Best Docent

With his good-natured grin and hospitable demeanor, John Buchanan would make a perfect Wal-Mart greeter. But that would be such a waste of the doctorate in African-American art history he's working on at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Buchanan, the former registrar at the Mississippi Museum of Art, welcomes visitors to the UMKC Belger Arts Center with personal anecdotes about the artists on display or stories from his childhood in Selma, Alabama. "He's definitely the most dedicated docent," says Maude Wahlman, professor of global arts at UMKC. "He's down there all the time, training other docents, doing research. He's very friendly -- that's what he does best."