Prairie Journal

KPR's Community Spotlight is on Kansas Trails Inc. this month.  KPR's Kaye McIntyre visits with Mike Scanlon, executive director.

A father's story of love, grief, and lessons learned from loss.  Bryan Welch of Lawrence is the author of The Gift of a Broken Heart: How Our Grief Can Connect Us.

Scott Simon is the host of NPR's Weekend Edition AND the author of several books, including the hot-off-the-press Ulysses S. Cat and Other Animals I Have Known.  

Historian Ian Shaw takes us back to Coffeyville in 1892, the double bank robbery that brought the Dalton Gang to an end, and the surprising story of the gang's lone survivor.

Kansas lawmakers wrapped up their 2026 session earlier this month.  KPR's Statehouse Bureau Chief Zach Boblitt and Emporia State University's Michael Smith review what legislators did -- and didn't -- get done.

We head outside and celebrate Kansas nature with a little help from the Kansas 250 Bookshelf.  This month's featured books include Kansas Wildflowers and Weeds, Elevations: A Personal Exploration of the Arkansas River, A Kansas Bestiary, and others.

From false teeth to organ transplants, Mary Roach explores how medicine and science are working together to create new body parts in her latest book, Replaceable You.

We head outside and celebrate Kansas nature with a little help from the Kansas 250 Bookshelf.  This month's featured books include The Last Wild Places of Kansas by George Frazier, Kansas Trail Guide by Jonathan and Kristin Conard, and Ava: A Year of Adventure in the Life of an American Avocet by Mandy Kern.

A partisan standoff, competing legislatures meeting under the same roof, armed guards at the Kansas Capitol -- how a disputed election led to the Populist War of 1893.  "The People's House" is the second episode in Per Aspera, a new Kansas history series from the Kansas 250 Commission, produced by Kara Heitz.

We explore the mysterious rock carvings of the Kansas Smoky Hills with Rex Buchanan, director emeritus of the Kansas Geological Survey. It's part of our continuing Kansas 250 Bookshelf series, this month exploring outdoors and nature in Kansas.  Rex Buchanan is one of three co-authors of "Petroglyphs of the Kansas Smoky Hills," along with Burke Griggs and Joshua Svaty.