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Meet Sister Ursula, a glamorous nun advocating for gay and trans youth
By his own account, Scott Sullivan leads a boring life. He’s a 58-year-old white male who works at the local tag office, as he has for 25 years. He’s married. He grew up mostly in the Midwest, one of two children in an upper-middle class, two-parent “white-bread” family. He knew little trauma as a child,…
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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…
Refugee from the Congo escapes violence to build life anew: ‘Wichita is my home’
This story begins with Gédéon Bahemuka Jino’s happy ending — his life today in Wichita. Gédéon works a job he enjoys in an office downtown, five miles from a house he owns near 17th and Hillside streets. He lives there with his wife and two daughters — one a junior at Southeast High School, the…
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,…
Wichita native returns to roots teaching improv: “I am fulfilling my purpose”
In the entryway of Jessie Gray’s home in Wichita sits a bronze statue of a 10-inch winged pig suspended in flight. She bought it – her first piece of “real art” – at a gallery in California right after she quit her corporate job. She didn’t know where she was going to live or where…
‘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…
How a Kansas woman emerged from the storm of addiction to fight fentanyl
This is the first part of a two-part series. Read the second part here: “ ‘Storm of Addiction’ Part 2: Sober and ready to fight” This story contains references to drug use, addiction and overdose. If you wanted a metaphor to describe Ashley Alexander’s life, you might tell the story of a woman emerging from…
Cindy Coughenour taught thousands of women to protect themselves after one friend couldn’t
This story briefly references sexual assault and violence against women. If a guy looking for an easy target saw a petite, older woman like Cindy Coughenour walking down a deserted street in Wichita, he might think he’s found his next victim. He would be wrong. She would already be aware of him walking toward her…
Kansas songwriter Toby Tyner tells story behind ‘Already Gone’
The best version of Kansas songwriter Toby Tyner’s mom lives in the lines of a song he wrote a year ago. That the song is called “Already Gone” hints at how long that version of her lasted. Where and how his mother lives today is something wholly different. But before you can hear that story,…
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…
Surviving the winter without shelter: What it’s like for one Wichita couple
Denise and Richard Dodd currently live next to a river in Wichita. We asked the Dodds how they came to live beside the river. This is their story.
New York, Paris, Milan, Wichita: Hazel Stabler makes waves in fashion and on the school board
Much as Wichita sits at the confluence of two rivers, Hazel Stabler lives at the confluence of two identities – fashion designer and school board member. Hazel and her husband, Hollis, retired to Wichita about 10 years ago. Originally from Emporia, Hazel is of Yaqui and Ojibwe heritage; her husband is Omaha. Hazel has a…
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