Thursday, May 16, students participating in the Martha Speaks Reading Buddies Program at Holliday Montessori enjoyed a well deserved treat.  A pizza party was held in their honor for successful completion of the reading program.   Martha Speaks Reading Buddies Program is a 10-session literacy program pairing Big Buddies and Little Buddies to encourage reading and learning new words.  The program at Holliday Montessori was made possible through the generous support of George K. Baum & Company.  When asked about the Martha Speaks program, Karen May, Principal at Holliday, said “the teachers and students are loving the program.  It is a bigger hit than I ever imagined.”  Kelsey Schmidt, a Big Buddy teacher at Holliday, also stated “My students, Big Buddies, are big fans of the program, and I have heard rave reviews from the Little Buddies as well.  It is a time of friendship and learning that the kids don’t even view as work.  They have been completely engaged with the materials and refer to the vocabulary or themes often outside of the program.  My Big Buddies have taken more and more ownership each week of their responsibilities and have grown in relationship with their Little Buddies.”  Providing the Martha Speaks Reading Buddies Program to schools such as Holliday also creates an opportunity to head one step in the right direction towards the Mayor’s Turn the Page KC initiative focusing on increased reading proficiency.

On this episode: CandyCam uses robotics to build the next big thing in filmmaking; a profile of Launch KC described by Mayor Sly James as “the place where IT start-ups take off;” and Manifesto: The Rieger Hotel Grill & Exchange takes on an unique flair on cocktails and dining.

Bank of America Celebration at the Station airs Sunday, May 26, 2013 at 8pm. Located at Kansas City’s Union Station, music by the Kansas City Symphony with Michael Stern, music director. This year featuring Oleta Adams, Musicorps, with Jim Birdsall, host and Charles Bruffy, chorus director.

Bank of America Celebration at the Station is the largest FREE Memorial Day Weekend event in the Midwest. The Kansas City Symphony, led by Music Director Michael Stern, performs patriotic favorites against the backdrop of Kansas City’s historic Union Station. The event concludes with the most blazing fireworks display of the year! The Kansas City Symphony is grateful to Bank of America for making this gift to our city possible.

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THIS WEEK: Friday, May 17, 2013 @ 7:30 pm
(Rebroadcast Sunday @ 11 am )
Photo Credit: Gawker.Com

TERMINAL MAKEOVERS: You’ve been listening for months now to the debate over whether Kansas City should change the design of KCI airport from a three terminal to a one-terminal design. Well what’s been the experience in other cities that have splashed out lots of money on new airport makeovers? This week the Kansas City Star examined that issue and in every comparable city they examined, passenger traffic is down and so are aircraft departures.

CURFEW STALLED: Have plans for a 9pm year-round teen curfew in Kansas City fizzled out? A vote on the measure was delayed yet again at City Hall this week.

KCMO SCHOOL TAKEOVER: Missouri lawmakers this week drop on to the Governor’s desk legislation allowing an immediate takeover of the Kansas City, MO district. Will Governor Nixon sign the measure in to law? And what impact will it have on the beleaguered district?

GORDON PARKS: The parents of more than 200 elementary school children at a Kansas City charter school are forced to a find a new place to educate their kids this week. The Missouri State Department of Education is shutting down Gordon Parks Elementary School after 13 years due to low test scores.

LOCKED IN BASEMENT: The Jackson County Prosecutor’s office this week charge a local couple with keeping their 9-year-old girl locked in the basement for months because she lacked bladder control. Authorities say the 9 year old was sleeping on a mostly deflated air mattress near an exposed sewage pipe. An interior door leading to the basement was secured by a lock and chain and had been outfitted with an alarm that sounded when the door was opened.

AMTRAK: Is Kansas City about to lose its Amtrak rail service to St. Louis? The twice-a-day train is in jeopardy according to a story this week in the Kansas City Star. The issue taxpayers spend $1.5 billion a year to subsidize passenger train travel, and the federal government — weary of a four-decade effort to keep the company afloat — wants to move more of Amtrak’s costs onto states and riders. At a cost of $9,600 per ride to operate the train, Missouri taxpayers would be on the hook for $8.5 million a year.

LIBERTY HOSPITAL LAYS OFF 129 EMPLOYEES, BLAMES OBAMACARE: 129 workers at Liberty Hospital are getting their pink slips. They are being eliminated this week as part of an effort to reduce expenses by $20 million. Devastated employees including nurses and some senior managers left the hospital in tears after being told to collect their belongings.

GOOGLE EVERYWHERE: Gladstone, Grandview, Raytown, Shawnee, Olathe. Plus, Austin, TX and Provo, UT. The list keeps growing by the week. Are leaders in KCK and KCMO feeling they’ve lost their specialness now that the internet giant is inking “special” deals with all these other cities?

THIS WEEK’S NEWS REVIEWERS:

Lynn Horsley
Kansas City Star

Sam Zeff
KCPT Special Correspondent

Mary Sanchez
Kansas City Star

Dave Helling
Kansas City Star

May is Melanoma Awareness Month. This week, we present the live, hour-long special: More Than Skin Deep. Dermatologists and medical experts will be available to answer questions both on air and in our KCPT Phonebank. More Than Skin Deep is the informative, engaging and emotional story of skin cancer in America as told by patients, families, doctors, researchers, nurses, advocates and educators.

There will be more cases of skin cancer diagnosed in the United States this year than all other cancers combined. Kansas and Missouri have two of the 10 highest state death rates from melanoma, according to a 2010 EPA study.

On this special edition of The Local Show, KCPT partners with the producers of the national public television documentary, More Than Skin Deep, to tell the story of skin cancer. During this one-hour special you’ll also have a chance to speak to area dermatologists in the KCPT phonebank to address your own medical concerns. And we’ll take your calls with a panel of medical experts live on the air.

Joining Nick Haines in the studio:

Dr. Gary Doolittle M.D.
University of Kansas Cancer Center

Dr. Glenn Goldstein M.D.
Dermatology & Skin Cancer Center

Kelly Klover
Outpacing Melanoma Foundation, Founder

From Baldwin City, KS to Carrollton, MO students from all over our region put their pencils, makers, crayons, and creativity to paper for the 2013 KCPT PBS Kids GO! Writers Contest. Young authors in kindergarten through third grade mailed their illustrated stories to KCPT this spring.  Last week, judges from local libraries, and children’s literacy experts read and gave points to each story based on its creativity, story structure, and illustrations. The top three stories from each grade will receive special PBS Kids GO! Writers Contest goodies, and the first place winner from each grade will have their story submitted the national contest.

Kindergarten

1st Place – The Best Snowman Ever by Ben LaCroix

2nd Place – The Baby Fox by Adele Van Lieshout

3rd Place – Mom Says by Isabelle Connealy

First Grade

1st Place – The Tale of the Talking Snake by Charlotte Tigchelaar

2nd Place – The Car by Max Ramirez

Second Grade

1st Place – Cleverina’s Fairy Adventure by Gracelynn Xia

2nd Place – Peas, Please by Ava George

3rd Place – An’s Adventure by Isaac LaCroix

Third Grade

1st Place – Where is Fish? by Avery Rahe

2nd Place – Blue the Fly by Kristeen Copeland

3rd Place – Abaloneville by Akerth Jain

KCPT held the exclusive Meet and Greet with the Tenors on May 10, 2013.  Following their sold-out performance at the Midland by AMC, the guys spent over an hour meeting and interacting with KCPT supporters.  ”Thank you” to everyone who donated to public television to secure their spot at this exclusive event.

Click HERE to download your photo.  Share it on Facebook, or download it and print a copy for yourself.  Just remind everyone why YOU support public television!

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THIS WEEK: Friday, May 10, 2013 @ 7:30 pm
(Rebroadcast Sunday @ 11 am )
Photo Credit: KansasCity.Com

CLEVELAND ABDUCTION TO KC CLOSET: The Cleveland abduction case in which three women were locked away for a decade before being finally liberated this week brings with it questions about how this can happen, for so long, without anyone noticing? But they happen more often than we care to acknowledge. Just this past week, the files on a 10 year-old Kansas City girl locked in a closet for years are finally released by the state. The files reveal how a whole community including neighbors, school and social service workers missed repeated opportunities to rescue the girl who was forced to live in her own urine and feces. The 10 year-old known as LP weighed just 26 pounds, the size many babies reach at 18 months.

OTTAWA HOMICIDES: Sometimes citizens aren’t willing to take no for an answer and are willing to press forward with their gut feelings. In Ottawa, KS this week, it took the relentless pursuit of friends and not the police to uncover what ultimately turned out to be a triple homicide. This ongoing crime story has brought with it a number of bigger public policy questions including controversy over when law enforcement should trigger an Amber Alert.

MISSOURI PASSES FIRST INCOME TAX REDUCTIONS IN 90 YEARS: Big cuts in corporate and personal income tax rates are sent to the Governor’s desk. Missouri lawmakers also approve a new 50% deduction in business income reported on individual tax returns. The tax cut could reduce state revenue by an estimated $700 million a year. Is the move simply a game of catch-up with Kansas? And will the Governor sign the cuts into law?

SHOULD TEACHERS BE GRADED ON A YEARLY BASIS AND THOSE THAT FAIL BE FIRED? Wealthy St. Louis businessman Rex Sinquefield is actively pushing a statewide measure that would do just that after an effort in the Missouri legislature to impose yearly evaluations on teachers narrowly fails. The bill would have assigned teachers one of four ratings: highly effective, effective, minimally effective or ineffective. At least 33% of the evaluation would be based on the academic achievement and growth of students.

SHOCKINGLY LARGE PROPERTY APPRAISALS DROP INTO MAILBOXES: In Jackson County, some of those home appraisals were 5 times as high as last year’s. The Kansas City Star reported on one resident who saw her 3-bedroom home on the rolls at $48,000 last year be appraised at $229,000 this year. Roughly 70,000 Jackson County residents are getting the new appraisals delivered through their mailboxes this week.

THIS WEEK’S NEWS REVIEWERS:

Stacey Cameron
KCTV5

Mary Sanchez
Kansas City Star

Scott Parks
KMBZ 98.1 FM

Dave Helling
Kansas City Star

Deadline in Disaster – 8pm
A community newspaper helps its town find hope in the aftermath of the EF5-tornado that nearly destroyed Joplin, Missouri, on May 22, 2011. The Joplin Globe rolled the presses the night of the storm and hasn’t missed a beat since: continuing long hours, enduring difficult working conditions, and uncovering stories from the disaster.

Heartland: Portrait of Survival – 9pm
Heartland is a heartfelt portrait of the people who survived the EF5-tornado and a tribute to the lives who were lost in Joplin, Missouri, on May 22, 2011. Amateur footage, home videos, news broadcasts, police dispatch transmissions, and interviews are woven into an inspiring narrative.