Reporter's Notebook, Pitch

9/11's impact isn't limited to today's anniversary

Jonathan Bender — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 09:01:00 -0500

This marks the first anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that it wasn't the first thing I thought of when I woke up. I was focused on getting breakfast on the table.…

Who paid for the World War I Museum at Liberty Memorial, anyway?

David Martin — Wed, 04 May 2011 09:10:34 -0500

A history of the Liberty Memorial Association says the organization "raised" $102 million for the restoration and expansion of the monument that recognizes the sacrifices of World War I veterans. But given the level of public support, "received" might be a more appropriate verb.…

Now we will fill a hole in your heart with midget-wrestling pictures

Peter Rugg — Mon, 02 May 2011 14:40:21 -0500

Last weekend, we followed St. Jo's Little Kato and the Half-Pint Brawlers into the gritty world of midget wrestling (see the feature "Little Bastard" for more on that). It's a tough way to make a living, to put it mildly.…

WWE denies Little Kato's claims that midget wrestlers were sexually harassed

Peter Rugg — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 14:50:30 -0500

St. Jo's Little Kato (or Chris Dube, as it says on his birth certificate) has been to the top of the wrestling world. At the height of his career as a midget wrestler with the WWE, he performed before thousands of people in Madison Square Garden.

Kato didn't stay with the company long.…

Scenes from Knobtown slideshow

David Martin — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 10:01:18 -0500

The recent Pitch feature story about the life and death of John Uhlmann provides a glimpse of Knobtown, a section of the Kansas City area between Lee's Summit and Raytown. Cut by the Little Blue River and a state highway, the sparsely populated area gives tattoo artists, drag racers, quarrymen and exotic dancers a place to operate.…

In airline museum drama, a lawsuit took a sneaky turn

David Martin — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 09:30:00 -0600

What the Airline History Museum lacks in profile it makes up for in drama. Last fall, former Executive Director Paul Sloan admitted to stealing from the museum, which displays vintage aircraft in a hangar at the airport in downtown Kansas City.

At around the time that Sloan was being charged, a court case involving past and present museum members came in for a landing.…

Airline History Museum's purchase of books remains a mystery

David Martin — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 13:00:00 -0600

John Travolta appeared at a benefit for the Airline History Museum in 2007. Questions arose about the handling of the money not long after the star left town.

This week's issue of The Pitch describes how the suspicions about Paul Sloan, the museum's former executive director, eventually developed into a prosecution for felony stealing.…

Will Syn fake weed get you high? The Pitch product tests for you

Peter Rugg — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 12:00:00 -0600

After nearly two years on the shelves, synthetic weed is finally going away for good. State lawmakers failed to stem the tide, and now the federal government has stepped in, issuing a temporary emergency ban on all fake pot that will start at the end of the month and run at least a year -- or as long as it takes for them to figure our just what the long-term effects of the chemicals might be.

So with one month left to stock up, is it worth your time an money to invest in Syn?…

DEA issues ban on synthetic marijuana chemicals

Peter Rugg — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 16:00:00 -0600

Not a lot of people see Broadway as a great investment in the best of times, let alone the last few years in this economy. If you did somehow find a way to make money, you'd be forgiven for just pocketing the cash.…

Garrett Webster, son of ex-NFL star, asks for brains in name of science

David Martin — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 10:00:00 -0600

Garrett Webster searches online news stories for echoes of his father, NFL great Mike Webster, who died in 2002.

Webster works for the Brain Injury Research Institute, a group trying to advance the understanding of concussions and neurological disorders. Webster spends part of his day reaching out to the families of deceased football players and military personnel.…

Petro America investors accused of stalking an employee at a meeting she didn't attend

Mandy Oaklander — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 16:30:00 -0500

Petro America Corporation hasn't exactly lived up to its tagline, "The People's Company." Instead, the sham company -- led by Kansas City, Kansas, man Owen Hawkins -- appears to have cleaned out thousands of investors of their hard-earned cash (read the full story of Petro America here).…

It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll and be AC/DC

Peter Rugg — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 12:30:00 -0500

Sometimes a story is just too big for one feature, and in the case of this week's cover story on the quest to build a biker rally in Urich, Missouri, ("Field of Dirty Dreams") there were some things I just didn't have the space for. There were some things you shouldn't know about.…

Here's your aggressively NSFW slideshow of the Grand River Rally

Peter Rugg — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 09:00:00 -0500

This September, I spent three days in a field in Urich, Missouri, fighting the elements, stray motorcycles, and a violent drunk with one dead eye to bring you the true story of one man's dream to give Kansas City a good biker rally ("Field of Dirty Dreams").

But words are limited in a way pictures are not, and vice versa, so to get a real sense of what it's like to see a 70-year-old compete in a wet T-shirt contest click here.…

Paul Evans uses social media to pimp products like a fart-absorbing blanket

Peter Rugg — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 14:00:00 -0500

If you have a Facebook, a Twitter, or ever look at YouTube...
Hell, if you're a conscious human being in 2010, chances are you have more power than ever to elevate a giggle-worthy product into a multi-million dollar industry. You did it with the Snuggie, and as we reported in this week's feature, "Eureka!", Overland Park's Media Corp is hoping you'll do the same thing with the fart-absorbing Better Marriage Blanket.

But Media Corp didn't rack up 800,000 views in four days on their fart-absorbing linen commercial without an expert in social media to guide them.…

Pro-life groups want you to boycott these companies

Peter Rugg — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:00:00 -0500

The first thing I got when I joined Kansans For Life was a list of companies to boycott (see this week's feature, "A

Day in the Right to Life").

The list -- compiled by Life Decisions International in Front Royal, Virginia -- was supposed to tell me every company that supported Planned Parenthood. It turns out, that's a lot of companies.…

Report: Gov. Jay Nixon signs bill outlawing nudity in strip clubs

Peter Rugg — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:25:11 -0500

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has signed a bill outlawing nude dancing and alcohol sales inside the Show-Me State's strip clubs, according to a tweet from St. Louis Post-Dispatch political reporter Tony Messenger.

The new restrictions have club owners saying they could be forced out of business.

The legislation goes into effect August 28. But as we reported in this week's feature story, "Exit Boobies," strip club and adult video store owners are ready to for a legal battle.…

Dick Bryant, attorney for adult businesses, lays out a legal defense of beautiful, naked breasts

Peter Rugg — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 11:15:00 -0500

Before state representatives passed legislation that would criminalize unregulated nipples, Democratic state Rep. Curt Dougherty filed papers, called reps and did everything short of beg for a fiscal review to see how much killing strip clubs would cost the state. The Republican leadership just ignored him.…

Booby-hating Sen. Matt Bartle has a relative working in a strip club

Peter Rugg — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 12:00:00 -0500

In his quest to outlaw naked breasts in Missouri, Republican state Sen. Matt Bartle characterized strip-club employees as women forced into prostitution and drug addiction against their will. If he reads this week's feature story, "Exit Boobies," he might be surprised to learn that one of those employees is his own flesh and blood, and that she's not happy about his attempts to put her out of work.

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E. coli poisoning from Missouri stream cost a biologist his appendix

Nadia Pflaum — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 11:00:00 -0500

A biologist with Missouri's Department of Conservation suffered year-long complications from E. coli poisoning after participating in a stream cleaning event, according to the testimony of an environmental advocate at a Missouri Clean Water Commission meeting in Jefferson City.

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MO Sen. Brad Lager on why we shouldn't worry about losing the fees to pay for water protection

Nadia Pflaum — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 06:00:00 -0500

Missouri Department of Natural Resources officials blame state Sen. Brad Lager (R-Maryville) for terminating the department's ability to collect fees for State Operating Permits that fund the state's Water Protection Program for 2011. The bill that would have extended those funds was expected to pass on the last day of the legislative session in May, but Lager sent it to the Fiscal Oversight Committee for further review instead.

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Don't swim in these 52 Missouri poop chutes

Nadia Pflaum — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 09:30:07 -0500

This week's feature story

explains why water bodies polluted with high levels of bacteria are unsafe for swimming.

Missouri's Department of Natural Resources lacks the manpower to test as much as 90 percent of the state's waterways for pollutants like E. coli, the nasty buggers that caused such a commotion last summer at the Lake of the Ozarks. The rivers, creeks, streams and lakes that the state has tested and deemed "impaired" wind up on the Final Consolidated 2008 303(d) List (2010's list isn't yet

final).

We've compiled a list of the 52 water bodies on the 2008 list that are too poopy for swimming, according to the DNR.…

JoCo Judge Kevin Moriarty's letter explains how Kimberly Ireland got it all wrong

Nadia Pflaum — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 06:00:00 -0500

This week's Pitch feature story details how a simple divorce case muddied the reputation of Johnson County District Court Judge Kevin P. Moriarty.

Moriarty had been assigned as a mediator in the divorce of Kevin and Kimberly Ireland, filed in 2007.…

Will the convention hotel be a boondoggle? Signs point to yes

David Martin — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 10:00:53 -0500

A hospitality consultant has come up with numbers supporting the idea of building a 1,000-room convention hotel in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. The consultant based the report on surveys of convention planners, who were asked what kept them choosing from KC as a site for their meetings.

In this week's Martin column, I question the consultant's data.…

The evolution of an eco-friendly home: Studio 804 slideshow

Carolyn Szczepanski — Wed, 12 May 2010 08:45:00 -0500

Studio 804 proves Jayhawks know how to swing a hammer.

Each year, the graduate students in this innovative class at the University of Kansas design and construct entire buildings within the span of a single semester. But they aren't run-of-the-mill houses.…

A juror in the PSF hog farm trial knows money can't buy justice

Nadia Pflaum — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 09:00:00 -0500

Ed Venerable's routine as a 30-something I.T. guy was disrupted in February by a summons for jury duty. Rather than troubleshooting at a keyboard, Venerable spent five weeks in a Jackson County courtroom, listening to testimony about pig shit.…