for Full Moon Productions, which runs these scream factories.

According to Forbes magazine, they generate 2 million dollars in revenue in the 30 working days leading up to Halloween, selling tickets at 25 dollars a pop.

Producer Sandy Woodson shows us more about the family company that got its start, believe it or not, four decades ago doing summer theater in the Lake of the Ozarks and was simply looking for something else to do for the rest of the year to help pay the bills.

And by the way, one of the attractions at the Edge of Hell has just slithered its way into the Guinness Book of World Records. Medusa, the 25 foot, 2 inch long python coiled inside the cavernous 38-year-old haunted house, has just been named the longest snake ever in captivity.

Tags: The Local Show, TLS308

From Bedside to Boardroom: Dr. Estes & St. Luke’s Health System

For 15 years, Rich Hastings led one of Kansas City's largest health care systems. Last fall, he officially retired. Now St. Luke's is under new leadership. Melinda Estes is getting to know her way around the 11 hospitals that make up the St. Luke's Healthcare System. She's with us on The Local Show.

Last September, Saint Luke’s Health System welcomed Dr. Melinda Estes as its new president and CEO. Dr. Estes was previously president and CEO of Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, VT and brings with her to Kansas City extensive experience leading hospital systems, a strong academic and research background, and the personal and professional experience of having been a physician herself, practicing neurology and neuropathology. Estes sits down with Nick Haines to talk about discovering Kansas City’s many assets, leading Saint Luke’s 11-hospital system, Saint Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City’s recent expansion, and the new state-of-the-art facility for St. Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute. The new expansion and Mid America Heart Institute, designed with the patient in mind, celebrated its grand opening in mid-October and debuted such amenities as more comfortable patient rooms, a rooftop garden, a larger and improved dining area featuring menu items from popular Kansas City restaurants and electronic kiosks throughout the hospital that provide information and directions to visitors. Estes also discusses St. Luke’s long-standing connection with the Kansas City community and the need to provide high quality care in order to be successful.

Tags: Medicine, The Local Show, TLS226

From Concrete Jungle to Tallgrass Prairie: Paul Dorrell and Paseo Academy Art Students

Paul Dorrell of the Leopold Gallery and a group of Paseo Academy students went on a journey to the Flint Hills to learn the positive power of art. Producer Sean Holmes documented the trip from grassland to gallery.

Travel with us now to the Flint Hills of Kansas. Producer Sean Holmes recently joined Paul Dorrell of the Leopold Gallery in Brookside and a group of Paseo Academy student artists on a journey of creative inspiration.

Tags: Arts, Education, The Local Show, TLS304

Future Innovators of America: Blue Valley School District’s CAPS Program

Rich Miller takes us inside Blue Valley School Districts innovative CAPS program in part one of this two part feature.

Where will the next Garmin and Cerner of the world come from?

Growing entrepreneurs starts young. In the Blue Valley School District, it is starting in an innovative $12.5 million building where the next generation of entrepreneurs, engineers and life science researchers are getting a head start while still in high school.

It’s called the Center for Advanced Professional Studies or CAPS. While many high school biology students are learning about DNA from textbooks, there are teens here actually extracting it from the saliva glands of fruit fly larva.

More than 500 Blue Valley juniors and seniors are getting this opportunity in a program that’s fast getting national attention Producer Rich Miller takes us inside in the first of two parts about this program.

Believe it or not students in the CAPS program have also created dozens of businesses and products…everything from rechargeable cell phones to a prosthetic knee brace.

Some of these teenagers even have patents on their products. Next week on the Local Show, we meet some of those enterprising students.

Lead funding of KCPT’S reporting of education issues is funded in part by a generous grant from the Kauffman Foundation and additional civic funders.

Tags: Education, Johnson County, Science, Technology, The Local Show, TLS318

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