Leaving Kansas can be hard when it’s the only place you’ve lived during the first 20-plus years of your life. I know because when I left Lawrence after college to live in Texas, I only made it a couple of months away from the Sunflower State. A few years after returning to Kansas, I read a story from Becky Mandelbaum’s book “Bad Kansas” about a woman who moved to California with her boyfriend only ...
With snow falling outside and only an outdoor basketball hoop to play on, Avion Nelson decided what any child desperate to get some shots up would do. He shoveled the snow. “Once it got finished, everyone wanted to come outside and play,” he said. But Nelson no longer needs to put in work to have fun on the basketball court, because the Lawrence Boys & Girls Club recently moved into a new ...
With the sun shining through the large windows of the new Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence teen center in the southeast part of town, students were recently jumping off the bus and forming a long line to hurry into the building. The new 50,000-square-foot facility — officially the Don and Beverly Gardner Center for Great Futures — features an indoor gym, performance stage, recording studio, several lounge ...
The Lawrence area could see more rain this week as Tropical Storm Gordon hits land in Alabama and moves into the Midwest. But how much is still up for debate. Brandon Drake, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Topeka, said theories differ on how the storm will progress. Current models show that the bulk of the storm will reach southeast and south-central Kansas and then move north toward Kansas ...
Out in North Lawrence, on the edge of the city limits, stands a small white schoolhouse surrounded by grass and trees. For almost 100 years, the building known as White Schoolhouse was used as an actual school. Now, the building, located at 1510 N. Third St., serves as an all-ages punk rock venue for local production company Petri Productions. Petri Productions, led by Paige Batson, recently celebrated its ...
A musical production focusing on a child dealing with gender identity issues is preparing in Lawrence before taking its act to the Big Apple. Hazel Youngquist, a senior at Perry-Lecompton High School, portrays the titular Q in the upcoming musical, which tells the story of a nonbinary fifth-grader who must navigate a dangerous journey of bullying, schoolwork and deciding whether to try out for the boys or girls ...