AARP to urge passage of Kansas caregiver legislation

By | December 1, 2014

When diabetes began to steal her mother’s legs and vision three decades ago, Lawrence resident Judy Bellome and her family joined the ranks of thousands of caregivers across Kansas. Bellome had advantages others don’t, but even so she found it challenging. “If I hadn’t been a nurse — and my sister is a physical therapist…

KU Medical Center group recruits rural teens for health jobs

By | November 26, 2014

In the last two years Seth Nutt has traveled to nearly every corner of Kansas, introducing rural students to health care professionals. During trips to Goodland, Hays, Highland, Girard, El Dorado, Harper and Seward County, Nutt and others from the Area Health Education Center at the University of Kansas Medical Center have met with 1,000 high schoolers…

What to donate this holiday season? Depends.

By | November 25, 2014

Before you put together a donation for your local food pantry, take a moment to consider which items are needed most. It’s not the classic stuffing, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie you might find on your own kitchen table this holiday. The biggest needs, local food pantry organizers say include more practical items: canned vegetables,…

Kansas City reacts to Ferguson grand jury decision

By | November 25, 2014

Riots erupted overnight in Ferguson, Missouri, after it was announced that a grand jury chose not to indict police officer Darren Wilson for the August shooting death of unarmed black teen Michael Brown. [View the story “Kansas City reacts to Ferguson grand jury decision” on Storify]  

If at first your experiment gets blown up in a rocket, try, try again

By | November 24, 2014

Sitting at a lab table over the lunch hour at St. Peter’s School in Kansas City, Missouri, a group of eighth graders are loading freeze dried E.coli bacteria into plastic tubes. It’s all part of a special package destined for the International Space Station. And it’s not the first time students Holden O’Keefe, Eamon Shaw…

Women have always been farmers, now they’re being counted

By | November 24, 2014

When farmer Sondra Pierce had her first child, she decided to forgo daycare. “Soon as I had my son, because I had my son very early, I would put his car seat in the tractor and he would ride with me,” Pierce says. During harvest on her sugar beet farm in rural Boulder County, Colo.,…

Crop dusting pilots navigate dangerous airspace

By | November 21, 2014

Mike Lee steers his plane over the Missouri-Arkansas state line, checking out a checkerboard of green and brown fields of rice, cotton, corn and soybeans. Lee is the owner of Earl’s Flying Service, a crop dusting business in Steele, Mo., and he’s scouting some farm fields that his pilots will treat later in the day.…

Kansas City mental health clients walk the walk

By | November 21, 2014

Could you walk an average of seven miles each day for three months straight? That’s what you’d need to do to keep up with Ed Rogers, who was one of the peak perambulators in the 50 Million Step Challenge organized by the Metropolitan Council of Community Mental Health Centers, which includes seven agencies. Rogers was…

How a Denver company is improving treatment for eating disorders in KC

By | November 21, 2014

A highly regarded eating-disorder treatment center is about to make the Kansas City area its first site outside of its home state of Colorado, a development local clinicians said would help fill a critical gap in services here. The Eating Disorder Center of Denver expects to open its partial hospitalization program on Dec. 29, according to local program…

Tell us about your Thanksgiving, in six words

By | November 20, 2014

Share your insights and experiences with KCPT and KCUR.