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S3 Episode 1: Montella Wimbley, Wichita

Montella Wimbley owns Profiles Beauty and Barber Salon in Wichita, Kansas.
Brian Grimmett
/
Kansas News Service
Montella Wimbley owns Profiles Beauty and Barber Salon in Wichita, Kansas.

Hair has been quite the topic during the coronavirus. For the first episode of My Fellow Kansans: People and the Pandemic, we spoke with a salon owner.

Montella Wimbley has owned a combination salon and barber shop in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Wichita for 34 years.

When Kansas shut business down, she had to put down her trimmers and pick up the phone — over and over again, taking weeks to get through to someone at the state’s beleaguered unemployment agency.

When Wimbley was allowed to reopen for her loyal customers, she also opened up to My Fellow Kansans.

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I seek to find and tell interesting stories about how our environment shapes and impacts us. Climate change is a growing threat to all Kansans, both urban and rural, and I want to inform people about what they can expect, how it will change their daily lives and the ways in which people, corporations and governments are working to adapt. I also seek to hold utility companies accountable for their policy and ratemaking decisions. Email me at grimmett@kmuw.org.
Jim McLean is a political correspondent for the Kansas News Service, a collaboration based at KCUR with other public media stations across Kansas. You can email him at jim@kcur.org.
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