Wednesday
July 9, 2008
7:00 p.m.
Borders Books
91st & Metcalf
Overland Park, Kansas
Speaker: Frank Denning, Johnson County Sheriff

Our July speaker, Sheriff Frank Denning, will discuss DNA and DNA Legislation. Frank has been serving the law enforcement community for over 35 years. He joined the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department in 1978 as a Deputy serving in the Adult Detention Center. In 1996, he was appointed Chief of Police with the City of Roeland Park, Kansas, and served that community until his appointment as Undersheriff of Johnson County from August 2002 to April 2003.

Frank’s wife of 20 years, Robin Lewis, was a former Johnson County Prosecutor who is now an attorney in private practice.
 

Becky Ray, a paranormal investigator with the group Paranormal Activity Investigators, the Kansas City area representative for the American Ghost Society, and a co-host of the Internet radio program The Darker Side of the Moon, spoke at our meeting on Wednesday, June 11, 2008, about Ghost Stories and Urban Legends of Kansas City.

Becky explained that the term paranormal means beyond or outside the normal and covers anything that is unexplained. Her group visits sites, documents what goes on there, and tries to find out why things are happening. They first investigate whether odd occurrences have normal, natural causes, such as power surges or even mice in the attic. Ninety percent of their research takes place in the library as they track down the history of a reportedly haunted site, including the people who lived or visited there in the past, anyone died there, and whether tragic events ever happened there.

One of the problems paranormal investigators run into in this area is that Kansas City residents and business owners often do not want to talk about possible hauntings in their homes or businesses. They do not want negative publicity or the trespassing and vandalism that often occur at sites widely believed to be haunted.

One exception is Kansas City’s Union Station. Many people, including employees, have reported seeing and/or hearing ghostly activity in the station. In 1933, prisoner Frank Nash was killed in the infamous Union Station Massacre, his head nearly severed from his body by the gunfire. In years since, people have reported seeing a ghostly man sitting on a bench overlooking the grand hall—missing his head. Workers have heard mysterious foosteps and voices after hours when the station is deserted. They have reported faucets turning off and on in bathrooms when no one is there. The tunnels under station were used as temporary morgue for fallen soldiers during WWI. In those tunnels today, people report hearing voices and seeing a mysterious porter in an old-fashioned uniform. Other ghostly sightings include a blonde woman in black 1930s apparel walking up and down the stairs to what used to be the women’s washroom and a man’s face staring out of an upstairs office window when no one is in the office.

Other sites Becky’s group has investigated include the John Wornall House in Brookside, at the site of the Civil War Battle of Westport, and the historic 1859 Jackson County Jail in Independence. These two sites offer haunted tours at various times of the year.

Wednesday
June 11, 2008
7 p.m.
Borders Books and Music
9l08 Metcalf
Overland Park, Kansas
Speaker: Becky Ray

Our June speaker, Becky Ray, will discuss Ghost Stories and Urban Legends of Kansas City. Becky is a paranormal investigator in the Kansas City Metro area with over 20 years of experience. She is a member of the local group Paranormal Activity Investigators and is also the Kansas City area representative for the American Ghost Society. She is also the co-host of the Internet radio program The Darker Side of the Moon.

Becky has visited many historically haunted locations including Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky, and the Cal-Neva resort in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

Join us for dinner at the Macaroni Grill at 5:30 PM before the meeting. Reservations are not required. Ask for the Partners in Crime table.

Future Speaker
Johnson County Sheriff Frank Denning will speak at our meeting on Wednesday, July 9, 2008.

Wednesday
May 14, 2008
7 p.m.
Borders Books and Music
91st & Metcalf
Overland Park, Kansas
Speaker: Joel Goldman

Our May speaker will be popular Kansas City author and retired attorney Joel Goldman, who will discuss “Writing Courtroom Thrillers.”

Joel Goldman is the author of a series of legal thrillers about criminal trial attorney Lou Mason, including Motion To Kill (2002), the Edgar-nominated The Last Witness (2003), Cold Truth (2004), and Deadlocked (2005), which was nominated for a Shamus award and has been optioned for film. His latest novel, Shakedown (2008), marks the beginning of a new series featuring FBI Special Agent Jack Davis.

He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Mystery Writers of America and is an adjunct faculty member at Southern Methodist University where he teaches in SMU’s Masters Degree program in Conflict Management and Dispute Resolution.

Joel Goldman will be the Toastmaster at this year’s Great Manhattan Mystery Conclave, October 31–November 2, 2008, in Manhattan, Kansas.

Airball: My Life in Briefs, a middle-grade novel by Partners in Crime member L.D. (Lisa) Harkrader, has won this year’s William Allen White Award for 6th–8th graders.

Established in 1952 to honor the memory of renowned Emporia newspaper editor William Allen White, the White Awards program is the nation’s first statewide reader’s choice award. It is directed by Emporia State University. This year, over 50,000 Kansas students cast votes to select the winning books. A Dog’s Life: The Autobiography of a Stray, by Ann M. Martin, won the award in the 3rd–5th grade category.

The awards will be presented at the 56th annual William Allen White Children’s Book Awards ceremony Saturday, October 4, 2008, at William Lindsay White Auditorium in Emporia. The event caps two days of activities ranging from author autographs to story telling, attracting school children from across Kansas.

Wednesday
April 9, 2008
7 p.m.
Borders
91st & Metcalf
Overland Park, Kansas

Our April speaker Rose Marie Kinder is a writer, editor, and teacher. She earned her degrees at the University of Arizona at Tucson. After receiving her Ph.D. in 1990, she returned to the Midwest to teach at the University of Central Missouri (UCM), where she became editor of the then annual, in-house, student publication Pleiades (now Pleiades: a Journal of New Writing), and began its transition to a semiannual, national journal. Kinder developed and coordinated the creative writing program at UCM. She is currently editor emerita of Pleiades, reads fiction for that journal and for New Letters (University of Missouri, Kansas City). Professor emerita, she continues to teach at the university level, and leads workshops, discussions, and programs in various venues.

Kinder’s short fiction has appeared primarily in literary journals, most recently in Zone 3, Descant, and Notre Dame Review. Two collections of her stories have been published, A Near Perfect Gift (University of Michigan Press, 2005) and Sweet Angel Band (Helicon Nine Editions, 1991). She also writes genre pieces such as “Jeremy,” which appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and was anthologized in The Deadliest Games: Tales of Psychological Suspense, and “The Elm Witch” in After Hours. Her first novel, An Absolute Gentleman, is a literary thriller—a psychological study of a serial killer.

Dr. Carmaletta Williams, the speaker for our March 12 meeting, gave a fascinating talk on geneaology, with a special emphasis on the specific problems of tracing African-American roots, such as:

• Family separation. In most southern states, slaves were sold from their families, who often never saw them again. Only in Kentucky and Tennessee were slave families customarily kept together.

• Names. Slaves were given the surnames of their owners. When a slave was sold, he or she was given the last name of the new owner. The African-American tradition of naming children after relatives grew out of slavery. Slaves would give their children the names of family members so that later they would have a better chance of tracking them down.

• Birth dates. One way owners further humiliated slaves was by not telling them when they were born.

• The 1890 Census. These records were destroyed by water damage following a fire.

This year—1890—is an important year in African-American history. In the 1870s, the Freedmen’s Bureau, a government agency set up to help freed slaves after the Civil War, pulled out of the south, along with federal troops, leaving African-Americans to face lynchings, Jim Crow laws, harsh lives as sharecroppers that put them deeper and deeper in debt, and debtor’s prisons. By the 1890s, hundreds of thousands of southern African-Americans were moving north during the Great Migration.

During the Great Migration, laws prevented boat owners from picking up African-Americans and transporting them over rivers, so often they moved north during the winter, when they could walk over the frozen water. Many African-Americans migrated to Kansas, and in Topeka you can still find remnants of their settlement, Tennessee Town.

Dr. Williams gave these tips for tracking down ancestors:

• Ask your parents where and when they were born, and look up census data in that place for those years.

• Read the narrative section of the census. This part lists a person’s age, occupation, and other personal information.

• Check newspapers. White papers did not carry stories about black citizens, but the black press often ran chatty, gossipy stories about local African-Americans. You can get a good idea of how the people in the area lived.

This month’s meeting takes place:

Wednesday
March 12, 2008
7 p.m.
Borders Books
91st & Metcalf
Overland Park, KS
Speaker: Dr. Carmaletta Williams

Our March speaker, Dr. Carmaletta Williams, Professor of English, Johnson County Community College, will speak on the subject of genealogy, that is, sleuthing your family history, with special emphasis on the difficulties of tracing the family history of African Americans.

Dr. Carmaletta Williams is a professor with Johnson County Community College, having served there for the past two decades. She teaches Writing, Literature & Media Communications. Dr. Williams has written a plethora of books and academic articles, as well as done several videographic profiles and interviews, mostly on African and African-American topics. Since 1993, she has made more than 300 presentations before academic, professional, and community groups and organizations. Many of the community experiences have been presented under the auspices of the Kansas Humanities Council including Talk About Literature in Kansas (TALK) program; a first-person characterization of noted Black writer, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston in the KHC History Alive! Program, and versions of “Free Did Not Mean Welcome: African American Migration to Kansas” in KHC’s Speaker’s Bureau. Dr. Williams was recently chosen as the Executive Assistant for Diversity Initiative to the President of Johnson County Community College.

Lisa Harkrader will participate in a panel discussion and booksigning with Topeka Sisters in Crime members Esther Luttrell and Mark Bouton:

Demystifying the Mystery of Writing Mysteries
2 to 4 p.m.
Saturday
March 1, 2008
Barnes & Noble
6130 SW 17th Street
(17th and Wanamaker)
Topeka, KS 66615
785-273-9600

Esther Luttrell was a script advisor, production coordinator, and screenwriter in Hollywood for many years. She teaches screenwriting in workshops across the country, including a lecture each spring at UMKC. Her mystery Murder at the Movies, which draws on her Hollywood background, has just been released.

Mark Bouton is a 30-year veteran of the FBI. He was one of the agents who investigated the Oklahoma City bombing and tracked down and arrested Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. His mystery novels include Max Conquers the Cosmos and Max Unlocks the Universe.

L.D. (Lisa) Harkrader has written 14 books for children, including Airball: My Life in Briefs, a middle-grade novel that is a Kansas Notable Book and is currently on the William Allen White Award list. Her young adult mystery, Afterlife, will be released in 2009.

Correction
From Lisa: I accidentally typed the wrong date in the post about February’s meeting. We will meet on February 13, not February 3. I have corrected the date in that post. Here is the complete information about the February Partners in Crime meeting:

Wednesday
February 13, 2008
7 p.m.
Borders Books and Music
91st & Metcalf
Overland Park, Kansas
Speaker: Sally Goldenbaum, author of 25 published novels, including the Queen Bees mystery series and an upcoming new series, The Seaside Knitters mysteries.

A Special Request
As yet, we don’t have a publicity director. Please contact Suzanne Chadwick, Partners in Crime President for 2008 (suzmwick@yahoo.com), if you’d like to serve Partners in Crime in that capacity in 2008. Bobbie Smith (bsmith1900@aol.com), outgoing publicity director, would be happy to provide the contact information she used in 2007. Meanwhile, you can help publicize our meetings by telling your friends and associates about them.

Reminder
Don’t forget to renew your local and national Sisters in Crime memberships. Partners in Crime dues are just $10 per year, payable to Lisa Harkrader. (Contact Lisa at LisaHark@aol.com for details.)  That’s less than a dollar a month! Money goes to pay for speakers’ dinners, flowers and cards for ill members, and the annual Christmas party. National dues are $40. You can join or renew your Sisters in Crime membership on-line at www.sistersincrime.org; click on Join/Renew. Note: To be an active member of Partners in Crime, you must belong to both Partners in Crime and the national Sisters in Crime.

Inclement Weather Policy
In case of bad weather the evening of a meeting, Partners in Crime will follow the cancellation schedule for evening activities of local school districts, specifically Shawnee Mission, Olathe, and Blue Valley Schools.  Check Channel Four Fox News for listings.