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Meet the latest cohort of The Wichita Beacon’s Community Engagement Bureau

The Wichita Beacon is excited to welcome the newest members to our team of Community Engagement Bureau Representatives. These four representatives, who come from a variety of backgrounds and neighborhoods across Wichita, have deep local expertise, community connections and love for the place we all call home. The Wichita Beacon’s Community Engagement Bureau is a…

Meet Shaila Roach, a Wichita tattoo artist telling stories through ink

Imagine the perfect TV family, only the parents are 1980s metalheads, divorced, struggling financially and otherwise, and everyone is covered in tattoos, including grandpa.  That is the family Shaila Roach grew up in: An unconventional but unconditionally loving family that defies expectation of what that’s supposed to look like. Today her family looks like this,…

‘Storm of Addiction’ Part 2: Sober and ready to fight

This is the second part of a two-part series. Read the first part here: “How a Kansas woman emerged from the storm of addiction to fight fentanyl.” This story contains references to drug use, addiction and overdose. When Ashley Alexander found her fiance, Dustin Gotham, lying on the bathroom floor with a needle in his…

Kimmie Pahdocony-Zotigh works to keep her Kiowa story alive

This story contains references to sexual abuse and self-harm.  Stories are the lifeblood of any culture, and for the Kiowa, each person’s name holds a story within. When names are passed down, so are the stories, providing each generation a connection to the past. Kimmie Pahdocony-Zotigh cannot pronounce her Kiowa name because like most of…

‘You become what you grow up around,’ says Youth of the Year

Khaai Wilson could have had a very different life – one that didn’t include good parents teaching him to make the good choices that led to being named 2023 Youth of the Year by the Boys & Girls Clubs of South Central Kansas. The award recognizes the club member who best embodies academic success, good…

‘I am the magic’: How Michelle Leo found her way back

This story contains references to sexual abuse, self-harm and drug use.  When 24-year-old Michelle Leo tells her story it does not have a beginning, a middle and an end.  It does come with a trigger warning: Leo wants you to know it’s going to be dark and maybe you won’t want to hear it.  Stories…

Muslim in Kansas: Taben Azad’s quest to belong

Sometimes you love a place that doesn’t love you back. Taben Azad loves his family, his faith and his hometown. But as a Kansas-born Muslim it’s hard for him to find a sense of belonging. “I’m too Muslim to be American, and I’m too American to be Muslim,” Azad says. “I don’t feel like I…

Defying a “gang list” label to find his voice and lend it to others

There is the life you are born to — and the life you create. Desmond Bryant-White is creating his chosen life through words: written words and spoken words, filling books and covering whiteboards. Words rising out of pain, struggle and injustice, uttered at poetry slams, press conferences and policy panels. And now leaders of Wichita’s…

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