The Local Show presents a peek at this year’s performance of A Christmas Carol by the Kansas City Rep. For more than 30 years, the Rep’s holiday performance has delighted audiences and has become a family tradition for many. The show has been retooled this year to incorporate more ghostly effects. The Rep’s take on the Charles Dickens classic runs through December 26th.
Almost a year after they made their first splashy announcement, Google began construction last week on its long-awaited ultrafast Internet service. While the company says they’re now laying fiber in KCK, they declined to say which neighborhoods they would be working in. When they arrive, the one gigabit-per-second Internet connections will offer steady downloads about 100 times faster than most Americans can get in their homes with existing broadband services. In just a moment, we’ll get an update on the project from Mike Burke and Ray Daniels who are leading the Mayors’ Bi-State Google Innovation Team. But first, we wanted to show you how the Kauffman Foundation is now envisioning what a Google future might mean for Kansas City.
You didn’t get to see them pick up their Grammys during the big prime-time telecast over the weekend, but congratulations are in order for the Kansas City Chorale who snagged two Grammys in Sunday’s pre-show awards.
The Chorale’s 2012 album, “Life & Breath: Choral Works By René Clausen,” received Grammy Awards for Best Choral Performance and Best Engineered Classical record.
Here is a look at the big announcement:
Here’s more info about the winning album:
With another season of destructive storms having already begun, and the one year anniversary of the EF5 tornado that tore though Joplin, MO coming up on May 22, communities are on alert.
This Friday also marks five years since a devastating EF5 tornado leveled the small town of Greensburg, KS, destroying homes, businesses and lives- but not spirits. Even in the face of such a disaster and tragedy, a community bonded together and with bravery and resilience, and have worked to rebuild their town bigger and better through the use of innovative green technologies.
The Local Show screens a segment from the AARP’s television program, My Generation, which looks at how Greensburg has used green energy- recycled materials and renewable power sources – to rebuild itself and serve as an inspiring model for towns everywhere.
Local architecture firm BNIM and its Founding Principal Bob Berkebile are renowned as experts and pioneers in the sustainability and green design movement. Berkebile, a winner of the 2009 Heinz Award from Theresa Heinz and the Heinz Family Foundation for his role in promoting green building design and for his commitment and action towards restoring social, economic and environmental vitality to America’s communities through sustainable architecture and planning, sits down with Randy Mason to discuss lessons to be learned from places like Greensburg, KS and post-Katrina New Orleans, Kansas City’s Green Impact Zone, and the important benefits of green building design.
Author Gretchen Rubin was born and raised in Kansas City and three years ago, she hit the big time when her book The Happiness Project: Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun made the number one spot on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list. Rubin is now winding down what she calls her second happiness project. The book Happier At Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project, Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life.
Happier at Home is not another interior design book. In fact, she say she hates “house and homey” magazines. The Kansas City author who now resides in a Manhattan apartment shares her guide to domestic bliss with Local Show guest interviewer Kathy Quinn.
Today’s unemployment statistics continue to produce dismal numbers–disheartening figures especially for the nearly 14 million unemployed workers out there, some of whom have been out of work and searching for a job for over two years, as well as for those overworked and underpaid in their current job situations.
Often underestimated and overlooked is the mental health impact and toll this intractable job crisis has had on people suffering from the effects of unemployment. In conjunction with PBS’s Need to Know, a 30-minute PBS weekly news magazine, and its airing of a series of special broadcasts devoted exclusively to America’s job crisis, The Local Show is shining a light on local resources available for those who are struggling to get through this difficult time. Maureen Reintjes, a longtime area job club facilitator and founder of the Kansas City Metro Networking Job Club, and Dr. Mohsen Amiri, a psychiatrist with the Center of Behavioral Medicine, faculty at UMKC, a private practice, and part-time staff member at the KC Free Health Clinic, sit down with Nick Haines to discuss this crisis, what they are seeing first-hand, and what support resources are out there. Please join us for this important conversation.
As mental health resources become scarce and costly, and jobs continue to be elusive, it is vital that people know they are not alone in their struggles, that their worth is not diminished, and that there are places they can turn to for help during these tough times, and people to celebrate with when the statistics improve.
Local Resources:
Johnson County Community College Job Club
KC Metro Networking Job Club
KC Free Health Clinic
Catholic Charities of Kansas City
Though they have been in Kansas City for over 150 years, many people overlook The John Wornall House Museum and The Alexander Majors House when considering what to do with their free time. Executive Director Kandice Walker sat down with Nick Haines to give you some good reasons to reconsider. From ghost tours to touchable history, these historical homes just might surprise you.
Alexander Majors ran one of the country’s largest freighting companies from Kansas City, created the Pony Express, and gave “Buffalo Bill” Cody his first job. Perhaps no one did more to help shape the future of the American West and the commercial destiny of Kansas City than Alexander Majors.
In the westward expansion of the 1850s, his firm’s freighting operations were instrumental in bringing supplies to settlements from the Dakotas to Arizona. The prominence of Majors’ company attracted governmental and private shippers to Westport Landing, giving Kansas City a head start towards economic success.
Constructed in 1856, Majors’ 3,400 square foot ante-bellum home in Kansas City is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Restored in 1984, the home features original hardwood floors and millwork, as well as furnishings of the era. Also on the site are blacksmithing demonstrations, gardens, and displays of tools, wagons and carriages from the mid-1800s.
John Wornall was one of the more prosperous farmers in Jackson County. In 1860 he paid “State, County, State Interest and Asylum” tax on $18,500 and received a receipt for $114.85. The Kansas City Enquirer and Star listed him as one of the “Solid Men of Jackson County, “meaning one of those who paid taxes on $10,000 or more. The 1860 census shows that John Wornall had four slaves and two hired hands (Silas Dawson and Josiah Bassett). Family records indicate that a young Kentucky lawyer, John Peyton, lived on the farm as did Harris Manion, a sixteen-year-old orphan, and Mittie Pigg, a fourteen-year-old orphan from Kentucky.
John Wornall was a leading citizen in Jackson County. He was one of the original members and president (in 1856) of The Jackson County Agricultural and Mechanical Association. The association, founded in Independence in 1853, sought to encourage better methods of farming and introduce superior types of crops.
John was active in the Baptist Church, serving as treasurer and moderator of the Big Blue (later Westport) Baptist Church. He was also a strong supporter of William Jewell College and acted as chairman of its Board of Trustees.
In 1857, John Wornall and his brother-in-law, A. S. Johnson, became incorporators for the Shawnee Town Company of Johnson County, Kansas. This interest in real estate apparently continued, as a directory in 1867-68 listed his profession as such. In 1860, the Kansas City Enquirer and Star reported that southern sympathizers formed a temporary vigilance committee called the Westport Minute Men. John Wornall’s name headed the list; he also served on its examining committee.
John Wornall co-founded the Kansas City National Bank in 1870. That same year he was elected to the state senate representing Cass, Jackson, and Bates counties. He served four years before declining re-nomination.
The Wornalls were representative of the southern migration to western Missouri, but they were not the “average” farm family. The average farmer at this time had between 80 and 100 acres of land. John Wornall met with almost unfailing success in western Missouri.
John Wornall’s choice of design for his new house expressed many desires. Perhaps it spoke of his determination to civilize the frontier by evoking images of a more settled Kentucky. Perhaps the house was a tangible expression of his position in the community, for Greek columns and pediments were symbolic of aristocratic leadership in a slave society. Wornall’s new house was also evidence of his financial stability; many men in the Kansas City area built brick homes when they could afford them. But Wornall’s house went beyond providing shelter for his family. Wiley Britton, a young man hired to help build the brick farmhouse, recalled that Wornall had been living in a substantial frame house but desired to build “the most pretentious house in that section.” Wornall chose the site of his new showplace carefully—it was two hundred feet away from the main road that lead south from Westport and headed toward the Santa Fe trail. Passers-by could not help but think that the man living in this landmark house with 25 ft columns was successful.
The limestone for the foundation, fireplaces and door and window lintels was quarried on the farm. Wornall provided a large root cellar under the kitchen, but the rest of the house stands on an 18-inch foundation. Receipts for materials for this house and others like it show that Wornall probably spent $2,055.65 in materials and $2, 450.04 in labor, for a total cost of $4,505.69. The house was completed in 1858.
The Wornall House hosted a reenactment of a Civil War hospital and The Local Show was there to capture the event. The Battle of Westport is often called the Gettysburg of the West, and was one of the largest battles west of the Mississippi. Thirty thousand troops entered the fray, with roughly 1500 casualties on each side. The John Wornall House exchanged hands from army to army many times that day. Today, you can visit the historic home and museum and see a bit of living history for yourself…..
On, October 23, 1866 Union forces under Major General Samuel R. Curtis defeated an outnumbered Confederate force under Major General Sterling Price. The battle had moved southward to Mine Creek, Kansas, and onto Arkansas. Once and for all, Missouri was under Union Control.
Back near Westport, the homes and farms surrounding the battlefield were strewn with the debris of the conflict, including the bodies of injured and dying men. Homes became hospitals and make-shift morgues. At the John Wornall House, the sounds of men groaning in pain or screaming in agony can still be heard 150 years later…
Welcome to Season Three of The Local Show. This week, the arts are where we turn our attention, in part because tomorrow night we get the rare chance to share Kansas City with the entire country on the PBS Arts Summer Festival. The program is called Homecoming: The Kansas City Symphony presents Joyce DiDonato.
DiDonato is an amazing singer who still makes her home in Kansas City, even though she’s a star on stages around the world. In fact, she won the Grammy for Best Opera performance last year. As you’ll see, she’s a big fan of her hometown and of the symphony as it has developed under the guidance of music director Michael Stern. Homecoming: The Kansas City Symphony presents Joyce DiDonato will air on Friday, July 20 at 9 p.m. on KCPT.
Randy Mason talks with both of them about the TV special and more, as well as with Paula Kerger, the president of PBS. But first, we want to share a behind-the-scenes peek at the Kauffman Center festivities in a piece we call Homecoming 101.
This Sunday night at 5:30, KCPT airs the documentary Veterans Day 11-11-11. A nationwide “day in the life” exploration of what it means to be a military veteran in this country.
More than 40 accomplished video storytellers volunteered their time and talent to produce a series of profiles about the service shared by veterans and the sacrifices that they have made.
Every story in the movie was shot on Veterans Day 2011 thus the title 11.11.11.
One of those stories was made by local filmmaker Jason Rhodes who profiles the service of area veteran, retired Colonel Robert Dudley. His story will be seen by the nation Sunday.
There’s also another regional tie-in in this national documentary. Did you know that Emporia, Kansas actually lays claim to being the birthplace of Veterans Day?
That story is also told in Sunday’s film. Producer Pat Holloway, a photojournalist at Fox4 news, journeyed to Emporia to chronicle the town’s Veteran’s Day celebrations.
It is not very often that a Mayor’s race hinges on what’s going to happen to the local hospital.
That is exactly what happened last week in North Kansas City. For over a year, the city has been in a legal, legislative and public relations battle with North Kansas City Hospital over the hospital’s future.
This fight between the city and the hospital has been expensive. So far, both sides say they have spent almost a million and a half dollars on lawyers. And while the new Mayor, Don Stielow, ran on a platform of saving the hospital, we don’t know what the rest of the council will do.
Also, the city recently added eight members to the hospital’s board of trustees and we don’t know what they’re going to do either. It’s a good bet this is going to be bogged down in the courts for some time.
Who really owns it? Why are residents so upset? And more importantly, will it be sold to a for-profit hospital chain? KCPT special correspondent Sam Zeff has been digging into those thorny questions.
