Event Archive

Diane Eickhoff and Aaron Barnhart offer a new way to appreciate local history with The Big Divide, a travel book that chronologically examines historic sites along the Kansas-Missouri border. From pre-history through the Border War, Civil War, and on to the 20th Century, this guide employs point-by-point directions, photos, and maps to explore the region’s rich past.

Television newsman Jim Lehrer has presided over 12 presidential and vice-presidential debates and written about them in his 2011 memoir Tension City. Now, MacNeil/Lehrer Production has published Debating Our Destiny, a multimedia-enhanced ebook by University of Montana journalism professor Lee Banville on the history of presidential debates.

Beginning with their regular gig in the Plantation Grill at Kansas City’s Muehlebach Hotel, the Coon-Sanders Nighthawk Orchestra in the 1920s took the Midwest, and then the entire nation, by storm. UMKC jazz expert Chuck Haddix follows the rise and fall of the band that had hit recordings like “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby,” “When You’re Smiling,” “The Flippity Flop,” “Kansas City Kitty,” “I Ain’t Got Nobody,” “Harlem Madness,” and “What A Girl! What A Night!”

The Vox Narro project hosts an afternoon of traditional and contemporary Kurdish poetry, music, and dance, plus an introduction to Kurdish literature, culture, and history. Following the presentations, sample a variety of Kurdish cuisine.