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1993 Floods, Atheist & Agnostic Camp, Extraordinary Black Missourians

Alex Smith
/
KCUR

Twenty Years Later: A Look Back At The Floods Of 1993

Twenty years ago this summer, monsoon-like rains combined with unseasonably heavy snowfall and odd air pressure systems to cause massive flooding across nine Midwestern states. Forty-seven people  died. The deluge forced tens of thousands of people from their homes, inundated 75 towns, and destroyed millions of acres of farmland. Two decades later, we go back to visit some of the people and places affected by the floods, and talk about some of the changes brought on by the catastrophic weather.

Atheist And Agnostic Summer Camp Launches In Kansas City

Every summer, you can find camps around the area for young people interested in everything from pottery to ecology to modeling. And this year, there’s a new option - a secular summer camp with a focus on science and critical thinking.

Extraordinary Black Missourians

Written histories of Missouri often overlook the contributions of African Americans.  But a new book, Extraordinary Black Missourians: Pioneers, Leaders, Performers, Athletes and Other Notables Who’ve Made History attempts to fill in the gaps. The book includes stories about well-known Missourians like Tina Turner, Dred Scott, and Langston Hughes.  But St. Louis-based authors John and Sylvia Wright say that the untold stories of some little-known African Americans are most compelling.

Food Hubs Try To Grow Local Farms

A new kind of food hub is popping up across the country. These food processing and distribution centers make it easier for restaurants, grocery stores, and others to buy local food. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says there are more than 220 of them in 40 states, plus the District of Columbia.

Kansas City Creative Couples: Honig & Southerland

The work of iconic Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera is on display this summer at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.  Over the next month, inspired by Kahlo and Rivera, we’re going to profile a few of Kansas City’s creative couples on KC Currents.  We want to find out how two artists make a life together, and how their relationship influences their work. This first couple, Peregrine Honig and Mark Southerland, totally reject the idea that a relationship between artists should be full of conflict.  [NOTE: Photos of Honig and Southerland will be added to this post by Wednesday, July 24 - check back then!]

Sylvia Maria Gross is storytelling editor at KCUR 89.3. Reach her on Twitter @pubradiosly.
A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Susan admits that her “first love” was radio, being an avid listener since childhood. However, she spent much of her career in mental health, healthcare administration, and sports psychology (Susan holds a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Bloch School of Business at UMKC.) In the meantime, Wilson satisfied her journalistic cravings by doing public speaking, providing “expert” interviews for local television, and being a guest commentator/contributor to KPRS’s morning drive time show and the teen talk show “Generation Rap.”
As a health care reporter, I aim to empower my audience to take steps to improve health care and make informed decisions as consumers and voters. I tell human stories augmented with research and data to explain how our health care system works and sometimes fails us. Email me at alexs@kcur.org.
Every part of the present has been shaped by actions that took place in the past, but too often that context is left out. As a podcast producer for KCUR Studios and host of the podcast A People’s History of Kansas City, I aim to provide context, clarity, empathy and deeper, nuanced perspectives on how the events and people in the past have shaped our community today. In that role, and as an occasional announcer and reporter, I want to entertain, inform, make you think, expose something new and cultivate a deeper shared human connection about how the passage of time affects us all. Reach me at hogansm@kcur.org.
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