Kansas City Kansas Community College’s nationally ranked softball team enjoyed a walk-off win so much in the first game of a doubleheader Saturday, the Blue Devils did it again.
Piper’s Alexis Rymer’s single in the bottom of the seventh gave the Blue Devils a 5-4 opening win over Neosho County Saturday; Alaina Howe drove in the tying and Savannah Maynard the winner as KCKCC rallied in the eighth inning for an 8-7 nightcap win.
The sweep came on the heels of 12-2 and 17-0 wins at Cloud County Thursday and propelled the 13th ranked Blue Devils into striking range of first and second place in the Jayhawk Conference DII Division A. Labette (15-3) leads followed closely by Johnson County (15-5) and KCKCC (16-6).
At Southeast Community College in Beatrice, Nebraska, Monday, the Blue Devils (35-9) return home Thursday as hosts of No. 11 ranked Highland at 2 and 4 p.m. They’ll close out regular season play at Allen County May 6 and then will be hosts to Johnson County May 8 (noon-2 p.m.).
KCKCC led Neosho 4-2 only to have the Panthers tie the game in the top of the seventh. Maynard was hit by a pitch to start the Blue Devils’ eighth. Devin Purcell singled and after an intentional walk to Bradi Basler, Rymer rapped a game-winning single to right for the 5-4 win.
Basler earlier had hammered a 2-run home run while Purcell had three hits and Maynard a double. Breanna Droge (13-5) went the distance for the win, allowing eight hits, three earned runs, walking two and fanning five.
Neosho took a 7-6 lead in the top of the eighth of the second game. Jenna Daugherty started the KCKCC eighth with her second hit of the game, took second on Madison Pope’s sacrifice bunt and scored on Howe’s game-tying single and Maynard ended it with her third hit of the game and third RBI.
Basler also homered in the nightcap, her 14th of the season, and got her 17th pitching win (17-4), striking out seven, walking two and surrendering 13 hits.
Basler had three home runs in the sweep at Cloud. Basler drove in four runs with two homers in the first game while Maynard doubled and singled twice,
Purcell doubled and singled and Daugherty and Howe had two hits each. Leading 5-1, the Blue Devils scored seven times in the seventh. Droge allowed eight hits and one earned run, striking out five and walking none.
Devin Purcell’s first out-of-the-park grand slam highlighted the 17-0 nightcap, a game in which KCKCC scored 11 times in the seventh.
The Blue Devils’ 19-hit attack included eight players with two or more hits. Rymer homered and singled twice; Hannah Maurer singled three times and Basler homered and singled. Each drove in two runs.
In addition, Maynard doubled twice; Leah Seichepine and Howe each doubled and singled; and Purcell added a single to her slam. Basler allowed just two hits, striking out five and walking none in pitching a shutout.
The 2021 Mid-America Education Hall of Fame recognized several honorees on Friday, April 23.
Sponsored by the Kansas City Kansas Community College Foundation, the Hall of Fame not only recognizes those who have made contributions to education, but it also raises funds for scholarships for Kansas City Kansas Community College.
The 2021 event was held virtually.
The honorees included:
Alan Hoskins. The public information supervisor at KCKCC for 30 years, Alan Hoskins continued his service to the college after retirement in 2013 as sports information director.
Inducted into the KCKCC Athletic Hall of Fame in 2015, he received the KCKCC Employee of the Year Award in 2009 and the NISOD Excellence Award in 2008. In his role as a public information supervisor, Hoskins’ stories on KCKCC events, achievements, Hall of Famers, retirees, athletics and more filled pages of area newspapers and in-house publications “Profiles,” “Alumni and Friends” and “On Campus.”
He also regularly helped organize KCKCC trips abroad for students, faculty and staff, making nearly 40 trips abroad in a 20-year period starting in 1999. A graduate of the University of Iowa with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism, Hoskins worked for newspapers in Muscatine and Ottumwa, Iowa, and The Kansas City Kansan and most recently Tee Time Golf magazine. He is the author of coffee-table size books, “Warpaths,” the only history of the Kansas City Chiefs; “The First 25 Years of Wolf Creek Golf Course.” Named Iowa Sportswriter of the Year in 1969, he’s the only two-time recipient of the O.P. Smith Media Award given by the Greyhound Track Operators.
Leavenworth Public Schools Education Foundation. For the last 20 years, the Leavenworth Public Schools Education Foundation has existed to support the students, staff and faculty of the Leavenworth School District. It serves as an advocacy group for public education, preparing students for future successes and ensuring a strong community.
With donations from local businesses, alumni, community members and staff, the foundation continues to invest in students by using resources for a variety of programs that enhance the teaching and learning environment in Leavenworth including Bridging the Summer Reading Gap, the LHS Pioneer Mentoring Program, the “Teacher of the Year” Award, Girls on the Run, Great Western Manufacturing Backpack Buddies and the Carol Dark Ayres Music Program, among many others. The foundation facilitates the Horizon Kids Before and After School program, which is located at each elementary school in the district, providing families with affordable child care options.
In addition, each fall, the foundation awards nearly $60,000 to support innovative teacher grant applications. These grants are used to fund special projects, field trips and equipment purchases that expand beyond the traditional offerings of a classroom. Since it was created 20 years ago, the foundation has raised more than $2.5 million.
Maxine Drew. A native of Wyandotte County, Drew is a recent past president of the Kansas City, Kansas, Board of Education. Her passion for her community stems from her upbringing, love for education and willingness to work.
A product of the KCK School District, she attended Grant Elementary School, Northeast Junior High School and Sumner High School, before attending what was then KCK Junior College. She then earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Park University and a master’s degree in teaching curriculum and instruction from the University of St. Mary in Leavenworth.
She served as a social studies teacher at West Middle School for more than 35 years, working closely with parents as a family advocate to help set goals for the academic and emotional success of their children and believes that every child should have a right to and be given the opportunity to receive a quality education. Drew was trained in the Behavior Intervention Support Team program and implemented a variety of changes for middle school students while a part of the program.
In addition to her dedication to education, she has been involved in other community programs including assisting in providing a safety-net for victims of domestic violence and as a leader in the State of Kansas Kaw Valley District Youth Department.
Mary Ann Flunder, posthumously. A committed leader in the community, Flunder was known for her tireless efforts to help the community she cared deeply about.
For the last 50 years of her life, Flunder served on more than 50 boards either locally, statewide or nationally. She spent more than 20 years as a member of the KCKCC Board of Trustees and was the director of the Office of Minority Affairs for the University of Kansas. It was in this role that she was challenged to recruit high caliber minority students in the fields of engineering and health and was instrumental with the creation of the Upward Bound program, which still exists and supports college-bound students from lower socio-economic households.
She has received numerous awards including the Outstanding Service Award from the State of Kansas Federation of Democratic Women, the NAACP Humanitarian Award and the Merit Award from Turner House, among others. Her most notable achievement was in 2015 when she was invited to attend the State of the Union Address in Washington, D.C., during President Barak Obama’s term. She continued to be an advocate for education until her death in March 2016 and her contributions to the education community as well as students will have a long-lasting impact.
Pamela M. Louis-Walden. A long-time educator at KCKCC, Louis-Walden has “blessed the KCKCC community with her guidance, commitment and absolute support.”
After earning a bachelor of arts in English education from Kansas State University and a master of arts in English literature from Emporia State University, Louis-Walden held positions at the high school level as well as ESU before coming to KCKCC in 1967, where she was a member of the English Department until her retirement in 2002.
She was instrumental in the creation of both the ESL and Honors Education programs, was adviser of the Mu Delta Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa and helped to establish the Henry Louis Center in 2014, which empowers women, families and communities in Nigeria and Liberia through education. Louis-Walden also helped to organize more than 35 trips globally for KCKCC faculty and staff, helping to increase their knowledge of other cultures.
She has received numerous awards including the Phi Theta Kappa’s “Giles Most Distinguished Advisor Award,” the Spirit Award from the KCKCC Intercultural Center, the KCKCC Certificate of Appreciation for contributions to education and the Chair Academy’s Outstanding Regional Leadership Award, among many others.
Louis-Walden was also instrumental in rehoming the Cooper-Foreman Heirloom Garden to the KCKCC Campus. She continues to work tirelessly on its educational value, maintenance, and garden volunteers. She continues to demonstrate a commitment to education through her volunteer efforts and has blessed the community with her guidance, commitment and support.
A video of the Mid-America Education Hall of Fame program is online at https://www.facebook.com/KansasCityKansasCommunityCollege/videos/1642232285973341.
To donate funds for scholarships to the KCKCC Foundation, visit https://www.kckcc.edu/foundation/.
Aviva joined KCUR in 2019, impressing her colleagues with her work ethic and strength of purpose.
Aviva Okeson-Haberman joined KCUR in June 2019 as the Missouri politics and government reporter, having interned at the station a year earlier and impressed the newsroom with her work ethic, diligence, conscientiousness and eagerness to learn. (Photo by Brandon Parigo, University of Missouri-Kansas City)
by Dan Margolies, KCUR and Kansas News Service
Aviva Okeson-Haberman, an accomplished KCUR reporter known for her thoughtful, aggressive and compassionate reporting, has died after suffering a gunshot wound in her Kansas City, Missouri, apartment. She was 24.
The killing appeared to be the result of a bullet that pierced one of the windows of her first-floor apartment in the Santa Fe neighborhood. She was discovered there in the 2900 block of Lockridge Avenue on Friday afternoon by a colleague who had gone to check on her after she’d failed to respond to messages throughout the day.
She was an especially beloved friend and colleague just beginning what promised to be a brilliant career. We, at KCUR, join her family and friends in mourning her passing.
Hours before she was shot, she’d been looking at an apartment in Lawrence. She was moving into a new role covering social issues and criminal justice for the Kansas News Service, a statewide reporting partnership based at KCUR.
Her application for that position hinted at the passion she brought to her craft.
“Social services is a tough beat, but I’m a tough reporter,” she wrote. “I’ll ask the hard questions, dig into the data and spend time building trust with sources. It’s what’s required to provide an unflinching look at how state government affects those entrusted to its care.”
Aviva had already demonstrated outstanding reporting skills. She joined KCUR in June 2019 as the Missouri politics and government reporter, having interned at the station a year earlier and impressed the newsroom with her work ethic, diligence, conscientiousness and eagerness to learn.
Above all, she was sweet, kind and gracious, giving little hint of the strength of purpose that made her such a skilled and tough reporter.
“Aviva was brilliant,” KCUR news director Lisa Rodriguez said. “Even as an intern, her approach to storytelling and her ability to hold those in power accountable paralleled many a veteran reporter. She was quiet, which made it all the more satisfying to hear her challenge politicians and hold her ground, even when people in positions of great power tried to belittle her.”
In her nearly two years at KCUR, Aviva covered a host of issues, ranging from corruption in Clay County and medical marijuana to the conflicting pandemic restrictions in differing Kansas City area cities and inequities in the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.
She had a particular interest in the foster care system, which she planned to focus on as a reporter for the Kansas News Service. Her interest was anything but abstract. She herself was in foster care for several years as an adolescent.
While in high school in Springfield, Missouri, she was a volunteer with the Boys and Girls Club, supervising up to 20 children ranging in age from 5 to 12 and helping them with their reading and math skills. She also volunteered for the Food Recovery Network, transporting restaurant food to the Salvation Army.
Scott Canon, managing editor of the Kansas News Service, said he recruited her for the job because her seriousness was as obvious as her empathy for the people she covered.
“She cared deeply about children in foster care and she also wanted to do the most thorough possible job understanding the state’s prison and its juvenile justice system,” Canon said. “She was brimming with ideas for stories that she thought just might improve the lives of people who were up against the worst circumstances.”
Aviva graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri in 2019. While there, she garnered fistfuls of awards, including the Sigma Delta Chi Award for investigative reporting for her investigation of Missouri’s elder abuse hotline. It was the sort of story that reporters with decades more experience would have admired and envied.
The hotline had been set up to collect reports of abuse and neglect of the elderly and people with disabilities. She and another reporter she worked with discovered that thousands of calls to the hotline went unanswered. Their reporting prompted an investigation by the Missouri attorney general.
While at Mizzou, Aviva also oversaw more than 40 students who produced weekly shows for the student-run TV station, MUTV.
After graduating, she worked as a reporter for nearly a year at KBIA, the University of Missouri-licensed public radio station in Columbia, Missouri. Two of her feature stories aired on Here & Now, a public radio magazine program carried by more than 450 public radio stations across the country.
“Her instincts as a journalist were spot-on. Aviva knew when something was amiss and was unrelenting in her pursuit of the truth,” Rodriguez said. “I learned so much from her. Earlier this year, I turned down a pitch she had for a series — an audio diary of nurses fighting COVID-19 on the frontlines. Eventually, she wore me down and we agreed to one story.
“That piece was one of the most beautiful and emotional pieces of radio I’ve listened to. It brought me to tears each time I listened to it. That was just the kind of storyteller she was — she brought magic to everything.”
Peggy Lowe, a longtime newspaper reporter and now an investigative reporter at KCUR, called Aviva “one of the brightest, hardest-working reporters I’ve known.”
“She had such a head for investigatory work — getting and analyzing data and digging until all of her many questions were answered,” Lowe said. “That her incredible promise is gone is devastating.”
After she was found unconscious in her apartment, Aviva was transported to Truman Medical Centers, where the nurses and chaplain learned about her audio diary of the nurses fighting COVID.
“That made the nurses love her last night, even though she wasn’t conscious,” said Lowe, who was the reporter who found her unconscious at her apartment and went to the hospital to be with her.
Kansas City police are investigating the shooting that led to Aviva’s death.
Homicides in Kansas City have increased in the last few years, mostly due to gun violence. Five gunshot victims were taken to Truman Medical Centers the night Aviva was admitted, according to Chaplain Debra Sapp-Yarwood.
Aviva’s colleagues will miss not just her brilliant reporting but her quiet and slyly mischievous character. Journalists tend to be rough around the edges but Aviva was the rare reporter whom everyone loved.
“I’m heartbroken that I won’t have another opportunity to make her a pizza while we sat in my backyard talking about life,” Rodriguez said. “I’m heartbroken I won’t hear another story pitch or work through another hours-long edit. I will miss her so much.”
Aviva is survived by her mother and father, her two younger sisters and her maternal grandparents.
Plans for a memorial service are pending.
The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy. Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished by news media at no cost with proper attribution and a link to ksnewsservice.org.
