The Local Show Podcast

This week on The Local Show, we take a look at the performance many people missed at the grand opening of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. We attend a Mental Health First Aid class at the Bert Nash Center. We see an excerpt from the documentary Voces del Pasado. We speak with Rene Aguirre from Ñ Magazine, a publication devoted to the Spanish-speaking community in the metro. And we give you a look at some art with a very large message.

Premiere Projection Pizzazz: Quixotic Fusion & Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

The Local Show presents a look at the amazing performance which turned the new Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts into a canvas for Quixotic Fusion’s unique blend of technology and dance.

Six Decades of Community Support: Bert Nash Center

For sixty years, The Bert Nash Center has been providing a wide range of mental health services in Douglas County.

Voces del Pasado: Jesse Valdez

Gene Chavez produced the documentary Voces del Pasado: Mexican Americans Tell Stories of Their Past which chronicles the stories of Kansas City’s Hispanic community. The Local Show shares an excerpt about the experience of Jesse Valdez.

The Local Lowdown for Latinos: Rene Aguirre & Ñ Magazine

Nick Haines welcomes Rene Aguirre, Managing Editor of Ñ Magazine, to discuss the unique role his magazine plays for the Hispanic community in the metro.

Debt Feeling: Cargo Container Critique

Some say, “Go big or go home.” For sculptor John Salvest, he took advantage of an opportunity to send the Federal Reserve bank a very big message.

In October, Thomas Hoenig retires after working twenty years for the Federal Reserve Bank. Crosby Kemper III sits down with Hoenig in an on location, special edition of The Local Show to get a unique perspective on the banking industry and the current economic struggles.

Thomas M. Hoenig is president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and the senior member of the Federal Reserve System’s Federal Open Market Committee, the key body with authority over national monetary policy in the United States.

Mr. Hoenig directs Federal Reserve activities in the Tenth Federal Reserve District — an area that spans a large portion of the central United States including: Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming, the northern half of New Mexico, and the western third of Missouri. The Bank is one of 12 regional banks in the Federal Reserve System. In addition to its participation in setting national monetary policy, the Bank is also responsible for supervising and regulating numerous commercial banks and bank holding companies, serving as the bank for the U.S. government and for commercial banks, and providing other payments services to depository institutions.

Mr. Hoenig received his doctorate in economics from Iowa State University. He joined the Federal Reserve Bank in 1973 as an economist and was a senior officer in banking supervision during the U.S. banking crisis of the 1980s. He assumed the role of president on October 1, 1991. He currently serves as chairman of the Federal Reserve Conference of Presidents – Committee on Regulation, Bank Supervision and Legislation. Mr. Hoenig has been especially outspoken about the regulation of the financial industry and the role of monetary policy during the recent crisis.

Mr. Hoenig is host to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s economic policy symposium held annually in Jackson Hole, Wyo. The Jackson Hole economic symposium is attended by central bankers from around the world who join leading economists to discuss important issues facing policymakers.

He is a native of Fort Madison, Iowa, and resides in Kansas City, Mo.

Janet Williams, founder of communityworks, inc., shares her experiences working with traumatic brain injury sufferers, The Local Show highlights how the blind and visually impaired can now experience The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art on a guided, tactile tour, concert promoter Chris Fritz talks about the many years of planning and organizing which culminates this weekend when the Kanrocksas Music Festival comes to the Kansas Speedway and we go behind the scenes of Maker Faire at Union Station.

Reducing The Trauma of Brain Injury: Janet Williams

The mission of communityworks, inc. is to assist individuals of all abilities to live, work and play in the community. Twenty years ago, Janet Williams founded communityworks, inc. to help traumatic brain injury patients get back to their community rather than into an assisted living facility. Nick Haines welcomes her to The Local Show to discuss the rewards and challenges of achieving her mission.

Hidden Beauty: Tactile Tours at The Nelson-Atkins

In celebration of Alphapointe Association for the Blind’s 100th anniversary, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art has been offering monthly tours for people who are blind or visually impaired. The Local Show tags along on one of the tours and gets a first hand perspective on the impact these tours are having.

Rap, Rock & Roll: Chris Fritz & Kanrocksas

Long time music promoter Chris Fritz has been orchestrating the Kanrocksas Music Festival since construction began on the Kansas Speedway. The two day event brings together some of the biggest names in the music industry including Eminem, Muse and The Black Keys. Kathy Quinn sits down with Fritz to get a unique perspective on the realization of this concert promoter’s dream.

Necessity Is The Mother Of Invention: Maker Faire

At the end of June, Union Station hosted Maker Faire to allow DIYers to show off things they have created themselves. From robots to homemade clothes, the creativity of area residents was on display. Now, The Local Show welcomes you along to take a look.

Cynthia Wheeler-Linden sits down with Art Fillmore to discuss his role in local veteran’s causes. Randy Mason welcomes Michael Stern to The Local Show to discuss this year’s Celebration at the Station, the new Kauffman Performing Arts Center and what’s in store for the Kansas City Symphony. We present a look at last year’s Symphony in the Flint Hills performance featuring Lyle Lovett. And we show the recent Biz Kid$ segment featuring the metro’s very own Jeffrey Owen Hanson who talks about how he started investing at age 14 and gives advice about how to choose stocks.

For more information, visit thelocalshow.org.

KCPT marks the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides with a landmark documentary that retells their story. Monday night, May 16 at 8 p.m. on KCPT, veteran filmmaker Stanley Nelson presents the Freedom Riders, the first feature length film about this courageous band of citizens.

Recently, KCPT gathered almost two hundred people at Kansas City’s Plaza library for a citizen conversation to ask where they might take a freedom ride today?

The Local Show presents an extended excerpt of the documentary as well as highlights from the recent citizen conversation.

Samaritan’s Feet is on a quest to put shoes on the feet of 10,000 impoverished children in our own backyard. What compels hundreds of volunteers from churches in rural Missouri to join together to bring new sneakers to students at Martin Luther King Elementary School in the Kansas City, Missouri School District? While they live only about an hour apart, there is a world of difference. They discovered they all shared one unique experience and a gift that was much more than shoes.

In April, Roxy Paine’s “Ferment” was installed and dedicated and we were there. We’ll give you a much more detailed look at the amazing process on the Local Show in June, but for now here’s a “condensed” version of what went down with Kansas City’s brand new “dendroid.”

For more information, visit thelocalshow.org.

The Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce President and CEO, Jim Heeter, and the Kansas City Area Development Council President and CEO, Bob Marcusse, sit down with Nick Haines to discuss the efforts being made to market Kansas City to other parts of the country to attract business and conventions to the metro.

KCPT producer Sean Holmes tags along with The Roasterie’s Danny O’Neill on a recent trip to Costa Rica to build relationships with local coffee farmers.

KCPT hops along with 12th Street Jump, KCUR’s jumpin’ jazz and blues comedy hour. This dynamic radio show toasts the careers of famous jazz players each week with trivia, comedy and musical offerings from their renowned house band, with added musical stylings from featured guest artists.

We also give you a taste of a Quixotic performance. Quixotic will be performing with the Kansas City Symphony on May 13 & 14 at the Lyric Theatre.

For more information, visit thelocalshow.org.

If you're not familiar with George Caleb Bingham, his work Order Number 11 is considered one of Missouri's most famous paintings. Valued in the millions of dollars, it depicts the Civil War-era plundering of a porticoed Missouri mansion. KCPT's cameras were there when it was taken from its permanent home at the University of Missouri for an incredibly rare public showing in our area. It's on display at the Truman Library now through September 8th.

At the height of the AIDS epidemic in the mid 1980's a group of gay men came together in Kansas City to seek emotional and social support through their shared passion for singing. Today, the Heartland Men's Chorus is perhaps the metro's best known and most prolific choirs. They're celebrating their 25th season this year. Randy Mason had a chance to visit with Artistic Director Dr. Joseph Nadeau.

The Kansas City Missouri School District is still trying to figure out what on earth it's going to do with the more than 20 schools it decided to shutter as part of a contentious school closing plan last year. There are concerns the buildings will end up as neighborhood eyesores and magnets for criminal activity. What to do with large public buildings that have outlived their usefulness is a problem many communities have to deal with. Three years ago, the city of Independence was faced with that challenge when the hospital chain HCA closed Independence Regional Medical Center, a city landmark and an economic and emotional anchor in northwest Independence since 1909. Would it be simply padlocked and left to decay? Well thanks to economic development leaders in the city, a space once used to treat the sick is now making entrepreneurs out of people who may never have had a shot at starting their own business.

iven all the competition among hospitals today for your healthcare dollars, it seems hard to believe that just five decades ago in Kansas City where you got medical treatment was determined not by the nature of your health condition but by the color of your skin.

From Separate To Equal, a new documentary premiering at 9 p.m. tonight on KCPT, takes a look back at the disturbing legacy of segregated hospitals in Kansas City.

Play Ball! March 31 marks another Opening Day at the K. To mark the occasion, The Local Show presents this "Crown Minute" which takes a look at how the Kansas City Royal's logo, a crown atop a shield with the letters "KC" inside the shield, was created.

George Guastello was named President and Chief Executive Officer of Union Station Kansas City in December 2008 to lead the effort to build a strategic business and financial plan for the future of the Station. He manages an annual budget of $9 million and is responsible for operation, management and development/growth of the Station and surrounding property it owns. Union Station, a historical landmark and civic asset, was renovated and reopened to the public in 1999. A bi-state cultural sales tax, the first of its kind in the country, funded nearly half of the $250 million renovation. The Station features a science center, planetarium, rail museum, national traveling exhibits, one of the largest 3D giant screen movie theaters, live theater, shops, restaurants and offices. The organization also manages the Kansas City Museum.

KCPT goes inside Turning Point: The Center for Hope and Healing and looks at the various services and benefits offered to individuals, families and friends living with serious or chronic illness.

Rainy Day Books is a full-line full-service bookstore, carrying an array of hand-selected Hardcovers and Paperbacks for adults and children alike. They also carry a selection of boxed and individual greeting cards. Among the personal services: they special order Books daily, provide complimentary high quality gift wrapping, and they hand-select appropriate gifts for pick up or shipment.

Actress Cinnamon Schultz has been featured in dozens of local theatre productions on just about every stage in town as well as appearances on film and television.

This week, Randy Mason welcomes her to The Local Show to discuss her recent role in the Oscar nominated film, Winter's Bone. In the movie, she plays Victoria, the wife of Ree's menacing Uncle Teardrop.

Towering over the Kansas City Skyline, a beacon burns as a reminder to mankind, a charge to remember the triumph and tragedy at the turn of the 20th Century. It is a monument to a time of heroism and of innovation, but it also stands as a memorial to all those who served and to those whose lives were given so that the world would be peaceful once again. This is the legacy of the National World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial.

This week, Nick Haines sits down with David Hawley to discuss some of the exciting new developments at the Steamboat Arabia Museum.

The steamboat Arabia was a side wheeler steamboat which hit a snag in the Missouri River and sank near what today is Parkville, Missouri, on September 5, 1856. It was rediscovered in 1988 by a team of researchers. Today, the artifacts recovered from the site are housed in the Steamboat Arabia Museum.

The Heart of America Chorus, located in Kansas City, Missouri is the second oldest chapter in the Barbershop Harmony Society.

Christopher Elbow landed his first cooking job at the Lincoln Country Club in 1992, while attending the University of Nebraska. After graduating in '96 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Restaurant and Business Administration, he returned to Kansas City to head up Shiraz Restaurant.

Three years later Christopher landed in Las Vegas to help celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse open Delmonico Steakhouse at the Venetian. Shortly after that he moved to Paris -- as in the Paris Resort and Casino -- to help acclaimed chef Jean Joho open the Eiffel Tower Restaurant.

Christopher returned to Kansas City the following year and briefly resumed his role at Shiraz before accepting the pastry chef position at the American Restaurant. It was here that he began perfecting his chocolate-making skills. Before long, he was offering limited quantities of his new creations to local markets. Demand swelled, and to satisfy it Christopher started his own company.

Nicodemus is the only remaining western town established by African Americans during the Reconstruction period following the Civil War and represents a largely untold story of the western expansion and settlement of the Great Plains.

Nicodemus arose from the efforts of an organized group of African Americans who wanted to create a supportive viable African American community, relying on the values of home life, education, religion, hard work, and the social, religious, and political organizations that grew out of a tradition of mutual assistance.

Nicodemus continues its heritage through organizations that promote local inititives and economic growth while preserving its strong historical foundation.

Bob Petersen's background reflects a lifetime commitment to agriculture. Most recently, he has operated his own consulting business which provides management services to various agricultural trade associations, including the Agricultural Business Council of Kansas City. From 2000 to 2004, he served as president and CEO of the Kansas City Board of Trade. For 20 years prior to that he worked for the Washington, DC-based National Grain Trade Council, serving as its president for the last 18 years of that stint. He is a native of Nebraska where he grew-up on a family ranch.

This week, video blogger Ramsey Mohsen gives us a behind the scenes look at the American Royal rodeo.

If it is happening in Kansas City, Ramsey Mohsen is probably there. As one of Kansas City's most influential web consultants and video bloggers, Ramsey turns his webcam onto an event, provides his optimistic commentary, and posts the final cut on his blog, YouTube, Facebook and several other social media sites. His video blogs are often embedded and linked by other major Kansas City blogs. He is also the creator and author of Across the Board (www.acrosstheboardblog.com), a popular entertainment blog (now closed) that has over 2 million unique all-time visitors and 8,200+ blog posts.