Work examples at the Northeast News in the

Historic Northeast Kansas City, Missouri.

Below are various work examples produced by former Editorial
Intern of the Northeast News, Joshua Phillips.

Standoff on North Lawndale

By Joshua Phillips
Northeast News
Deccember 19, 2013
UPDATE: The suspect has been identified as 26-year-old Joel Bravard. Bravard was
wanted on a Platte County warrant, and detectives also wanted to speak to him regarding
the death investigation of Michelle Russell.
Early Wednesday morning Kansas City Police Department officers conducted a residence
check to issue a warrant, but found themselves in a shootout with those inside the house.
The KCPD officers arrived to the residence just before 11 a.m. to conduct the residence check
for a subject to be issued a Platte County warrant at a residence at 526 N. Lawndale. While the
KCPD officers were outside the residence, a party inside the home opened fire on the officers,
striking one officer in the leg, according to a press release from the KCPD Media Unit.
Two people of the party in the home came outside; however, the suspect stayed inside to
continue the standoff.
The other officers returned fire and took cover as the standoff continued. The officers then
decided it was safe to extract the injured officer from the scene to get him medical attention.

This injured officer, who is a 15-year veteran and member of the KCPD Tactical Response
Team, was taken to an area hospital and his injuries appear minor.
At 1 p.m., KCPD tactical officers with shields entered the residence and found the suspect
suffering from a life-threatening gunshot wound. The suspect has been taken to an area
hospital. Then at approximately 1:36 p.m. the scene was cleared and detectives were called to
investigate the scene.
The Northeast News will provide more information on this case as more information is
provided.

Photo Credit: Joshua Phillips

Semi-truck driver gets rude awakening

at Independence Avenue & Topping
bridge

Northeast News
August 8, 2013

Earlier this afternoon a semi-truck driver misjudged the clearance when driving
under the bridge at Independence Avenue and Topping. Needless to say, the truck
didnt make it through. Below is our photo montage of the scene. For a larger view,
click on the photos. Photos by Joshua Phillips

NE leaders share personal and Northeast resolutions

By JOSHUA PHILLIPS
Northeast News
January 8, 2014
Every New Year the tradition for many is to come up with a resolution they hope to continue
throughout the year. As the television ads come on showing gym memberships and workout
routines, some people decide they want to have a better body for the New Year. Some people
hope to do better with their work-related skills or to devote more time to family. While others,
such as these community and business leaders in the Historic Northeast, have resolutions
they hope to carry out for the Northeast to improve the lives of others. The Northeast News
interviewed these individuals to get their personal and Northeast resolutions.
John Joseph JJ Rizzo State Representative

Personal resolution: I should probably eat less barbecue, because I think I eat too much of
it.
Northeast resolution: I would love to see more economic development in the Northeast. I
think we can continue this by repurposing more abandoned buildings like what is being done
in the Hardesty Renaissance neighborhood.
Jim Conaway Northeast High School Teacher and former NEHS Athletic Director

Personal resolution: I would like to improve the personal relationships with community
members or people that I come into contact with to make sure the Northeast is a great place
to live for all.
Northeast resolution: I think the Northeast can be better if people start to become more
tolerant and patient with one another and by just doing the right thing.
Scott Wagner Kansas City City Council member

Personal resolution: To run a 5K every season of 2014. Since winter can be so cold, I will be
doing the Groundhog Run at the end of this month.
Northeast resolution: To keep development at Hardesty Renaissance moving along. Weve
had a great start and need to continue that momentum and get the first building occupied
later this year. I also want to successfully launch the Invest Northeast project with the
renewals in the Lykins and Indian Mound neighborhoods. We should get the entire project
moving forward within the next few months.
Dr. Elaine Joslyn Neighborhood Family Care

Personal resolution: I would like to cut back on my workload.

Northeast resolution: I can see the Community Improvement District (CID) has exciting
things moving forward. It will improve the appearance of businesses and be more attractive to
people in the Northeast.
Jessica Ray Pendleton Heights Neighborhood Association (PHNA) President

Personal resolution: Personally, I want to spend less time project-focused and more time
people-focused this year! With a lot going on, its easy to move from one task to another, but
time spent on a neighbors front porch or watching someones kids so they can have date night
is far more important than 50 meetings! Oh, and Im going to go to the gym.
Northeast Resolution: The PHNA board sat down in December to discuss focus
areas/projects for 2014. There are so many exciting things going on right now, but it all comes
back to our three basic goals: increased sense of security, decrease in vacant houses and a
stronger sense of community. We saw a lot of success in each of these areas during 2013,
largely thanks to the number of involved, committed neighbors we have. Well work hard in
2014 to keep that number growing!
Rebecca Koop Executive Director of the Northeast Kansas City Chamber of Commerce

Personal resolution: To clear my desk and organize it.

Northeast resolution: This is a big year ahead with a lot of good things for the Northeast. The
CID has started and is off and running. I hope the Northeast resolves to work more together
with our neighborhoods as one Northeast. I would like to see more unity, because we arent
isolated neighborhoods; we are one whole Northeast.
Mark Morales Sheffield Neighborhood Association President

Personal resolution: As a neighborhood association president, my resolution is to be more

effective with time management and organizational skills.
Northeast resolution: As a neighborhood leader, I find that I need to delegate duties to
people in our association and reach out to residents in the neighborhood to get to know them
better. In 2013, our goal was to install a community garden. We had lots of energy and had a
good start at it, but we need to follow through with it. Ive always thought that Mary Therese
Carroll was a mentor of mine. She was the founding member of Sheffield and she is an
inspiration for me to move forward in her efforts.
Dr. Ed Kendrick Northeast Dentist

Personal resolution: To take better care of my aging body (by) exercise. Continue to avoid
television programming leaving open possibilities for real life experiences.
Northeast resolution: Get to know Northeast leaders and clergy to develop strategies for
surviving the apocalypse.

Leslie Caplan Scarritt Renaissance Neighborhood Association President

Personal resolution: My only resolution for myself is to do my best as I live each day.
Northeast resolution: Working together with the other neighborhood presidents and
Northeast residents to focus on assets and address problems that affect us all no matter where
our neighborhood boundaries begin and end.
To continue to improve the housing, parks and social gatherings in Scarritt Renaissance to
attract more residents to our neighborhood and to involve those who already live here in
creating a broader sense of community.
To help raise money to create a destination playground/sports park at The Concourse.
To hope that business owners along Independence Avenue have an epiphany and realize that
customers want a sense of cleanliness and security when they shop. Therefore, they will clean
their windows and remove the signage so we can see inside and replace the bars with security
film or decorative metal art, and hire security guards that actually look up from texting and
reading emails on their phones to ensure the customers are secure.
To have residents, police, prosecutors and other city officials work together so intensely that
it is more desirable for the prostitutes, copper thieves, criminals and transients to leave
Northeast than stick around and affect the quality of life of the good people who live here.
Sue Erb Member of Northeast High Schools Board of Directors for the N Club Association

Personal Resolution: To reconnect with people I have been out of touch with. I would like to
reconnect with friends, family and people who Ive known throughout the years.
Northeast Resolution: What I would hope is that Northeast High Sschool and Kansas City,
Mo. Public Schools (KCPS) receives the accreditation for our schools. It would be absolutely
wonderful if we were to have accreditation again. We are celebrating 100 years and we would
like to see Dr. Green and the KCPS Board of Education (BOE) be successful after having such
hard work put into this.

How Labor Day originated and other traditions

By JOSHUA
PHILLIPS
Northeast News
August 28, 2013
For a number of full-time American workers, Monday is typically a day dreaded to work on.
Labor Day, however, is the first Monday in September most Americans have off from work.
Here is the origin on how it all started.
Harsh Times at Work

The conception of this anticipated holiday started nearly 119 years ago during the time when
the Industrial Revolution was booming in America and in England. This was also the time
when most workers did not have such luxuries as sick days, good pay or days off to take. Most
workers, many of whom were young children, would work in factories on machines.
The great majority of these workers were paid little to nothing and worked extremely long
hours.
Injuries and even deaths occurred while trying to work and fix the machines. Soon after,
Unions in America emerged to protest against these unsafe work situations. One of the major
companies of the Industrial Revolution in America was the Pullman company, a railroad
sleeping car company.
President George Pullman founded the company in 1880 in his own town called Pullman, Ill.
He built the town to make it easier for his workers to be closer to work, so they also lived
there in the town. In this town the workers lived in small row houses while the managers lived
in modest Victorian-style homes, and Pullman made a luxurious hotel for himself and visiting
customers to stay overnight. Workers had to pay rent to stay there.
Business was booming until the economic depression of 1893. Pullman was forced to lay off
many employees, but the high costs for rent stayed the same there with wages being cut
dramatically. Workers held a strike after they demanded lower rents and higher pay; Pullman
did not let up. Then the American Railway Union, led by Eugene Debs, came to the aid of the
workers on strike and from there the nation was in debate about the issue.
United States President Grover Cleveland sent nearly 12,000 federal troops to break up the
strike, which then resulted in two men being killed when the U.S. deputy marshals fired on
the protesters outside of Chicago. Debs was arrested and the strike was over.
Election Time

It was during this time that workers across the nation, particularly in unions such as the
American Federation of Labor, pushed for a national holiday where workers could have the
day off. It was also during this time, 1894, that President Cleveland wanted a second term as

president. So he was faced with the decision to appease workers across the nation and get
reelected at the same time.
Before the 1894 election, Cleveland put the Labor Day initiative as his No.1 priority and U.S.
Congress unanimously made Labor Day a national holiday.
Cleveland, however, was not reelected.
No white after Labor Day

Much like the origins of the actual holiday, only few know the history behind the rule of no
white after Labor Day.
Historians suggest that more people who were well-off financially wore white after the
holiday; when the middle class expanded by the 1950s, families were able to afford white
colored clothes to have the look of leisure.
In a story by TIME magazine, Valerie Steele, director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute
of Technology, said, It was insiders trying to keep other people out and outsiders trying to
climb in by proving they know the rules.
The insiders she mentions were the people who had the grandiose amounts of money and the
outsiders being those who wanted that look of luxury. Trends of those financially well-off
changed since they did not want people essentially mocking them.
Thus the rule was born that people cannot wear white after Labor Day. However, the question
still remains: If you cannot wear white after Labor Day, then when is the cutoff? If there is no
cutoff, then no one can wear white.

Central to the Historic Northeast community

Central Bank. The first Central Bank of Kansas City on Truman Road. Sarah Cousineau said
the Time to Save sign rotated, and had a clock on the other side. The bank has since added
two more locations, one on Independence Avenue and one in the Valentine Shopping Center
on Broadway Boulevard. Submitted Photo
By Joshua Phillips
Northeast News
July 2, 2014
KANSAS CITY, Missouri With partnerships and participation in the community, one
financial institution has been central to the Historic Northeast community.
Since it opened on Truman road in March 1951, Central Bank of Kansas City, Mo., has spent
its time operating for the residents of the Northeast community.
We try to reach out to the Northeast community at least once a month, said Sarah
Cousineau, marketing director of Central Bank of Kansas City. There is a mutual relationship
between us and the Northeast area and it is a great way to be a part of the community.
The bank was originally chartered in August 1950 as a state banking corporation, then moved
in 1975 to a larger facility on Independence Avenue. Central Bank of Kansas City has three
branch locations: its main bank at 2301 Independence Ave.; the Valentine Shopping Center at
3600 Broadway Blvd.; and 3740 Truman Road;
Central Bank not only offers local banking opportunities for Northeast residents, it also
supports financial education programs such as Money Smart Month Kansas City held in
April each year. Central Bank of Kansas City was a founding partner in the Money Smart

Month Campaign that started in 2008. Each year the campaign grows and reaches more of
the Kansas City community. In 2014,
Central Bank hoted a total of 20 events to over 350 participants including; youth at Garfield
Elementary, Scuola Vita, Academie de Ninos, Wendell-Phillips and the Boys and Girls Clubs,
seniors at Don Bosco Senior Center and Phoenix Family, young parents at St. Marks Child
Development Center and the residents at the womens center at Kansas City Rescue Mission.
Money Smart KC is a great way for Central Bank to get involved and help teach people how to
be smarter about their money, Cousineau said.
Volunteering in the community is very important to the officers at Central Bank. Last year,
staff organized a team for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, as well as held a bake/craft
sale. During the school year, officers from the bank read to students Lead to Read on their
lunch hour at Wendell-Phillips Elementary.
It lets them [the students] know that someone cares enough to read to them and helps give
them a jump on their reading skills to help them score better on reading tests, Cousineau
said.
Since early in 1951, Central Bank has served businesses in the Northeast area with all of their
financial needs, including business accounts and loans for working capital, equipment
purchases, business expansion and commercial real estate. Central Bank is a member of the
Northeast Chamber of Commerce, and supports the Chamber in their efforts to help
businesses grow.
We have been a part of the Northeast since our inception, Cousineau said. Northeast
residents like to bank local because we know their names (and) we have a different feel
than larger banks. For 63 years, Central Bank of Kansas City has promoted itself as a deeply
involved banking institution in the Northeast community and looks to continue that
tradition.