Hometown: Garden City, Kansas
Current neighborhood: Lenexa
Who or what is your sidekick? My trusty iPhone
What was the last local restaurant you patronized? Extra Virgin
Where do you drink? We have a toddler, so it’s harder to get out. Mostly on the back patio or somewhere close to home, like Callahan’s or Tanner’s.
What local phenomenon do you think is overrated? Upscale burger joints
Where do you like to take out-of-town guests? The original Oklahoma Joe’s in Kansas City, Kansas. A KC or Lenexa festival. This community spends a lot of time celebrating!
Finish this sentence: "Kansas City screwed up when it …" Decided revenge was an appropriate economic-development policy vis-à-vis communities whose citizens keep the city’s budget, arts and sports venues afloat.
“Kansas City got it right when it …” Attracted the Sprint Center and Power & Light District.
What TV show are you embarrassed to admit you watch? Anything Kardashian. Who needs to DVR them? They’re always on.
__________ takes up a lot of space in my iTunes: Audiobooks. Working moms don’t get much “me” time, and I really miss reading. So I listen when hopping from meeting to meeting across town.
What movie do you watch at least once a year? Legally Blonde 2. I like her attitude about how government should work.
Celebrity you’d like to take on a gondola ride: Dead or alive? Teddy Roosevelt. He was president during a similarly divisive time in American history, and I’d love to hear what he thinks about the current Republican Party.
Favorite person or thing to follow on Twitter: Stephanie Sawyer Clayton (@SSCJoCoKs) because she live-tweets city council, school board and other public meetings that most don’t attend. She provides great access to what’s happening in these meetings.
Person or thing you find really irritating at this moment: That voters pay so much attention to what’s happening in Washington, when their neighbors (city council members, state legislators) have a much deeper and more immediate impact on their day-to-day lives and wallets.
What subscription — print, digital, etc. — do you value most? Hawver’s Capitol Report. Martin Hawver has been covering the Kansas Capitol for decades and produces an e-newsletter about all the goings-on during the session and around the state in the off-session. He’s amazing. He seems to be in every committee hearing and the fly on the wall behind closed-door negotiations.
What is your most embarrassing dating moment? It wasn’t dating, but at an event, I asked a guy to dance. I was nervous and ended up spitting out my gum in the process of the ask. It landed on his shoe! He was also chewing gum, removed it, and placed it on my shoe and led me to the dance floor. Good recovery on his part, but I was mortified.
What was the most important thing you learned in school? I ran into this in school, and it’s the same in the workplace: I try to avoid “team projects” because I end up doing all the work.
“People might be surprised to know that I …” Have played handbells for more than 20 years and studied Arabic and French in Morocco in college.
Describe a recent triumph: In October, I will be launching a voter relationship management Web application for state and local candidates. The application, VoteSharp, couples voter data with a communications tracking tool so that candidates can consolidate more information about each voter into the palm of their hand.
Sharp is a Johnson County Community College trustee. She was elected to three terms in the Kansas House of Representatives.
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