Category: Local Interest

Best cell phone choice not the same for everyone

May 31, 2024 | By Tammara Fogle

Dear Savvy Senior, Can you recommend some good cell phones for seniors? My 79-year-old mother needs to get a new mobile phone and has asked me to help her find one that she would like. Searching Daughter Dear Searching, For older adults, choosing a cell phone is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Some seniors love the […]

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‘Buzzsaw’ McHenry took up Carry Nation’s battle

| By Jim Mason 

Carry Nation was temperance’s best-known crusader in these parts, but a follower who was every bit her match in militance actually carried on the battle against demon rum longer. Myra Gaines Warren was born March 18, 1848, in Dover, Mo. She married James A. McHenry of Neodesha, Kan., in 1872. The marriage took place in […]

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Books look at U.S. political conflicts of past and present

| By Ted Ayres

“Founding Partisans: Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics” by H.W. Brands (Doubleday, 2023, 451 pages, $32.50) “Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning” by Liz Cheney (Little, Brown and Company, 2023, 372 pages, $32.50) Have you noticed that 2024 is an election year? Even if I wanted to forget, my […]

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June quiz: It’s all in the family

| By Nancy Wheeler

The answers to the following clues all mention a family member. The answers appear below. 1. What program debuted on CBS in October 1954 and starred Robert Young as the dad who had all the answers? 2. What 2008 movie starred Meryl Streep and featured songs by ABBA? 3.  What anti-slavery novel by Harriet Beecher […]

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Strength training can increase healthy years in your future

| By Monica Cissell

Sometimes it’s difficult to find the energy and motivation to exercise, especially when factors like bad weather and lack of access to an exercise facility are added in. But exercise is important at any age, and strength training is an important part.  Research into strength training by the National Institute on Aging has found it […]

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Innovative outdoor fitness court opens in north Wichita

May 9, 2024 | By The Active Age

An outdoor fitness court will officially open at 1 p.m. Friday in Pat Garcia Veterans Memorial Park in north Wichita. Located at 2640 N. Wellington Place, between Arkansas and Broadway, the court was developed by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas, Wichita Park and Recreation and the National Fitness Campaign. According to a news […]

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Wichita’s top ranking is something to sneeze at

April 1, 2024 | By The Active Age

There’s apparently no place like Wichita to experience that sniffling, sneezing, itchy, runny nose and watery eyes feeling. For the second year in a row, the city has been named the most challenging place in the United States to live with seasonal allergies by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. But there are a […]

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Characters make ‘Thursday Murder Club’ series come alive

| By Ted Ayres

I recently became acquainted with some interesting people and have become rather attached to them. These new friends include a former nurse, a former spy, a former union official and an occasionally still-practicing psychiatrist. They are all septuagenarian pensioners living at Coopers Chase, an upscale retirement village near Fairhaven, England. Oh, and they meet once […]

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U-Haul: Maize and Andover among fastest-growing Kansas cities

January 6, 2024 | By The Active Age

Maize and Andover were among Kansas cities that appeared to grow in population the fastest last year, according to U-Haul. The company tracks one-way rentals of trucks, trailers and U-box moving containers across the United State each year to come up with its “growth index.” Overall, Kansas saw more slightly more departures (50.1 percent) than […]

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Tickets go on sale for synchronized skating championship

January 5, 2024 | By The Active Age

Tickets are now on sale for the 2024 U.S. Figure Skating Midwestern Synchronized Sectional Championship, which will be held in Wichita Jan. 24-27. Championship performances will be conducted at Intrust Bank Arena while practices will take place at the Wichita Ice Center. This is Visit Wichita’s fourth time to host a U.S. Figure Skating event. […]

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Win tickets to Johnny Cash Concert Experience

December 29, 2023 | By The Active Age

The Active Age is holding a drawing to give away three pairs of tickets to “Johnny Cash: The Official Concert Experience” at the Orpheum Theatre on Friday, Feb. 9. The show features video from the Johnny Cash TV show projected above the stage, accompanied by a live band. The band’s singers also perform versions of […]

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Historic Old Mill bustling again

| By Joe Stumpe

NEWTON — Harvey County residents were buzzing about the opening of a steakhouse in the Old Mill last month, and not just because they were hankering for a hunk of red meat. The Old Mill itself plays a key role in this area’s history. Local businessman D. Hamill built the stone and brick structure as […]

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Things to do in January

| By The Active Age

Volunteers to count homeless United Way of the Plains is looking for 100 volunteers to help conduct the Wichita-Sedgwick County point-in-time homeless count on Jan. 25. It’s part of a national effort to estimate the number of Americans who don’t have safe and stable housing, data that is used in a variety of ways. Those […]

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Public town hall Tuesday to gather input on regional psychiatric hospital location

December 11, 2023 | By The Active Age

The Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services and Sedgwick County will host a public town hall meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2023, to answer questions regarding the South Central Regional Psychiatric Hospital project and gather input on potential sites from the community. Sedgwick County issued a request for proposals for properties or existing buildings […]

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City Hall moves to automated parking

December 10, 2023 | By The Active Age

The Wichita City Hall public parking lot was changed this month to unmanned, automated ticket booths. According to a news release, under the new system, when visitors approach the automated entry gate, they will push a button and receive a ticket with a barcode on it. When they are ready to leave, visitors will scan the […]

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City Hall moves to automated parking

| By The Active Age

The Wichita City Hall public parking lot was changed this month to unmanned, automated ticket booths. According to a news release, under the new system, when visitors approach the automated entry gate, they will push a button and receive a ticket with a barcode on it. When they are ready to leave, visitors will scan the […]

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Church wants senior housing, not money

November 29, 2023 | By PJ Griekspoor and Bonita Gooch The Community Voice

By PJ Griekspoor and Bonita Gooch The Community Voice Pastor David Chiles of Paradise Missionary Baptist Church has a front-row seat to the explosive building spree on Wichita State University’s Innovation Campus and adjacent private property. Corporate offices are being built on Innovation Campus and hundreds of new market-rate apartments have been built in the […]

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City and Southeast High students planting 700 trees in Alice Wall Park

November 2, 2023 | By The Active Age

Wichita Park & Recreation is partnering with Southeast High School to plant 700 trees in Alice Wall Park, 4506 S. Doris, today. According to a news release, 100 students from Southeast High School will plant trees in the park from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., with the Wichita Park & Recreation forestry team overseeing their […]

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Exploration Place sets attendance record

July 31, 2023 | By The Active Age

Exploration Place, the Sedgwick County Science and Discovery Center, has broken its all-time attendance record with 363,047 visitors in the 2022-23 fiscal year. According to a news release, the previous high of 348,532 was in 2000-01, the science center’s first year of operation. Exploration Place has also set a new membership record of 9,203 households, […]

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All on board for duck craze

July 28, 2023 | By Ted Blankenship

I had no idea what we were missing when Dorothy and I took a cruise down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. We were content with chef-prepared meals, visits to historical places, jazz in the streets of New Orleans and lounging on the deck of our paddle-wheel boat. We didn’t know that if we had […]

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Kansas African American Museum to double in size in new home

June 27, 2023 | By Ted Ayers

The Kansas African American Museum has achieved much in its current location, the historic former Calvary Baptist Church on North Water Street. The building sits in what once was the heart of Wichita’s black community — four blocks between Main and Waco where many early African American residents owned businesses, attended church and made their […]

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Spreading the credit for North High and Minisa Bridge

May 30, 2023 | By Lynn Stephan

Since the day Wichita’s North High School opened in 1929, accolades for its distinctive design, particularly the Indian and pioneer sculptures, have gone to architect Glen Thomas and internationally-recognized fine artist Bruce Moore. A third name, that of Lawrence Byers, if mentioned, is typically incidental. Yet, as the draftsman and iconographer in Thomas’ office, Byers […]

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‘The money is gone’: Older woman loses $140,000 in scam, man out $35,000

April 12, 2023 | By Joe Stumpe

“The money is gone.” That’s in the statement issued by District Attorney Marc Bennett in announcing that two older Wichita residents have lost a total of nearly $175,000 to scammers. In the first case, a Wichita man in his late 70’s received a pop-up warning on his computer that his bank account had been hacked. […]

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Earliest memories not always fond ones

March 31, 2023 | By Diana Breit Wolfe

I have a story from my early childhood that keeps creeping back to me, and I re-live it in my mind from time to time. It’s about my grandma dying while she was babysitting me. But more about that later. Out of curiosity, I started asking others about their earliest childhood memories. Most of what […]

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