This is the game day roster for the Wichita Wings April 6, 2024 semifinal playoff matchup with the Rochester Lancers.
This is the game day roster for the Wichita Wings March 9, 2024 matchup with the El Paso Rhinos.
This is the game day roster for the Wichita Wings February 3, 2023 matchup with the New Mexico Runners.
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This is the game day roster for the Wichita Wings January 13, 2023 matchup with the El Paso Rhinos.
This is the game day roster for the Wichita Wings January 7, 2023 matchup with the Kansas Bandits.
This is the game day roster for the Wichita Wings January 6, 2023 matchup with the El Paso Rhinos.
This is the updated roster for the Dec. 30 Wichita Wings indoor soccer game vs. the Kansas Bandits.
This is the updated roster for the Dec. 22 Wichita Wings indoor soccer game vs. the Amarillo Bombers.
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A look at the Wichita Wings indoor soccer defenders…in-depth!
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Get up to speed on the Wings forwards and goalkeepers by reading the first set of profiles in this 3-part series by clicking on Part 1
Mehrshad Ahmadi – “Mehrsh”
Midfielder – #49 — Age 23 – 5’9, 165 lbs – Hometown: Herat, Afghanistan
Wings experience: None
Ahmadi comes to the Wings as the leading scorer in the MASL2 last season. His ability to get goals is unparalleled in this league.
Players for the Wichita Wings range from the relatively short (5’6 ft tall) to the positively basketball player-sized (6’6). They weigh in at a sprightly 145 lbs, all the way up to a sturdy 245 lbs.
Elections are contests, but they’re also interpretive opportunities. In that spirit, here are some interpretations (along with some predictions) of my own.
You can find all kinds of characters at the Wichita Wings indoor soccer open tryouts. Kevin Ten Eyck represents the Grizzled Veteran.
Dozens of fans of hummus and automated car washes gathered yesterday in northeast Wichita to celebrate the grand opening of what is being hailed as this city’s most innovative multifaceted local business. Baba Gha-Wash offers consumers an automated car wash while they enjoy their favorite Mediterranean delicacies.
The tension between acting in accordance with one’s ethical or moral principles versus contenting oneself with pragmatic efficiency and “realism” is one of the oldest tensions in the whole history of philosophy. It’s an old and abiding tension in part because one can experience it everywhere.
Monday night there was forum involving five of the candidates to be Wichita’s next mayor—though only three serious ones: former Wichita Councilmember Jared Cerullo, activist Celeste Racette, and the incumbent, Mayor Brandon Whipple. The forum was held at the SEIU Hall and organized by the Sedgwick County Grassroots Democrats, so it’s easy to imagine that as the reason why the other two serious candidates—Councilmember Bryan Frye, a longtime and well-connected Republican, and Lily Wu, a former television journalist and registered Libertarian—decided not to attend (though that didn’t stop Cerullo, also a Republican, from showing up).
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I’ve become a major fan of the Kansas City-area architect and designer Kevin Klinkenberg’s “The Messy City” podcast. I don’t know Kevin—I met him once, briefly, at a Strong Towns gathering in Tulsa years ago, and I made use of the material he presented at that gathering a couple of times, but most of what I know about his work and ideas I’ve learned from listening to him over the past several months.
There’s a story behind the name of Wichita’s newest retro-styled record store. And it does not involve a floating sea vessel.
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On Friday, Celeste Racette, the founder of Save Century II and a woman who has made herself a constant presence at City Hall over the past few years–especially when anything related to Wichita’s finances or policy decisions that implicate the ethics of those on our city council are being discussed–declared that she would run for mayor. The tagline on her website?
As a live-music loving kid, I once dreamed about living at my favorite venue and how amazing it would be. I imagined waking up, and just having to go downstairs to see live music and bands.
Reading is FUN-damental. That’s what the poster at school said.
It is Day Two of tryouts for the Wichita Wings. Veteran Wings defender Kevin Ten Eyck squares up to a young player on the sideline and delivers his message succinctly:
“You cannot play.
It’s hot in Wichita. Glen Frey wasn’t kidding when he sang, “The heat is on.” Can we turn it off?
When Wichita Story editor Tim O’Bryhim saw the new jerseys for the esports team at Wichita’s Education Imagine Academy [where he teaches history] he was curious about the jersey’s origin. He sought out Agent Ink’s CEO, 24-year-old Joey Nowlin, to talk about the Wichita-based company and its place in what is a very new industry.
WICHITA – The late, great Count Basie once said: “If a guy is gonna play good bop, he has to have a sort of a bop soul.” Wichita Jazz Festival representative Lisa Sillaway is confident that Wichita has sufficient bop in their soul to enjoy his orchestra Saturday night because they’ve been here twice before.
Let’s face it, you probably haven’t seen most of the 2022 Academy Award Best Picture nominated films. Who has the time? Don’t fret.
The Wichita Force professional indoor football team needs no reminder that when it comes to in-person professional sports, and life in general, the theme of the last two years has been “disruption.” At Tuesday’s Wichita Independent Business Association (WIBA) meeting, the team reintroduced their brand to Wichita with two big announcements: home games will move from the Kansas Star Casino to the Wichita Ice Center; and the team is changing leagues, joining the expanding Arena Football Association (AFA). Team owner Jeff Martin is billing this year’s team as “The Greatest Show on Turf” and is approaching these two big changes with humility and a desire to learn how to better reach an audience.
What a City Council Majority in a Mid-Sized City Can Do
Read Part 1 HERE
Last week I wrote in a political-sciencey vein about the significance and implications (mostly positive, I think, but also partly negative) of the new Democratic majority which the very–if not officially–partisan city elections of 2021 gave Wichita. This week I want to throw out some ideas regarding what that city council majority could and, I think, should do.
The Potential of, and the Problems with, Wichita’s (More) Partisan Future
There’s been a lot of talk about the “new Democratic majority” on the city council that officially took power on Monday night. WSU professor Chase Billingham, in particular, observed last August what the consequences of the November elections might mean should they go the way Mayor Whipple wanted them to (which they did).
It’s the first day of July in 2021. The exterior of what used to be O’Bryhim’s Thriftway looks unchanged at first glance.
Time travelers from 1995 (or 1985, or 1975) might whiz by on Maple Street without noticing much at all. The tan metal and brown brick remain the same. The word “Thriftway” is still on the signs. Only a local would notice “O’Bryhim’s” has been replaced by “Overbrook.”
I’m an O’Bryhim. This was partly my store and is partly my story, and the absence of our family name is one I feel in my gut.
Cinematic villains come in several predictable flavors: the capitalist (Avatar, The Muppets, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo); the war-monger (Avatar again, A Few Good Men, Platoon) the upper-class snob (Titanic, Harry Potter, The Lion King [Jeremy Irons’ Scar might be the first lion to attend Oxford]); the upper middle-class salesman (sometimes an asshole [Glengarry Glen Ross] and sometimes a fraudster [The Wolf of Wall Street]); and the entitled rich woman (101 Dalmations, Game of Thrones [not a film, but literally entitled]). If they are not the enemy, these archetypes are at the very least portrayed as boring buffoons who represent “the Establishment.” It is no surprise that writers and directors, part of society’s avant-garde, make this choice.
#8 – American Pie
Everyone knows that pie is an integral part of Thanksgiving. Except for me.
Upon the release of Cry Macho, a critic might be tempted to speak with finality about the career of Clint Eastwood: THIS will be his last hurrah as actor or director. But three years ago, when Eastwood starred as The Mule, surely THAT was going to be his last time in front of the camera?
When you put on a pair of stirrups, you feel like a baseball player. The toe-less and heel-less socks make a loop underneath your foot.
My headline is pretentious, of course; Brandon Johnson—the councilmember representing Wichita’s heavily African American and traditionally Democratic District 1, a longtime community activist and an alum of Friends University where I teach, as well as someone I have a friendly (if not close) relationship with—matters to a lot of different people for a lot of different reasons, most of them far beyond the specifics of current Wichita City Council debates. But as a someone who has spent decades observing and thinking and writing and teaching about politics, Brandon Johnson’s comments, toward the end of another marathon session dealing with the proposed non-discrimination ordinance before the council, were a deeply profound perception about the nature of political life.
My confession is that I don’t love golf. But you don’t even have to LIKE golf to like the Wichita Open’s 17th hole.
An evening dedicated to a documentary film about baseball in Kansas couldn’t have ended on a better note than a yelled exclamation from longtime Wichita State Shocker head coach Gene Stephenson:
“I love baseball!”
Wednesday night’s VIP event atop the Wichita Wind Surge’s Riverfront Stadium in the Fidelity Bank Bravely Onward Club provided attendees a first look at PBS Kansas’ latest local documentary. Kansas Baseball: Swinging for the Fences takes viewers on a highly detailed journey through the long and surprisingly storied history of America’s pastime in Kansas.
1) Cities are complex systems—that is, they are places where different groups of people organize, worship, trade, celebrate, work, and simply live in close proximity to each other, all in different ways and with different goals in mind. In other words, cities are pluralistic, with different sectors and levels all interacting in complex ways.
Filming a TV episode involves solving a lot of small problems. For instance, how to close a door when the cameraman stands behind it while filming the scene. And how does the cameraman keep everyone in the shot when the door swings shut?
Omar “El Indio” Gomez, a prolific goal-scoring forward who played for the Wichita Wings soccer team in three separate stints in the 1980s and early ’90s, died Tuesday in Argentina at the age of 66, after a long hospitalization for COVID-19 and pneumonia. “That’s sad news.
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When President Joe Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan (ARP) a little more than a week ago, I commented to some friends that this may arguably turn out to be one of the best things that has happened to Wichita in a very long time. Let me explain that argument here—starting with a rephrase of my original comment: the ARP will likely turn out to be one of the best things that has happened for many Wichitans in a very long time.
On Sunday the Wichita Eagle ran two guest editorials–one by me on how state governments push cities around, and one by my friend John Todd on the effort by him and others to get the state to require cities to hold a public referendum before historic buildings like Century II could be torn down. Both essays are essentially about “home rule,” though neither ever use that phrase.
In a year remembered for a deadly pandemic, mourning the absence of movies on the big screen seems trivial, possibly even obscene. But for cinema buffs, these are melancholy times.
Former Wichita Wings indoor soccer team all-star midfielder Hernan “Chico” Borja, 61, died Thursday after a long battle with cancer. Borja starred for Kansas’ first major league sports team from 1985 to 1987 and 1988 to 1994.
The pilot for Wichita Madhouse, a new locally-produced sitcom, airs this Friday at 8 p.m. on PBS Kansas (KPTS). Directed and written by PBS Kansas executive producer Jim Grawe, this independently-produced television show stars real-life Wichita TV personalities Anthony Powell and Sierra Scott as a divorced couple who continue to live together because neither wants to give up the house.
Short of a video recording, it is impossible to relive your past. Even if you succeeded in convincing H.G. Wells’ Time Traveller to let you hitch a ride on his machine, your experiences since childhood have changed you to the degree that you would experience those years differently the second time around.
A dozen faces were arranged across the computer screen during Sunday morning’s Zoom meeting, waiting for the weekly service to begin. The conversation was marked by jovial banter and irreverent humor, with discussions of coffee and coffee floats mixed with talk of a pandemic-themed board game.
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It would be wrong to say I know James Clendenin. I’ve met him a few times at different city events.
Editor Tim O’Bryhim moderates a discussion about the election results with a focus on their local impact. Click HERE to watch!
Amid the browns and reds of autumn foliage at the Bartlett Arboretum and the din of a band warming up to play, Dolly Farha sat on a folding chair and talked passionately about the upcoming election. “I truly believe that every vote counts.
This composite image contains two scenes that I’ve seen nearly every day for weeks as I’ve walked our dog near our home here on the west side of Wichita. These two homes are directly across the street from each other, with each Biden sign more or less directly facing a Trump one.
How about a thrilling double episode?!? Well, actually, it’s last month’s strip followed by the very-much-thrilling September sequel!
Libertarian VP Candidate Spike Cohen Rallies Wichita Supporters Amidst a Hostile Electoral System
Monday, Aug. 24 – Wichita, Kansas
It is another hot August day in Kansas; a good day to be inside.
Miraculously landing on one leg, gymnast Kerri Strug is carried off by coach Bela Karolyi. Soon after, she ends up on the medals stand.
Two weeks ago, the Wichita City Council, by a 4-3 vote–a result which surprised more than a few Wichitans–implemented a mask requirement in the city of Wichita, in the wake of the Sedgwick County Commission’s refusal to fully support the mask mandate which Governor Kelly had called for all the state of Kansas to embrace. (The commission, in the wake of Wichita’s decision, later supported a similar order from Dr. Garold Minns, the county’s health officer.) Then earlier this week the Wichita Historical Preservation Board, by a 5-2 vote–a result which, once again, surprised more than a few Wichitans–nominated Century II for state and national historic status, thus supporting the effort to get the iconic building listed by the Kansas State Historic Preservation Office and the National Register of Historic Places.
This past Saturday was more than just the summer solstice, the longest day of the year and the official start of summer (astronomically speaking, if not calendrically). It also marked the 100th day since the coronavirus pandemic formally began in Kansas, with Governor Kelly having issued her state of emergency order, in response to the first Covid-19 death in the state, on March 12.
A “found” poem composed entirely of captions of sound effects, musical cues, and other audio info from ABC’s Bachelor: Listen To Your Heart… Exhales deeply, exhales sharply.
In the midst of violent protests, police violence, and a pandemic, I’m thinking about a road. It’s not much of a road; just a short stretch of University St., directly west of Friends University, where I’ve taught since 2006.
For football fanatics or folks who know little of the game but just enjoy a good story, this podcast takes you on a journey with the “Gentleman Bastards,” an over-the-top fantasy football league that’s brought joy (and agony) to the lives of a group of Wichitans for the last decade. WARNING: May not be suitable for children due to some adult themes.
Wichita Republicans could count on Bob Weeks to stand up for small government principles during the Obama administration. They still can count on him to do the same during the Trump administration.
Taken in 2014 at Arkalalah in Arkansas City, Kansas. Arkalahlah is usually around the end of October near Halloween, and is one of, if not the last stop on the carnival circuit for the season. This was a long exposure shot that lasted about half a second of the carousel.
The 2014 Neewollah festival in Independence, Kansas (Neewollah is “Halloween” spelled backwards). A young man with a “free hugs” sign on his back delivers his “service” to a group of clowns handing out free balloons.
Last week, Mayor Whipple had a rough time during the city council meeting, with his request for a deputy somewhat embarrassingly tabled in the face of both criticism from other council members and a long list of online attacks that got read into the record. The whole affair has already been critically commented on, but as a break from talking about the coronavirus pandemic all the time, let me beat this dead horse one more time–mostly because I hope it will revive.
Few Wichitans can claim to be so prominently associated with a popular worldwide movement as Rolf Potts is with the concept of “vagabonding.” The 49 year old Wichita native’s first book, also called Vagabonding, has sold a quarter of a million copies since being published in 2002. Just as importantly, it has helped popularize a movement whose followers seek a lifestyle that is centered around long-term travel – not a week or two, but multiple weeks, months or even years of travel.
When it comes to the coronavirus pandemic, it’s sometimes easy, here in Wichita–a large city nonetheless somewhat isolated and disconnected from the larger metropolitan areas of the country, a city which centers a largely rural and therefore much more low risk part of the state–to be unclear if we’re overreacting or not reacting enough. But feeling as though we’re stuck in the middle, feeling divided, is nothing new for a midsized city like ours.
The pressure of isolation weighs upon many of us. As countless studies have confirmed, human beings do not thrive when kept apart from each other.
This has been a week of triage for our city. With the Sedgwick County Commission at first resisting and then finally
submitting to medical opinion (and political pressure) regarding the need to
order many businesses and places of public gathering to close for the sake of
minimizing the potential spread of the coronavirus on Monday, the other
shoe–which every small business-owner and all of their thousands of supporters
throughout the city have known was just waiting to be dropped–came down
on Tuesday, and the scramble find a new normal began in earnest.
It’s a dark and quiet Wednesday
morning here in the Fox household, March 18, 2020. It’s been dark every
morning–and mostly gray and cloudy and cool all through the days as well–for
pretty much a whole week now, appropriately enough.
“The film is about the founding of the Wichita Wings indoor soccer team that started in 1979. To say the Wings popularity grew rapidly would be a huge understatement.
Lester Rowe is disappointed with his Sprite. “Might as well be Crystal Lite.
The Wichita Wings and England have a long and storied
tradition. Names like Andy Chapman, Kevin Kewley, Roy Turner, and Norman Piper
echoed across Wichita playgrounds through the 1980s and 90s.
Have you ever flown out of or into Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport? You may do as I do and seek the icon that says you’re home; the identifying feature from the eye in the sky: Century II.
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Last week, Populous
presented their complete (or nearly complete) vision for transforming
the east bank of the riverfront through downtown Wichita.* They were not
unambitious in their recommendations. In what they predict
to be an at least $1.2 billion project whose construction would stretch over at
least 10 years, they recommend the demolition of Century II, the construction
of a new performing arts center and convention center twice the size of Bob
Brown Auditorium, a host of mixed-use properties to bring consumers and
residents into the downtown, and the development of a wide green space which
the labeled Century Park, which might include a brand-new ice rink (apparently
no one told them about the publicly owned Wichita Ice Center less than a half-mile away from their proposed
park, or maybe they just figured no one would notice).
The
Yankees will play the White Sox as the first big-league game in Iowa at a
ballpark to be constructed next to the movie location. Fox will broadcast the
game.
Over the twelve months of 2019, I listened to every single Paul McCartney album, thus becoming a Macca completist. Not an expert; I wouldn’t claim that, as I don’t have that knowledge base, nor that skill.
A time warp enveloped my life Saturday. Pizza at Angelo’s.
In the family room of Passageways Living Center there sits an American flag created with a series of wooden blocks. Each block is slightly different.
A short while ago, The Wichita Eagle ran a column
of mine on the brouhaha
over whether the Wichita City Council ought to continue with the current limit
of two terms for city council members, or if it ought to be expanded to three. Since talking about government is what I do for a living–and since this
argument is likely to come back sometime
in the new year –let me expand on this a little.
A promising life as a pianist is postponed as a young woman named Annie marries the handsome, charming and troubled Chris. Three kids later, she finds herself in a trailer park with little hope of the life she once dreamed of. Her ne’er-do-well trucker husband returns home from one of his many absences to wreaks havoc on the simple life she’s created for their children, leading to a violent conflict that soon spirals out of control…
Enchila…wait, chimichanga? Rice, I think.
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The argument over what to do
with Century II has quite arguably been a subtext to just about every major
debate which has been conducted in our city in 2019. With the rapid
construction of the new baseball stadium and the redesign of McLean Boulevard
on the west side of the river, the need to think about the east side, and in
particular the fate of Wichita’s single most notable landmark (sorry Keeper,
but you know it’s true), has been unavoidable; you can see the evidence for it
everywhere.
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The location is Pawnee and Broadway, in rough and tumble south central Wichita. Just outside the front door to a convenience store called Discount Cigarettes and Gas, Phong Nguyen argues with an unidentified man. The video starts with a verbal confrontation and then a shoving match ensues between the diminutive Asian man and his much larger opponent.
Wichita Story recently featured a story about the local artist Juanta Wolfe. The pieces below represent some of his work.
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In a recent column
in The Wichita Eagle, I talked about
how, much more than any particular candidate being elected to the city council
or as mayor in next week’s election, my fondest hopes are tied to whether or
not any of those candidates might read a book, and take seriously the message
inside it. The book is Charles Marohn’s Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity.
Juanta Wolfe paces back and forth
in the octagon, staring
down his opponent. His lips pull up toward his nose, accentuating the 28-year-old’s
thinnish mustache.
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About 10 years ago, I went to a local Blockbuster to rent
the film King Kung Fu. Cinemassacre, a popular YouTube channel
that reviews retro movies and video games in a humorous manner, recommends you
check out the movie.
The city elections are only a
month away, but at this moment, my mind is looking back to summer, rather than
forward to November. Each year, ever since our family moved to Wichita in 2006,
mid-June and early-September have offered my wife and I–and, as the years went
by, often our children too–a fine treat: a free, all-volunteer, invariably
creative and nearly-always successful outdoor play, courtesy of the Wichita
Shakespeare Company.
Allen Ames sits in his well-worn chair at his well-worn work
bench while working with his well-worn tools on a customer’s watch. Semi-retired
from watchmaking, the 74-year-old still plugs away in his basement, stopping by
a Wichita jewelry store each week to pick up the broken watches that customers
have dropped off. All these watches share a common problem: they do not
accurately measure time.
Scenes from the streets of Wichita in black-and-white.
The tantalizing aroma of fresh pomme frites wafted through
the air outside the swanky glass and steel entrance of Wichita’s hottest new
restaurant. My inveterate dining companions Etienne and Hercule, just arrived
back from their annual trip to Martinique’s incomparable Tour de Yoles Rondes,
practically shivered with anticipation of the gastronomic delights to come.
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The story of Tuesday night’s debate is one of offense and defense. For better or worse, Mayor Jeff Longwell–at least at this early point in the race, and at least on the basis on this remarkably well-attended debate (Roxy’s was absolutely packed) — is running entirely on defending his record of the last four years.
Chris Johnson seemed the same as the trees and the light poles and all the barking dogs in our neighborhood. What I mean to say is when a kid is always around riding his bike you don’t think about them too much. He was just a kid. We knew he was poor as hell because Daddy told me his dad couldn’t hold a job and his momma is a cracked-head. Sometimes Matt’s mom would give them their dinner and that meant Matt would go to bed hungry.
Shine’s career itself mirrors the life of the American newspaper: with a rapid rise, glory years and ending with radical change. But his attitude toward his profession, and the perseverance with which he pursues it, show that despite the setbacks that the newspaper business faces, newspapermen will continue to seek out the truth and tell it to the people.
The party differences between Mayor Longwell (who kicked off his campaign while surrounded by all sorts of Republican notables) and Brandon Whipple (who has served as a Democrat representing south Wichita in the Kansas House of Representatives since 2013) are pretty obvious, and seem likely to shape the race all the way up to Election Day. This is, to my mind, a good thing.
Freddy High & XV perform a song together at the XV album release party at the Wave live music venue in downtown Wichita. Antimosity rocking the stage at Barleycorn’s in downtown Wichita, getting the crowd hyped before hip-hop legend Keith Murray hits the stage.
Well before Clarence Thomas joined the Reagan administration; before Benedict Arnold switched to King George’s side; even before Romeo forsook the Montagues, solitary human beings found reasons to separate themselves from their tribal identity.
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At a recent mayoral candidate
forum focused on matters of health, those in attendance had the opportunity to
listen to seven of the nine individuals running for mayor (Mark Gietzen and
Joshua Atkinson were no shows) respond to questions about water quality, local
mental health facilities, funding for transit and other transportation
alternatives, Wichita’s own Community Health Improvement Plan, and more. Most
of it was informative, but little of it, in my view, provided any points of
distinction between the six men and one woman on the stage.
There is a not insignificant line to buy $3 tickets to the
Wichita Flea Market at Century II’s Exhibition Hall. Inside, the diamonds and detritus
of a city’s inhabitants stretch across both time and space in this corner of south
central Kansas’ prime convention center. Star Wars action figures entice Generation
X, while baby boomers fawn over car doors painted with antique logos from the
1950s.
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Everyone likes a good story. In Wichita, enlightening and provocative voices are waiting to be heard.
