Category: People

Raúl Munguia likens his job to that of a magician. When the spotlight is hot, a paying audience is in their seats and his wand is primed and ready, it’s time for a show. “It’s the job of the conductor to manage the magic on stage,” said Munguia, the...

Jenny Sands Revitz Soper always wanted to live in a big house. That was pretty much the entire premise for the adventure she has undertaken in the last year. It began in July 2018, during a visit to Independence to clear out the home of her late parents, Bud...

Polka Party Polka tradition lives on through Johnnie Zibert Band & Big Brutus’ Polka Fest On a late summer evening each year, Johnnie Joe Zibert lugs his 30-pound accordion beneath the towering shadow of Big Brutus – and he puts on a show. His fingers flying, Johnnie plays dozens...

Welcome to The Lavender Patch Fort Scott family farm features 1,000+ lavender plants When you enter Davin and Betsy Reichard’s home, you can’t miss it: that familiar, unmistakable scent of lavender. It’s inevitable. The Reichards are surrounded by lavender, from the hundreds of lavender plants that are blooming just...

Fall in Love at Summit Hill Gardens There’s just something about Summit Hill. It captivated Patsy Smeed from the very beginning. She moved there – one acre of land south of Chanute, the site of an old one-room schoolhouse – more than 40 years ago with her late husband...

Shaw’s Story Galesburg innovator’s legacy lives on in Southeast Kansas – and across the country Everyone who knew him says Stanley Wilbur Shaw was an inventor by nature. At age 8, in the late 1880s, he assembled his first bicycle, using the wheels from his dad’s cultivator (come corn...

Art is Ageless Art competition for seniors emphasizes creativity and encouragement Aggie Keesling, 89, has taken up painting just in the last several years. She’s teaching herself, experimenting with colors, learning from trial and error. She even paints over old canvases multiple times so she doesn’t have to drive...

Glorious Glass ChaGlaz Designs in Glass wows with one-of-a-kind glasswork Keith Wilson examines three handmade marbles in his Parsons garage-turned-art studio, twirling them in his hand as their colors and sparkly dichroic glass catch the light. “These are absolutely one of a kind,” he says. “I’ll never be able...

Barn Quilts They’re popping up all across SEK these days, thanks to a fundraiser in Woodson County Woodson County might be one of the newest members of the Flint Hills Barn Quilt Trail, but you wouldn’t guess it. Just a year after it launched, the Woodson County Barn Quilt...

Fab Lab ICC Turning ideas into creative solutions, one project at a time Of all things, Wes Koschke needed to make a hand. And a fully functional one, at that – for 13-year-old Kara Marr, who was born with a condition called symbrachydactyly, leaving her right palm with no...