Mike Sherry
Contributor and Former Senior Reporter
Stories by Mike Sherry
A Healthy (Re)Start for Raytown
Technically, it was a ribbon-cutting for a new health facility, but the christening of a new gym and community center in Raytown was more like removing bandages from an old wound. That’s because the facility, at 10301 E. 350 Highway, is housed in a refurbished building that the YMCA of Greater Kansas City closed three…
Forum Explores Conservative Route to Kansas Medicaid Expansion
If policy makers in deep-red Indiana can do it, so can their equally conservative counterparts in Kansas. That was the dominant – though not unanimously held – message at a Medicaid forum Tuesday at Johnson County Community College, where the topic was expanding the Kansas Medicaid program to cover as many as 150,000 additional Kansans….
Jump in Murders Prompts Changes in Kansas City Anti-Violence Program
While declaring that Kansas City’s homicide problem won’t be solved by a single prevention strategy, leaders of one of the city’s signature anti-violence initiatives said Monday they plan to modify the program following a surge of murders this year. The program, the Kansas City No Violence Alliance (KC NoVA), is a three-year-old collaboration among several…
New Grant Helping Jackson County Encourage HPV Vaccinations
It might be a stretch for the United States to achieve an 80 percent vaccination rate against the human papillomavirus (HPV) within the next four years, as envisioned by the Healthy People 2020 plan set out by federal health authorities. Although HPV is a leading cause of certain cancers in both men and women, the…
KC Checkup: 5 questions with Dr. Buddhadeb Dawn
Found in most parts of the body, adult stem cells have the potential to grow into any of the body’s more than 200 cell types, offering potential therapies for a number of diseases. Scientists throughout Kansas are working with adult stem cells, but Kansas lawmakers created the Midwest Stem Cell Therapy Center (MSCTC) two years…
Shawnee Mission Superintendent Pans Legislative Efforts
The superintendent of the Shawnee Mission School District is taking umbrage at some of the financial inquiries coming from Kansas lawmakers and from an outside audit firm hired by the Legislature to study the efficiency of state government. Jim Hinson was particularly insulted that the Legislature’s Special Committee on K-12 Student Success, which is looking…
Charting New Ground
Kansas City Public Schools (KCPS) on Tuesday won approval for an education initiative that is unique within Missouri. Meeting in Jefferson City, the Missouri State Board of Education OK’d KCPS’s plan to open a kindergarten-thru-sixth-grade school that will be free of many of the rules and regulations set out by the Missouri Department of Elementary…
Alzheimer’s Panelists Point To Progress In Diagnosis, Treatment
Two University of Kansas Medical Center researchers at the forefront of national efforts to treat Alzheimer’s disease said scientists are making strides toward reducing the prevalence of a condition that affects as many as 5.1 million Americans. Key aims include early detection and halting the progression of the disease, said Dr. Jeffrey Burns, a leader…
Leveling the technology playing field
It’s never fun to get a poor report card, but it’s even worse when the bad marks are due to circumstances beyond your control. That’s the way Superintendent Dennis Carpenter felt when the organization he leads, the Hickman Mills School District, fared badly on its most recent annual performance report from the Missouri Department of…
Tobacco 21 gains approval in KCMO, Wyandotte County
The movement to make 21 the legal age for purchasing tobacco products throughout the Kansas City metropolitan area netted two of the region’s largest municipalities Thursday. In a move designed to make a big splash, elected officials in Kansas City, Mo., and the Unified Government (UG) of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan., voted within…