About 19 months after breaking ground, the city opened the doors of its new Olathe Downtown Library April 29 to an appreciative crowd. The $25.6 million building significantly increases the amount of room for events and study areas patrons had in the previous location. “We’re excited to have more space for people to just gather and study together, read together, work together,” said Sara Eccles, the library system officer for the Olathe Public Library. “At our old location, we were really running out of what I would call people space to just sit and work.” In addition to 37,000 square feet [...]

The art being created this spring by Cydney Ross and Alix Daniel in Kill Creek Park will disappear one day — exactly as planned. Ross and Daniel are this year’s resident artists in a Johnson County Parks Department public art program that pairs the eye of artists with the department’s work in natural resources. The public will have an opportunity Saturday to be a part of the ephemeral temporary art piece and contribute to the restoration effort by creating their own sculpture work with clay seed. The Art and Natural Resources Residency is a short-term program where local artists are embedded [...]

About 20 years ago, Gerald Swart spotted his town jail sitting in a neighbor’s iron pile. It was just a big cage, really: a square box with iron lattice and a couple of chains hanging off a side door. A black sign with amateurish lettering said “GOFF CITY JAIL.” “It used to be right north of the bank in Goff when I was growing up,” Swart, 82, said of the jail. “They’d lock up drunks and keep ‘em in there overnight. But that ended sometime around the ‘50s.” Swart bought the jail from the neighbor for $11 and hauled it over [...]

The glistening, brightly polished metal of the world’s last remaining Lockheed Electra 10-E, a twin engine, American-made aircraft named Muriel, is the centerpiece of the new Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum opening Friday in Atchison, Kansas. The airplane is the same make and model that Amelia Earhart, an Atchison native, was flying in 1937 when she disappeared. “The Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum was a vision, actually, of my husband,” said Karen Seaberg, the founder and president of the Atchison Amelia Earhart Foundation. “He (the late Ladd Mannan Seaberg) met the restorer of the plane in the eighties, and his vision was that [...]

For some Wyandotte County residents, the area’s online auctions of property with delinquent taxes, otherwise known as virtual tax sales, have become an unwelcome tradition. The most recent sale was held online through a third party platform on March 28. Homes at least three years behind on taxes were auctioned off to the highest bidder. Commercial properties delinquent on taxes for at least two years and vacant lots delinquent for at least one year were also tax sale eligible. Critics say that holding the auction virtually instead of in person has hurt access for both elderly constituents and those with poor [...]

Reduce, reuse, recycle. We’ve all heard it before. Many of us had it drilled into our brains in school growing up, or from family members or friends. Even though we’ve been told that recycling is the right thing to do, based on what The Star has heard from readers, there are still some pretty big questions lurking in the minds of Kansas Citians. Mainly: Is recycling even real, and is it worth it? The Star asked readers about what questions or concerns you have about trash and litter in the metro to help fuel a series of stories we’re starting to [...]

Betting and gambling site Offer.bet analyzed Google searches around the country to find out which city was the most obsessed with Pickleball. It named Overland Park because of internet search patterns in the city, and the abundance of venues dedicated to pickleball. Overland Park ranked number one over cities like Salt Lake City, Grand Rapids, Michigan and Tempe, Arizona. St. Louis also made the list coming in at 26 out of 50 cities. Pickleball was created nearly 60 years ago, after three men tried to improvise a game of badminton and wound up inventing a brand new paddle sport. Source: KC [...]

The Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas is planning to introduce newly hired County Administrator David Johnston with a public meet-and-greet Monday. The public, government staff and elected officials, including Mayor Tyrone Garner, are expected to be on hand as Johnston takes over the UG’s top hired position. ... Johnston will take the helm from Cheryl Harrison-Lee, the interim County Administrator for the past year. Johnston is the long-term hire to replace former County Administrator Doug Bach... Prior to being picked to lead Wyandotte County government, Johnston was the city manager for Covington, Kentucky... Source: KC Star Local News

Inside the Burris home, a guitar sits in its corner of the living room. A music stand holds sheets of music, where Nicholas Burris, called “Cruz” by his loved ones, would strum along to The Beatles, Queen and Chuck Berry. Rhonda Burris will miss hearing her son’s fingers plucking, moving across the strings. The 15-year-old could pick up songs quickly and had even begun to write his own. Cruz’s parents believe he could have gone far in his musical pursuits. Some days he dreamed of being an engineer for NASA, and other times he would say he wanted to become a [...]

The U.S. Supreme Court has invited the federal government to weigh in on whether state and local governments can regulate how long trains can block railroad crossings. The invitation means the high court might eventually give a full hearing to the appeal of a lower court ruling that invalidated Ohio’s blocked crossing law. There’s no guarantee the court will grant the appeal, but Monday’s court order keeps the door open for now. Countless people have died when emergency vehicles were delayed at rail crossings, The Kansas City Star reported in an investigation of railroad safety lapses. The high court refused to [...]