Show us your WICHITA
And we're not talking just the city limits. We're talking Newton, Wellington, El Dorado and everywhere in between. Show us what you do. What you love to do. And what you can do a whole lot more of because you live here.

What's this community's best kept secret? Wichita is a cool place because...? Or if someone had only four hours to spend here, what should they be sure to do?

Each of us has a story. Together we have a Wichita story.

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People & Opportunities
posted by Robert Simon at 2007-11-25 22:27:44
My wife, Denise, and I have been in Wichita for over thirty years ... but we didn't arrive here thinking this would necessarily be the case ... or that it would NOT.

We always say that what keeps us here are (1) the people we have come to know and love; and (2) the opportunities we have had to do things we have wanted to do.

It would take a lot of bandwidth to comprehensively make the case for what we assert -- especially whe it comes to friends and associates; but here are a few things from the vocational area that can help others understand why Wichita is our home by joyful choice:

FOR ROB...
Work is almost 100% in "edu-tainment" (a nice term someone coined years ago that fits me to a "T.") Practically everything I do is either in some form of education, some form of entertainment ... or both at the same time. Some of what that means right now is:

(1) I make lots of presentations with clients old and new through my business
(www.positiverhythm.org);
(2) I've been Program Coordinator for an organization that is now called Diversity Kansas (formerly NCCJ Kansas) for over four years (www.diversitykansas.org);
(3) I am music director for contemporary worship at my church (www.collegehillumc.org);
(4) I am a member of an African-American storytelling group called The Wichita Griots: Keepers of the Stories;
(5) I'm a lead singer and percussionist for a band called Blue Eyed Soul (www.blueeyedonline.com);
(6) I make presentations and do performances for a group called Arts Partners (www.artspartnerswichita.org); and
(7) There are a few other odds and ends, too.

FOR DENISE...
Work is ALSO almost 100% in "edu-tainment."

(1) I work full-time for the Wichita Public Schools as Drama Teacher for the Buckner Teaching The Arts Performing School (http://buckner.usd259.org/);

(2) I work part-time as Director of Religious Education for Wichita's Unitarian universalist Congregation (http://www.firstuu.net/);

(3) I am currently on sabbatical after about fifteen years of teaching part-time at The Wichita Children's Theatre and Dance Center (http://www.wctdc.com/) where a children's musical debuted last year that I wrote, produced and directed;

(4) Last year I held my first art opening on my birthday at a shop in OldTown called Rock, Paper, Scissors (http://www.rockpaperscissorsks.com/);

(5) Occasionally I find time for a few other smaller projects.

AND THAT''S OUR STORY!

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