October 16, 2024 | By The Active Age
United Way of the Plains is recruiting 160 volunteers for the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program that will operate Feb. 1 through April 15 in 2025. According to a news release, the service is offered at no charge to households making $64,000 or less annually. Funded through an annual grant secured from the Internal […]
October 15, 2024 | By Carla Eckels/KMUW
Known to many as Mammy in the movie “Gone with the Wind,” or as the first Black actor to receive an Academy Award, Wichita native Hattie McDaniel’s achievements didn’t stop there. According to McDaniel’s great-grandnephew, Kevin Goff, she was more than an award-winning actress. “She was a was a dancer, she played the drums, she […]
October 14, 2024 | By Stefania Lugli/The Journal
The deaths of more homeless residents are being counted this year after local officials implemented a formal process to identify them – the latest symptom of the intensifying conversation around homelessness in Wichita. As of September, 46 homeless people had been confirmed dead by Sedgwick County Regional Forensic Science Center investigators. That’s more than the 42 that […]
October 13, 2024 | By Courtney Brown/The Beacon
Dreena Reed has Medicare coverage, so she wasn’t personally affected when Textron Aviation cut off striking workers’ health insurance. But she’s worried about her daughter’s family. Her son-in-law is also on strike, and the company-sponsored health insurance covers him, Reed’s daughter and their kids. “That just goes to show that they’re not caring about their […]
October 11, 2024 | By The Active Age
Sedgwick County Election Commissioner Laura Rainwater is reminding voters of several important dates this month, including next week’s voter registration deadline, in preparation for the 2024 General Election on Tuesday, Nov. 5. Tuesday, Oct. 15 – Last day that Sedgwick County residents can register to vote and be able to cast a ballot in the […]
October 10, 2024 | By The Active Age
Social Security benefits and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments for more than 72.5 million Americans will increase 2.5% in 2025, the Social Security Administration announced today (Oct. 10). On average, Social Security retirement benefits will increase by about $50 per month starting in January. Over the last decade the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) increase has averaged […]
October 9, 2024 | By The Active Age
A woman who stole thousands of dollars from her great uncle has been sentenced to nearly four years in prison, according to a news release from the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s office. Sedgwick County District Judge David Kaufman sentenced Stephanie Bracks, 43, of Dallas, Texas to 47 months in prison and ordered her to pay […]
October 3, 2024 | By The Active Age
Wichita home prices will rise by nearly 8 percent next year, slightly more than the statewide average, according to the 2025 Kansas Housing Markets Forecast series published by the Wichita State University Center for Real Estate. “Inventories of homes available for sale remain quite tight,” said Dr. Stan Longhofer, director of the WSU Center for […]
October 1, 2024 | By Joe Norris
In Jackson Hole, Wyoming, there’s a beautiful town square park that you enter through one of two huge arches made of elk antlers. When huckleberries are in season, you can sit in the park and enjoy a huckleberry lemonade or one of several other tasty huckleberry concoctions. They’re crazy for huckleberries in that part of […]
| By Becky Funke
GODDARD — The Goddard Senior Center is on a roll. What had been a group of older residents getting together informally cut the ribbon on the new Goddard Senior Center last month, days after the Goddard City Council approved $46,000 in funding for it ($6,000 of which came from Sedgwick County). This month, the center […]
| By The Active Age
Three new members have joined the board of directors of The Active Age. Steve Criser is one of the founders and owners of CGP Group, LLC, a tax and accounting firm. A Wichita native, he graduated from East High and Wichita State University. Criser jokes that a job he held during college — drawing blood […]
| By The Active Age
Diabetes fair offers free testing Free testing for diabetes, flu vaccines, foot exams and more will be offered during the 8th annual Live Well with Diabetes Fair, held from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Wichita State Metroplex, 5015 E. 29th St. N. Sponsored by the Great Plains Diabetes Center, the […]
| By Lynn Avants
“Wichita Blues: Music in the African American Community” by Patrick Joseph O’Connor (2024, University Press of Mississippi, 282 pages, $30 on Amazon) The traditions and history of the blues as a music form have been well-documented in some regions of the United States. The new book “Wichita Blues” does the same for the genre in […]
| By The Active Age
The Active Age is now available in audio form through NFB-Newsline, a service of the National Federation of the Blind and State Library of Kansas. NFB-Newsline is intended to help those who are visually impaired or have difficulty because of a physical impairment or reading disability. There is no charge for the service, but users […]
| By The League of Women Voters Wichita-Metro
Whether you’re 19 or 99, you are an important member of our democracy. Be sure to exercise your right to vote in the November 2024 election. Here’s how to plan ahead. Check your registration Go to KSvotes.org or call the Sedgwick County Election Office at (316) 660-7100 to see if you are registered and if your information […]
| By The Active Age
Here are some facts you might not know about Lincoln Heights Village, which became Wichita’s first shopping center when it opened in 1949. It was named for Abraham Lincoln, whom realtor and developer Walter Morris greatly admired. Morris bought the property at Douglas and Oliver in 1926 from a wealthy St. Louis financier, Harry F. […]
| By Ted Blankenship
If you are a genuine Kansan, say born in Bazaar, you probably already know this. But if you’re a native of, say, Dallas or Minneapolis, you probably grew up mispronouncing the name of a native Kansas animal, the coyote. It’s co-yote, not co-yot-ee. The frustrating part of this is that people who put the “ee” […]
| By Joe Stumpe
Hunger-inducing. That’s one good description of a Chicago-style deep-dish pizza when it’s pulled out of the oven. The fact that it takes only a handful of inexpensive store-bought ingredients to put together makes it even more appetizing. Chicago-style Deep-dish Pizza Olive oil 1 bag (16 oz.) refrigerated pizza dough, brought to room temperature 1/2 […]
| By Nancy Wheeler
Paranormal events are phenomena whose existence cannot be explained by science. As Halloween approaches, let’s review our working knowledge of these reported occurrences. The answers appear below. 1. What name is given to the colorful spiritual energy that surrounds a person’s physical body and indicates a person’s emotional or physical well-being? 2. What term is […]
| By Diana Morton
Forum Theatre, at the Wilke Center, 1st United Methodist Church, 330 N. Broadway. Dial M for Murder. A jealous husband, his wealthy wife and the seemingly perfect crime are at the center of this new version of the celebrated murder mystery that inspired Alfred Hitchcock’s film masterpiece. Oct 31- Nov 17. 8pm; Tickets $34 – […]
| By Jim Miller
How to Assess What You Need in a Walker Dear Savvy Senior, Can you give me some tips on choosing an appropriate walker for my elderly father? He has some balance issues along with arthritis in his hips and could use a little more help than a cane provides. Wobbly in Wisconsin Dear Wobbly, When […]
| By Bob Rives
Like their Major League careers, the news was welcome but a bit late for two Wichita baseball stars. Earlier this year, Major League Baseball announced that Negro League statistics would be considered big league stats. For Bob Thurman, who started a Major League career at age 38 after three seasons of Negro League play, and […]
| By The Active Age
Vera Jane Davis, seen with her “Sunset on the Farm,” and Naomi Ullum, pictured with “Peonies-Sunlit Luminescence,” are among artists chosen to have their work featured in the 2025 Art is Ageless calendar, postcards and greeting cards produced by Presbyterian Manors of Mid-America. Others include Patt Sharpe, for “Catus;” Paulette Mattingly, for “Giraffe Fabric Collage”; […]
September 30, 2024 | By Meg Britton-Mehlisch/The Beacon
One big rainstorm won’t fix Wichita’s water shortage. Dark storm clouds that hovered over Wichita one mid-September softened the ring of cracked dirt that’s inched wider around Cheney Lake each week, but it didn’t erase the underlying problem. Kansas is in a drought. For much of the last year, Cheney Lake, Wichita’s primary water source, […]
| By Chance Swaim/The Wichita Eagle
The two candidates for Sedgwick County Commission District 3 have different visions for how county government should raise and spend money in the face of increasing property taxes and a housing shortage in the Wichita area. Celeste Racette, a fiscally conservative Democrat with a background in accounting, said she wants to offer property tax relief […]