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Downtown Resurrection, Harvey Girls, Audio Theater Festival

Courtesy of Opal Jaquess

Rez Downtown Builds Urban Church Community

The renaissance of downtown that’s happened in recent years has attracted more than restaurants and real estate developers. As more and more people have come to live, work and hang out downtown, churches have also had their eyes on the area. While many of the older urban congregations have seen their numbers dwindle, one of Kansas City’s biggest churches has had some big success in delivering old-time religion to the new generation of Kansas City urbanites.

New Documentary Tells Harvey Girls Story

America’s tales about taming the “Wild West” rarely include women. But in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, more than 100,000 pioneering young women left home to work as waitresses in restaurants located on train platforms along the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe  Railway.  They were called “Harvey Girls” because they worked in a chain started by Leavenworth entrepreneur Fred Harvey.  Filmmaker Katrina Parks tells this story in her new documentary called "The Harvey Girls: Opportunity Bound," which will premiere at the National Archives at Kansas City on Friday evening.

Memory Project Aims To Tell Bosnians’ Collective Narrative Of War

Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of when the first refugees from the Bosnian War arrived in the United States.  Many of them made their home in St. Louis, which is now believed to have the largest Bosnian population outside of Eastern Europe. Some St. Louis locals are remembering the brutal ethnic war that many Bosnians fled.

HEAR Now Festival Showcases Classic And Contemporary Radio Dramatists

The golden age of radio drama might have been in the 1930s and 40s, but you don’t hear much on the airwaves anymore.  Still, practitioners say the genre is alive and kicking in podcasts, audiobooks, and even video games.  Next weekend, Kansas City plays host to “Hear Now: The Audio Arts and Fiction Festival,” which will draw old-timey radio voices as well as younger producers. 

The Silver Maggies

We end the show with the song “End of Time” from The Silver Maggies’ first full-length album My Pale Horse. The Silver Maggies describe their sound as “high desert noir, gothic country and Midwestern roots Americana.” Their next show is this Thursday, June 20 at The Riot Room.

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.
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