People & Places >>

• Best Suburban Revitalization Effort
  City of Grandview
  We didn't really know Grandview was making an effort to revitalize itself -- downtown Kansas City, Missouri, was hogging all that attention -- until we got a flier in our gas bill early in the summer. Weirdly, the four-color brochure invited Missouri Gas Energy customers to come check out the... More >>
• Most Crushworthy Local Barista (Male)
  Ian Tobin, Broadway Café
  We'll go ahead and say it: He's a pretty boy. But then, we have to ask: So what? The sight of Ian Tobin's trim yet defined forearm muscle flexing as he rhythmically tamps ground espresso beans behind the counter of Broadway Café is probably more exciting than it should be. He only... More >>
• Best Downtown Revitalizer
  Sean O'Byrne
  Sean O'Byrne toiled for years selling commercial real estate downtown. The way he tells it, he spent most of that time trying to convince his clients they should move to the city's center while trying to distract them from the trashed-out streets, the crumbling sidewalks and the boarded-up... More >>
• Best Political Landslide
  Lawrence Smart Growth Elections
  In recent years, so-called Smart Growth campaigns have sprung up in cities across the country as forward-thinking citizens try to slow suburban sprawl and curb corporate welfare. Perhaps no place has embraced the movement quite as sweepingly as Lawrence, where voters elected three Smart Growth... More >>
• Best Local Cameo in the Extra Footage on a DVD
  Jeremy Hubbard in Magnolia
  Magnolia is an amazing movie, perhaps one of the top ensemble pieces in cinematic history and a landmark in film editing. But just in case you need extra incentive to rent the DVD of Paul Thomas Anderson's post-Boogie Nights project, consider this: Your very own local anchor-hunk Jeremy Hubbard... More >>
• Best Reporter We Want to Huddle with During a Tornado
  Jeremy Hubbard, KMBC Channel 9
  A TV reporter covering a tornado for live TV must be a stylist's nightmare -- is there ever enough Aqua Net to keep those helmet hairdos from looking windblown and rain-sodden? But just because a twister has touched down doesn't mean that fashion sense must be abandoned like a second floor.... More >>
• Best Snobby New York Commentary on a Kansas City Export
  "Chains Bring Strip Mall Flavor, or Lack of It, to Manhattan"
  Sometimes it seems as if people on the snooty coasts just don't understand the pleasures of Midwestern living. But based on quotes in a June 4 New York Times story, some New Yorkers are starting to catch on. In "Chains Bring Strip Mall Flavor, or Lack of It, to Manhattan," writer Marian Burros... More >>
• Best Crushworthy Local Celebrity (Female)
  Lacy Cornish
  We won't bore you with another Lacy Cornish/Bettie Page comparison. We've decided it's not apt. Cornish's look is really more loungey and slick than Page's was. She's tall and confident, her clothing and accessories both stylish and meticulous. Her jet-black bangs are cut straight across in a... More >>
• Best Hope for the Future
  Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Expansion
  Let there be no doubt: Of all flyover cities in America, none has a better art scene than Kansas City. With the Kansas City Art Institute churning out Whitney Biennial-caliber artists year after year, and such nationally recognized patrons as Margaret Silva at Grand Arts and Bruce Hartman at the... More >>
• Best Cable TV Hopeful
  Steve Shaw, WDAF Channel 4
  Apologists for George W. Bush have a handy, euphemistic excuse for the mush the president makes whenever his crucifix-wielding aides prod him to make sounds with his mouth: See, he's just folksy. Somehow that works for him; people eat it up. He's a millionaire oilman who once owned a Major... More >>
• Best Reason for Goin' to Kansas City
  Nebraska Furniture Mart
  It might be humbling to admit that one of the top tourist draws to your town is a furniture store -- and not even a homegrown one, at that -- but there's no denying that since Nebraska Furniture Mart opened this summer, it's been drawing eager bargain hunters from places near and far. The good... More >>
• Best Local Religious Apparition
  Grotto of the Virgin Mary
  Everyone's heard of Lourdes, Fatima, Guadalupe. But Northeast Kansas City? The rustic Grotto of the Virgin Mary is located a few blocks north of Independence Avenue. Turn at Askew (near the Askew Inn) and take a left on Garner, but don't drive too fast, or you'll pass the salmon-colored fence... More >>
• Most Crushworthy Local Barista (Female)
  Shanon, Y.J.'s Snack Bar
  Even for people who are mildly claustrophobic, entering Y.J.'s Snack Bar on 18th Street can be a disorienting experience. The tiny coffee shop is usually blasting music, which has a constricting effect, particularly when the Y.J.'s entrance is blocked by a pit bull with a head the size of a... More >>
• Best Bet for a National Championship
  University of Missouri-Kansas City Debate Team
  In 1986, Linda Collier set out to restore the University of Missouri-Kansas City's debate program to its old glory. Right off the bat, her squad nabbed the National Championship for New Programs in the Cross Examination Debate Association. In the years since, her teams have brought home the CEDA... More >>
• Best Sexy Teacher
  Dennis Dailey
  Dennis Dailey is a respected professor who has won numerous awards since joining the University of Kansas faculty in 1969. But he's best known for sex. For twenty years, Dailey's human sexuality course has been among KU's most popular classes. This spring, it became the school's most... More >>
• Best Hottie on Channel 2
  Dion Waldon of the Public Works Department
  We hate to admit this, but all too often, some of us here at the Pitch spend our Friday nights on the couch at home. We're never bored, though, because we always end up fixated on Channel 2, Kansas City's government channel. We've heard many people groan that Channel 2 is soooo boring, but we... More >>
• Best Remnant of Kansas City's Not-So-Glorious Days
  Roy Wilkins' "Let's Talk About It" Columns
  It's only fitting that Minnesota should have two grand monuments to civil rights activist Roy Wilkins while Kansas City has none. Born in the heart of Mississippi, Wilkins' family moved north when he was very young. In Minnesota, he experienced true racial harmony, attending school with white... More >>
• Best Name
  Kite Singleton
  There's a lot to be said about local architect and Regional Transit Alliance board member Kite Singleton, but come on, how about that name? Say it: KITE SINGLETON ... KITE SINGLETON ... KITE SINGLETON. Imagine being hit on at a bar by someone named KITE SINGLETON. KITE: Fun. SINGLE: Available.... More >>
• Best Candidate for Center of the Universe
  Sedalia
  According to a brochure issued by Sedalia's Tourism Department, the small, mid-Missouri town is within 500 miles of 20 different states. Brett Dufur, in his book The Complete Katy Trail Guidebook, challenges readers to work that fact into a sentence. All right, Brett, we will. Because Sedalia is... More >>
• Best Crushworthy Local Celebrity (Male)
  Steve Chamraz, KCTV Channel 5
  With his chocolate-brown hair and eyes and adorable dimples, Steve Chamraz, chief investigative reporter for KCTV Channel 5 news, can be our morning anchor anytime. What makes him more attractive, though, is that this thorough journalist is more than just a pretty boy. He's covered some of the... More >>
• Best Politician
  Deb Hermann
  We knew Deb Hermann was our kind of politician when her knuckle-dragging, firefighter-union-backed opponent came after her on Election Day with a baseball bat. Damn, girl! You must be doing something right! The 1st District Kansas City Councilwoman is just the kind of up-from-the-neighborhoods... More >>
• Best All-Around Tornado Coverage
  KMBC Channel 9
  In the future, student meteorologists will sit around in their podlike classrooms, downloading historical weather reports into their skull-implanted PCs and laughing their gyroscope-guided asses off at the two-dimensional inanity of twentieth-century radar screens. Ooh, look, the big green blob... More >>
• Best Public Prayer
  Mike Sweeney, June 15
  Everyone knows Royals slugger Mike Sweeney is a big Christian -- the fact that everyone knows is what makes it all sort of annoying. Hey, we support everyone's right to practice his or her own religion, but why do some people always have to flaunt it? Yeah, yeah, there's that whole thing about... More >>
• Best Headline
  The Star, January 21
  Transit advocate and petition maven Clay Chastain has absorbed some media punishment over the years, particularly from Star political cartoonist Lee Judge. Most recently, Star scribe Barbara Shelly admitted in a column that she once hid behind her child to avoid Chastain at a grocery store.... More >>
• Best Failed Legislation
  Scott Burnett's Anti-Patriot Act Resolution in the Jackson County Legislature
  We applaud Jackson County legislator Scott Burnett, who tried in April to get the county legislature to just say no to John Ashcroft's freaky U.S.A. Patriot act. Since September 11, 2001, his resolution noted, "Americans have witnessed considerable expansion of federal governmental authority and... More >>
• Best Newscaster
  Micheal Mahoney, KMBC Channel 9
  Occasionally, we at the Pitch find ourselves shoulder-to-shoulder with our journalistic peers, covering press conferences or events sure to make the nightly news. Much of the time, the events themselves aren't nearly as entertaining as the folks who come to cover them, in particular the TV news... More >>
• Best Glasses On The Tube
  Elizabeth Alex, KSHB Channel 41
  When Marilyn Monroe donned spectacles in How to Marry a Millionaire, it wasn't like she suddenly became a bow-wow. While walking into walls, she also walked right into the collective heterosexual male libido. Today, glasses have become yesterday's halter tops -- they signify a blend of sexy and... More >>
• Best TV News Moment
  Bob Werly Gets Trashed on KMBC Channel 9
  Few retirees have the opportunity to spend their last day on the job getting ripped on the boss's dime, and even fewer do it on television. Yet that's precisely how Channel 9 veteran news reporter Bob Werly spent his final on-air hours this June. In a report ostensibly about the dangers of... More >>
• Best Reason to Rescind the Curfew on Kids at Crown Center
  The Attack on Hearne Christopher Jr.
  Kansas City isn't exactly a teen-friendly town; this past year, the under-eighteen set has been banned from various midtown and Plaza locations that are trying to attract nonexistent tourists. However, we'd like to start a petition drive for Crown Center to rescind its teen curfew, if only... More >>
• Best Ironic Ad
  The Kansas City Zoo's "Be Wild and Free" Campaign
  What was the Kansas City Zoo's marketing crew thinking? Reading the Star over breakfast one morning several months ago, we almost choked on our Gorilla Munch cereal when we saw the zoo's latest gambit to persuade an increasingly disenchanted public to come point and stare at the bored exotic... More >>
• Best Radio Comeback (1 Comment)
  Randy Miller, KZPL 97.3
  Randy Miller has been the puckish enfant terrible of local radio for decades, which is why listeners either loathe or love his quick wit, his irritating and sometimes pubescent pranks, and his irreverent point of view. His critics, including The Kansas City Star's Hearne Christopher Jr.,... More >>
• Best Unintentionally Hilarious Metro Digest Section in the Star
  January 28
  Before Star editors started putting bylines on the paper's Metropolitan Digest section, we imagined the anonymous, bored reporters who -- purposely or not -- wrote up the little crime blurbs in such a deadpan style that they became B-2-livening gems of hilarity. Back on January 28, there were... More >>
• Best Place To Gamble
  Isle of Capri Casino
  It's not nearly as glamorous as the Ameristar or as lively as Harrah's, but the Isle of Capri Casino scores high in payoffs of friendliness, easy accessibility and sex appeal. If some of the more provocatively titled slot machines (Wild Cherry, Purple Passion) aren't alluring enough, the pretty... More >>
• Best Anti-War Statement by a Hawk
  Ike Skelton's March Letter to George W. Bush
  Based on his voting record, we've always thought Democratic U.S. Representative Ike Skelton was secretly a Republican. That's why we were pleasantly surprised when Skelton wrote a March 18 letter to President George W. Bush, urging him to frickin' slow down his rush to war. Skelton, whose... More >>
• Best Weathercaster
  Katie Horner, KCTV Channel 5
  When tornados touched down in Kansas City in May, Channel 5's Katie Horner was already at the studio and completely prepared for the worst. "We had plenty of notice, the previous two days, that we were going to be hit with something severe," she says. "We had the whole staff and crew ready."... More >>
• Best Reminder Of Key West In Kansas City (1 Comment)
  Rudy Langer's Contemporary House
  We have to admit that, at first, we hated the house built just across Brush Creek from the Plaza. It didn't fit with the vine-covered stone of the Tudors cut into the hill above or with the Spanish Mediterranean style of the Plaza itself. Apparently we weren't alone. Owner-designer-builder Rudy... More >>
• Best Public Place to Make Out or Maybe Do a Little More
  The End of the Pedestrian Bridge Overlooking the Missouri River
  Like a $4 million inspiration point, the pedestrian bridge overlooking the Missouri River just north of the City Market is bound to become the city's make-out destination of choice. Look down, and the water's rippled surface becomes a liquid link between Kansas City and the steaming streets of... More >>
• Best Gulf Dispatch
  Scott Canon, March 26
  The Star was the only local media organization to let its reporters jump embed with the U.S. military for Operation Iraqi Freedom. We're not entirely sure how much better this made the Star's coverage; days and pages all seemed to blur together in one big fog of war. But every once in a while,... More >>
• Best Collector
  Belle Star
  When Camel cigarettes snuffed its nationwide ad campaign last January, Kansas City bar owners lost millions of dollars in subsidies and bar accoutrements. But for Belle Star, well-known drag queen and owner of a new watering hole called Time Out, the end of the Camel train meant something... More >>
• Best Star Nod to the Nazis
  "Faces of Freedom," April 23
  We're all for patriotism. House flags, car flags, Stars-and-Stripes pins, Stars-and-Stripes tattoos -- as far as we're concerned, there's no yard longer than the long yard of good ol' fashioned jingoism. But we must admit we were a bit thrown by the Star's "Faces of Freedom" column during the... More >>
• Best Halloween House
  927 West 34th Street
  Every Halloween, carloads of kids from all over town descend on Coleman Highlands, the historic hill of mansion-sized houses off 31st Street and Southwest Trafficway. Kids know the candy's good in this 'hood. More than that, though, the people who live here know how to get in the spirit of... More >>
• Best Star Avoidance of a Curse Word
  "Mizzou stumbles on road," February 23
  Close readers of the Star know that, to our ever-prudent hometown daily, the charge "all the news that's fit to print" excludes even the tamest of swear words. In fact, we've heard some hilarious stories from frustrated Star reporters about their attempts to get colorful quotes in the paper,... More >>
• Best Hair on the Air
  Cynné Simpson, KCTV Channel 5
  Kansas City has never been an especially good market for news anchors with luxurious locks. Think back to Cynthia Smith's 1980s bleach job and Anne Peterson's wan wave or, more recently, Kelly Eckerman's pert pixie and Elizabeth Alex's conservative bob. Cynné Simpson, however, isn't just... More >>
• Best View of Downtown from Inside Downtown
  John's Big Deck
  A 40-foot cobbling of two-by-fours topped with patio-style furniture, John's Big Deck crowns a three-story bar in the center of downtown. Looking over the edge of the deck, city blocks roll outward in an evenly spaced grid. Buildings stand all around like tall rows of dominoes. The Commerce Bank... More >>
• Best Singin' Preacher
  Bishop Mark Tolbert
  We're not Pentecostals, so we don't make it a habit of attending Sunday services at Christ Temple Church, a grand 1927 limestone monument at 3400 Paseo that's listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Not that we have anything against Pentecostals, and if we were of that denomination,... More >>
• Best Advocate for a Group Without Advocates
  Zach Wilson
  Zach Wilson's downtown skate shop hadn't yet opened -- it hadn't even been stocked -- when thieves broke in and made off with most of his personal possessions in late 2001. No one would have blamed Wilson for relocating to Johnson County and profiting from that area's suburban skateparks.... More >>
• Best Indication That Brighter Days Are Ahead
  Missouri House Republicans
  Saturday Night Live alum and George W. Bush impersonator Will Ferrell may have said it best: "Presidenting is hard." Well, if a January speech by Missouri Governor Bob Holden is any indication, lawmakering is pretty hard, too. It seems a number of newly elected Republicans in the Statehouse were... More >>
• Best Kansas City, Missouri, School Board Member
  Duane Kelly
  People love to use Duane Kelly as an example of how screwy the Kansas City, Missouri, School Board is. He's got a bushy, Rasputin beard and long, silvery hair. He thinks nothing of showing up at a meeting in tight jogging shorts. And when the floor opens to comments, he often regales the crowd... More >>
• Best Conspiracy Theory
  Bus Cuts Meeting at the Gem Theatre
  If Kansas City voters reject a tax increase this November, those who depend on buses will no longer have transportation on Saturday nights and Sundays. Pretty rough. In an effort to drum up support for the tax increase, transit leaders held numerous town-hall-style meetings this summer, the... More >>
• Best Idea From a Star Columnist that Won't Go Anywhere
  Kevin Collison's Suggestion for a Museum of the American West in Union Station
  All the way back in November 2002, the Star's development reporter, Kevin Collison, had the oh-so-plain-and-simple yet visionary idea to put a Museum of the American West inside Union Station, where attendance has never ever come close to prerestoration projections. As the station continued to... More >>
• Best New Law
  Leawood Limits Gates Across Public Streets
  We found it absolutely thrilling when the city of Leawood took action against one of the scourges of suburbia: gated communities. Though Leawood City Council members didn't ban obnoxious gates altogether, they did pass a policy regulating the damn things. Ordinance 1974C called gates between... More >>
• Best Local Hero
  Tom Watson
  In Tom Watson's honor, people across the metro left their garage and shop televisions on while they puttered at home this summer. While they changed oil and swept floors and repaired clocks, they keened an ear to the breathy tones of golf broadcasters, listening for Watson's name. And it was... More >>