Speakers for TedxWyandotte announced

by Kelly Rogge, KCKCC

Speakers have been announced for the March 8 TEDxWyandotte program.

The event is from 6:30 to 9 p.m. March 8 at the Kansas City Kansas Community College Performing Arts Center. TedxWyandotte features opportunities for networking as well as seven presenters speaking to the theme “Dream Big: The Lost Art of Dreaming.”

“I am excited for our local TEDxWyandotte, said Gary Bradley-Lopez, KCKCC Student Senate president. “This TEDx talk is explaining the idea of bringing dreams back to life. Getting to hear stories that can be inspiring to the students here at this school and community will have an impact and mean a lot. Hearing a perspective of dreams and how students should continue to live them, along with the speakers’ stories of inspiration will be a thrill that I can’t wait for.”

Dr. Marisa Gray, TEDxWyandotte committee organizer, said TEDxWyandotte is all about networking and sharing innovative thoughts and ideas.

“Tickets are going fast, and we anticipate filling the performing arts center with people excited to network and share their ideas with others,” she said. “This year, we have added a new element for the evening. In support of our local small businesses, three food trucks will be on site during intermission. They include French Crepes KC, KCQ BBQ and Humdinger Food Truck.”

Individuals can purchase food from the truck vendors from 5 to 6 p.m. and again during the intermission, about 7 to 7:30 p.m.

Breania Rocha, a KCKCC student in the digital arts program, was the winner of the T-shirt design contest. Participants will receive a T-shirt as part of their admission packet. Additional shirts are available for $10 as long as the supply lasts.

“There is no better way to spend an evening – stimulating ideas, networking, music and great food,” Gray said.

This year’s TEDxWyandotte presenters include:

• Tony Chatman – will be speaking on “How to Stop Settling for Less.” As a recognized thought leader in the area of workplace relationships, Chatman understands the fundamental differences in how people think and act, and how those differences affect productivity and profitability. Since 2006, Tony has worked with hundreds of corporations and government agencies including the U.S. Secret Service, Chase Bank, Estee Lauder, the N.O.A.A. and N.A.S.A. to help people reach new heights of effectiveness by understanding themselves and others better. His first book, “The Force Multiplier: How to Lead Teams Where Everyone Wins,” was released in 2017.

• Mark Dupree – Wyandotte County District Attorney. He will be speaking on “Exposure to Possibilities.” He was born and raised in Kansas City, Kansas, where he currently resides with his wife and four children. Dupree has practiced in a diversity of legal capacities. He clerked in Jackson County, Missouri, served as an assistant prosecuting attorney in Jackson County, served as an assistant public defender in the Johnson County Public Defender’s Office and he and his wife practiced in their firm, Dupree and Dupree, LLC – Attorneys at Law, until his swearing into office. Dupree’s goal is to give back to the community, and he does this by speaking at countless churches, community organizations and schools.

• Fusion Combo – KCKCC’s Jazz Ensemble under the direction of Jim Mair, KCKCC Director. Members include Mark Slimm, Billy Winston, Rayvon Haggerty, Antonio Reyes and Tony Kasper.

• Nathan Horowitz – ESL instructor at KCKCC in Adult and Continuing Education. Horowitz will be speaking on “Dreaming of Health.” Born and raised in Michigan, Horowitz has taught English as a Foreign Language on three continents to students from 60 countries. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Oberlin College and a Master of Arts degree in Applied Linguistics from the University of Massachusetts–Boston. In the 1990s, he studied with a practitioner of traditional Amazonian medicine and spent 14 months in the rain forest, learning and healing and writing about the experience. He moved to Vienna, Austria, in 2001, and back to the United States in 2017.

• Marshee London – KCKCC Student Speaker Challenge Winner. A single mother of three girls, and a native of Los Angeles, California, she came to Kansas to start over, but ended up finding herself. She will be speaking on “Wake Up!” Marshee is the winner of the Student Speaker Challenge and is a criminal justice student at KCKCC.

• L. Carol Scott, Ph.D. – Scott will be speaking on “Never Lost Forever.” She discovered the power of a Big Dream during recovery from childhood sexual assault, which had left her with few tools for healthy adult relationships. A career in early childhood development intersected with this personal experience, creating new insights for recovery. Scott’s developmental lens shares tools that enable more trusting, less conflicted and more joy- filled relationships and interactions, at home and at work. For individuals in any stage of transformational journey, seeing life from the kaleidoscope perspective of early childhood allows you to take your relationships and your life to the next level and leave the struggle behind.

• Thom Singer – will be speaking on “The Art of Giving Small.” Have you ever felt as if you, or a member of your team, had amazing potential? Potential is great, but it does not equal results. In our busy world, achieving more can seem elusive even when bigger opportunities seem possible. Singer has become obsessed with helping people take the leap across the gap that exists between potential and results. He has had an eclectic career in sales and marketing for Fortune 500 companies, law firms and small companies. He has written 12 books and when he was 21 years old, he was a five-day returning champion on the $25,000 Pyramid game show.

For more information or to register for TedxWyandotte, visit www.tedxwyandotte.org. Select the 2018 “tickets available now” button. The cost of the event is $20 or $15 for groups of 10 or more. Admission is free for students that register and present a valid student ID. The ticket includes admittance to the event and a T-shirt.

About TED
TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to ideas worth spreading, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or fewer) delivered by today’s leading thinkers and doers. Many of these talks are given at TED’s annual conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, and made available, free, on TED.com. TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Nandan Nilekani, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Sal Khan and Daniel Kahneman.

TED’s open and free initiatives for spreading ideas include TED.com, where new TED Talk videos are posted daily; the Open Translation Project, which provides subtitles and interactive transcripts as well as translations from thousands of volunteers worldwide; the educational initiative TED-Ed; the annual million-dollar TED Prize, which funds exceptional individuals with a “wish,” or idea, to create change in the world; TEDx, which provides licenses to thousands of individuals and groups who host local, self-organized TED-style events around the world; and the TED Fellows program, which selects innovators from around the globe to amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities.

Follow TED on Twitter at http://twitter.com/TEDTalks, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/TED or Instagram at https://instagram.com/ted.

KCKCC softball team big hit at Urban Youth Academy clinic

KCKCC freshman outfielder Jadyn Lindgren worked in the batting cage with one of the participants taking part in a clinic put on by the Blue Devil softball team at the Royals’ Urban Youth Academy. (KCKCC photo by Tiffany Jennings)

by Alan Hoskins, KCKCC

Kansas City Kansas Community College’s women’s softball team blasted a home run at the Kansas City Royals Urban Youth Academy this week.

Twenty-one Lady Blue Devil coaches and players put on an hour-long instructional clinic for more than 30 girls and boys at the academy’s campus at 14th and Vine in Kansas City, Missouri, on Monday.

“Things went great,” wrote academy softball program coordinator Ashley Newman. “The parents had great things to say about how instructional the clinic and how the kids got to work on things that other teams hadn’t touched on such as bunting, sliding, diving and so on. They also loved the hats and shirts as well. Thank you so much for having the team at the academy.”

The Blue Devils were the ninth women’s college team to put on one of the weekly clinics although only the third community college along with Maple Woods and Johnson County.

“We had parents telling us this was by far the best instructional camp of the nine because we touched on so many areas,” KCKCC assistant coach Tiffany Jennings said.

The indoor clinic was held on the Alex Gordon Family Field. An All-Star Royals outfielder, Gordon was one of several major donors to the academy along with Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Salvador Perez and General Manager Dayton Moore.

Founded by Dayton Moore in 2016, the academy focuses on inner-city youth ages 6-18 to ensure that all age groups have a the dual opportunity to develop into high character, productive members of society and at the same time learn the skills of softball and baseball.

More than 20 KCKCC coaches and players joined more than 30 young girls and boys at a youth softball clinic held on the Alex Gordon Family Field at the Kansas City MLB Urban Youth Academy at 18th and Vine Monday.

Sporting KC signs eMLS competitor

Sporting Kansas City has signed 19-year-old Alex Betancourt as the club’s first official eMLS competitor. Betancourt will represent Sporting KC in eMLS, a competitive EA Sports FIFA 18 league that launches this spring.

Betancourt, a native of Kansas City, Kansas, will participate in the eMLS Cup that runs from April 5-8 at the PAX East gaming festival inside the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. The tournament will consist of gamers from 19 MLS clubs, with berths in international FIFA competitions up for grabs.

Since entering FIFA’s competitive gaming scene in 2016, Betancourt has earned multiple accolades as one of the continent’s best players.

He has won 20 Gfinity online tournaments, second-most among competitors in North and South America, and finished first in the Americas in the inaugural FUT Champions Weekend League for EA SPORTS FIFA 17.

He played at all three major regional events in FIFA 17 – venturing to Vancouver, Los Angeles and placing fourth in Miami.

In January, Betancourt was one of two players from North and South America to compete at the FIFA 18 FUT Champions Cup Barcelona after earning a top-64 finish in the world rankings during the month of November 2017.

Before Betancourt travels to Boston in April, Sporting KC fans will have the opportunity to test their FIFA 18 skills against him in a Beat the Pro Tournament later this month at No Other Pub in the Kansas City Power and Light District.

The preliminary rounds of eMLS Cup run from April 5-6 at the eMLS HQ, setting the stage for the knockout rounds on April 7 and the Conference Championships and eMLS Cup Final on April 8. The final two days of matches will be played on the PAX Arena main stage and live-streamed through the conference’s Twitch channel and MLSsoccer.com.

The eMLS Cup finalists will secure spots in the EA SPORTS FIFA 18 Global Series Playoffs on the Road to the FIFA eWorld Cup. The top 32 competitors in the Global Series Playoffs will advance to the FIFA eWorld Cup in August, where the winner will be crowned the undisputed FIFA 18 World Champion.

– Story from Sporting KC