Sylvia Maria Gross is a Yale grad and a Fulbright scholar who has lived in New York City and Brazil and holds a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University. But listeners who tune in to KC Currents on KCUR 89.3, which Gross produces, don't need to know about her stunning résumé to appreciate her skills. Gross consistently fills her show with entertaining and important interviews, often from the city's underappreciated East Side. She has energetically covered Kansas City's role in the immigration debate and taken great interest in the mayor's appointment of Francis Semler, a Minuteman organizer, to the parks board. She stirred up indignation from her audience when the Mutual Musicians Foundation clashed with Liquor Control over the foundation's lack of a liquor license, and she introduced her listeners to an all-female mariachi band that lost musicians in the Hyatt disaster 25 years ago. Gross was the one who directed Chuck Haddix, producer of 89.3's Fish Fry, to Marva Whitney, a KCK-born singer and entertainer who earned the title Soul Sister Number One from James Brown and whose sparkling biography had gone unmentioned for too long. Gross could be working anywhere, but she chooses to toil in Kansas City and expand our world.
