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Question Everything

Home | curiousKC | Question Everything What about ____? Could you investigate ____? What’s up with____? Got a question about Kansas City, the region or the people who live here? Anything you’ve always wondered about, found peculiar or downright confusing? Share your questions with curiousKC, and let your curiosity fuel our reporting at Flatland and Kansas City PBS. And find all of your questions answered here.
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curiousKC

2019 Kansas City Mayoral Election, Questions And Answers

A Decades-Old Tax Question Resurfaces About Kansas City Schools
Faith
What’s The Story Behind That Shiny Spire In Independence, Missouri?
Like many Metropolitan-area residents, Valorie Wells Fenton has driven by the silver spire that corkscrews skyward in Independence, Missouri. She heard it’s the place Mormons expect Jesus to return and wondered if the site may b…
By Multiple Reporters
curiousKC
Breaking Down Negative Portrayals of Muslim Women
To Melody Petet, it seemed as if popular culture mostly portrayed Muslim women as either victims or terrorists. But Petet, who lives in the Waldo neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri, knew there had to be more to the story in rea…
By Multiple Reporters
curiousKC
'Who Lived in the Kansas City Museum?'
Earlier this month, Flatland announced its launch of curiousKC kids and the voting round winner. With the 49-person vote of confidence, we got busy to answer the winning question: Who lived in the mansion that is now the Kansas Ci…
By Vicky Diaz-Camacho
curiousKC
The Story Behind Kansas City’s Oldest Church
When Mary Cheney moved to the Kansas City area, she traded farm life for the suburban life of Overland Park, Kansas, with her husband. The move came more than 50 years ago, yet Cheney has never felt she has a great handle on the r…
By Multiple Reporters
curiousKC
How Did Trails West Influence The Growth of Westport?
Gary Jenkins has always been interested in the trails that ran through town before Kansas City was even on the map. He volunteers on camping trips with teenagers from the Kansas State School for the Blind along the Oregon Trail. A…
By Tammy Worth
curiousKC
Finding Friends When You Are Over 60
Sheryl Raineri grew up in the Chicago suburbs, relocated to the warmer climes of San Antonio for almost two decades, and then found herself in Kansas City, North, of all places, nearly seven years ago. She came here for family sup…
By Mike Sherry
curiousKC
How (And Why) is Kansas City’s Kauffman Center Shaped Like That?
Accordion-like folds curve toward downtown Kansas City, Missouri — now a staple of city’s skyline. We’re talking about the Kauffman Center for Performing Arts. You can’t ignore its towering structure driving along Intersta…
By Vicky Diaz-Camacho
curiousKC
Understanding Islam in KC
At 79 years old, Marian Thomas of Leawood, Kansas, still shares much in common with the girl who wore out her Sunday school teachers with questions. Religion has been a common thread throughout her life, whether it was serving as …
By Multiple Reporters
curious kc
Not Quite a Hat Trick | Kansas City's Two Seasons of Pro Hockey
Joe Lynch makes slow, easy circles on the Crown Center Ice Terrace testing the edge on his newly sharpened ice skates. A pair of sisters watch wide-eyed, waiting for help to tie the brown laces on their skates. I approach Lynch, …
By Jonathan Bender
curiousKC
What Are the 3 Oldest Buildings in KC?
This is my first foray into answering a curiousKC question. I decided to answer (what I thought would be) a straightforward history question thrown our way by Kansas Citian Stacey McBride. “What are the top three oldest survivin…
By Brad Austin
black history month
How One Kansas City Hospital Treated Segregation in the ‘50s
During a snowstorm in early January, Carol Johnson’s power went out, so her neighbor invited her over for dinner. They started talking about Queen of the World Hospital, a now-shuttered medical facility dating back to the ‘50s…
By Vicky Diaz-Camacho
American Graduate
‘I Just Care. They Become Family.’
Dana Steinwart is a devoted teacher. So devoted that she tears up when she considers where her students might find themselves after high school. “I just care,” she said. “They become family because I’m with them for four y…
By Multiple Reporters
curiousKC
Update: Waiter! There Is A Bug In My Pizza
Update: After this story was published on Jan. 16, Kansas Citians wrote to us asking if the restaurant on Independence Avenue was somehow connected to the one they knew on Metcalf Avenue in Overland Park, Kansas. The answer is ye…
By Vicky Diaz-Camacho
American Graduate
Finding Equitable Access to Education and the Workforce
Kendall Riley loves to sculpt. He’s also such a technological whiz that he once disassembled — then reassembled — a Chromebook laptop. The 20-year-old is also autistic, diagnosed as a toddler by doctors at Children’s Mercy…
By Multiple Reporters
bess truman
Is Pie the Sweet Dessert Spirit Animal of Kansas City?
The meal is over. The dishes are in the sink. What are you serving for dessert, Kansas City? “What’s the quintessential Kansas City dessert? Something we’ve really been known for over the years,” was the #curiousKC questio…
By Jonathan Bender
Todd George Parkway
This Man Paved The Way For Lee’s Summit
There are two sorts of people in the world — those who are blissfully uninterested in the origin of street names, and those who are helplessly intrigued by the history behind this most basic feature of public life.When it comes …
By Grace Lett
bogdon's candy co.
The Bogdon Candy Co. Made Sweet Treats For Three Generations
The next time you bring a gift to a wedding, you should think of Walter Bogdon. The late chocolatier first invented the reception stick -- a crunchy, chocolate-enrobed hard candy -- for a local couple about to get married more tha…
By Jonathan Bender
infrastructure
Jumping on e-scooters on the fly? Think twice
Exiting her daughter’s apartment building on a recent Sunday, Janet Korte spotted something that looked just like the motorless Razor scooters her children loved to ride. “So I thought, ‘This’ll be a piece of cake,’” s…
By Vicky Diaz-Camacho
curiousKC
Do You Know Twelfth Street’s (Famous) Past?
If there’s a street that defines Kansas City, Missouri, which one would you say it is? Obvious candidates include Ward Parkway, The Paseo and Southwest Boulevard. But what would you say to the dark horse selection of 12th Street…
By Multiple Reporters
curiousKC
The Rise and Fall of an Overland Park Icon
Metcalf Avenue is certainly not the Champs-Élysées, but at one time, a French-themed market loomed large — like a medieval castle — above Overland Park’s main drag. This superstore, in fact, was named the French Market, an…
By Caroline Watkins
curiousKC
Is Kansas City’s Population Growing?
Ben Evans is a Kansas City transplant, and after he recently bought a house in Waldo, he started wondering: Are other people moving to Kansas City? And how do experts and forecasters expect the population to change in the coming y…
By Lindsay Huth
curiousKC
How Should Police Officers Combat Stress?
Clinical psychotherapist Pat Hinkle was a police officer for 30 years before starting his counseling practice to help other officers work through stress and trauma. During his time as an officer, Hinkle recognized that there was a…
By Meg Vatterott
curiousKC
Crooked Missouri
David Bonebrake describes himself as the kind of guy who likes order. If he sees a crooked picture on the wall, he wants to fix it. When Bonebrake, a Kansas native, saw an aerial picture of Kansas City from 438 miles above — a p…
By Michelle Stoddart
American Graduate
How Do Schools Prepare Students For The Digital Economy?
Jeremy Bonneson, vice principal of Summit Technology Academy in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, asked curiousKC: “How do schools adapt to the ever-changing and disruptive nature of the workforce landscape for today's digital economy?…
By Rachel Thomas
curiousKC
What's In Our Tap Water?
By Lauren Langdon As the “Big Muddy” winds its way through Kansas City, it might be hard to believe that approximately 660,000 residents rely on the Missouri River for their drinking water — after it has been treated, of cou…
By Flatland
Affordable Housing
Where Are Those 20-Somethings Living?
Where do young Kansas Citians live? The traditional Midtown haunts? High-end urban apartments? The large rental complexes in suburbia? CuriousKC delved into the topic after receiving this inquiry: “Who ARE all these people who c…
By Flatland
Local History
What’s the Oldest House in the Kansas City Area?
Retired teacher Del Candler can trace her ancestors’ arrival in Jackson County to the 1840s, and wondered what structures remain from that period and Kansas City’s origins. She asked curiousKC, “What is the oldest house stil…
By Lindsey Foat
affordable housing
Can You Improve an Area Without Gentrifying It?
By Anne Kniggendorf As a traffic engineer, Jay Aber worries that some of the improvements he designs have the exact opposite effect of what he had hoped. “We try to improve the street for the people who live there,” Aber said.…
By Flatland
local history
Searching For Her Dad's Technical High School
By Jack Harvel Like so many men of his generation, Jack Harrigan was a small-town kid born early in the 20th century, weathered the Great Depression, fought in World War II, then returned home to raise a family while working a blu…
By Flatland
curiousKC
The Rise and Fall of a Boomtown
By Steve Everly, Paul Wenske and David Hayes  The Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 made Kansas territory the center of the conflict over the future of slavery. The act’s “popular sovereignty” provision ditched the long-held Miss…
By Flatland
Beyond Belief
What Are the Open Belief Centers in KC?
By Humera Lodhi Sharon Divine found faith as an adult. Or rather, she lost religion and then found faith. Divine grew up as a Christian attending Methodist, Lutheran, and Unity churches at various points in her life. The older Div…
By Flatland
local history
A Trip Back to a Childhood Spent in Westport Orphanage
By Tess Vrbin Joe Bessenbacher’s most vivid childhood memories include “a white triangular bonnet.” This piece of headgear is part of the habit that the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent De Paul wore. The order of nuns ran…
By Flatland
local history
A Sweet Memory Prompts Strawberry Hill Question
By Rachel Thomas When she was around 10 years old, Christine Rogge attended an ethnic festival in the area of Kansas City, Kansas, known as Strawberry Hill. That was decades ago, but the fond memory remains, and the south Kansas …
By Flatland