Chris Farrell, a season one winner of History Channel’s “Forged in Fire,” will join the celebration at the 2021 Kansas City Renaissance Festival in Bonner Springs.
Farrell is the owner of Fearghal Blades, a custom bladesmithing business based in Austin, Texas.
He competed in the 2015 premiere season of Forged in Fire, which challenges bladesmiths to create functional weapons under time and material constraints. He defeated three competitors with his production of a traditional Indian throwing weapon called a Chakram.
Farrell started Fearghal Blades in 2011. He produces custom, handmade items and offers demonstrations of his craft around the country.
The Kansas City Renaissance Festival will be open weekends from Sept. 4 to Oct. 17, plus Labor Day (Sept. 6) and Monday, Oct. 11. Hours are 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. this weekend, Saturday, Sunday and Labor Day.
Tickets are $20.95 per adult online in advance and $12.50 per child online. Tickets at the gate are $23.95 per adult and children 5 to 12, $14.95. Senior or student tickets are $21.25 per person. There is free admission for children 4 and younger.
Tickets and information are available at www.kcrenfest.com.
Actor Ed Asner, who returned for a visit to Wyandotte High School in 2013, spoke with Wyandotte Principal Mary Stewart at an event. (File photo by Mary Rupert)
Actor and Wyandotte High School alumnus Ed Asner died on Sunday at the age of 91.
Asner, a native of Kansas City, Missouri, was perhaps best known for portraying the character of Lou Grant on “Lou Grant” and on the “Mary Tyler Moore” show. He also starred in a major voice role in the animated 2009 movie, “Up.”
Asner’s death was confirmed by his official Twitter account, which stated, “We are sorry to say that our beloved patriarch passed away this morning peacefully. Words cannot express the sadness we feel. With a kiss on your head – Goodnight dad. We love you.”
“I am saddened to hear about the loss of the remarkable Ed ‘Lou Grant’ Asner,” stated Kathy Hanis, a local publicist who helped coordinate one of Asner’s visits to KCK. “He loved his family and was proud of being a Wyandotte High School Grad and from Kansas City, Kansas. Always quick with words and I loved his dry sense of humor. Kansas City will miss you Ed.”
Working with the KCK Centennial under former Mayor Jack Reardon, Hanis helped bring Asner to the local celebration.
Asner won seven Emmy awards in his career, including three for the “Mary Tyler Moore” show, two for “Lou Grant,” one for “Rich Man, Poor Man” and one for “Roots.” Asner also was a recipient of the Screen Actors Guild’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
He also was well known for championing the rights of working people, and was president of the Screen Actors Guild in the 1980s.
Asner returned to Kansas City, Kansas, occasionally and helped the community raise funds for various causes.
In 2013, he returned to Wyandotte High School, where he was presented with a football jersey while helping raise funds for the United Way. He was a member of the football team during his years at Wyandotte, and he also became interested in journalism and broadcasting during that time. His parents owned a secondhand store and a junkyard in Kansas City, Kansas.
Asner also served in the U.S. Army and attended the University of Chicago.
In 2013, Asner told a group gathered at Wyandotte High School that he had a lot of affection for Kansas City, Kansas, and it was “a gentle place to grow up.” While there was some discrimination in his day, there wasn’t the same degree of hatred as one might find in other places, he noted.
“It was a nice taste of what America should be, and I liked it,” he said in 2013.
Asner said then that he learned about brotherhood and love from his days at Wyandotte High School.
“I learned to love my football coach, and my journalism professor,” he said in 2013. “I had two tight friends, one who just called, and one who died three days ago, and I will always cherish the memory of those two guys. I learned about love, about brotherhood, and I learned that I wasn’t such a bad guy.”
Ed Asner was presented with a football jersey when he visited Wyandotte High School in 2013. (File photo by Mary Rupert)Ed Asner (Photo courtesy of Kathy Hanis)Ed Asner returned to Kansas City, Kansas, for a celebration of the KCK centennial under former Mayor Jack Reardon. Asner was in the center of the photo, near 8th and Minnesota. (Photo courtesy of Kathy Hanis)Ed Asner, with Kathy Hanis, center, at a documentary screening at the Ranch Mart theater. Marie Asner, a member of the Asner family, is on the left. (Photo courtesy of Kathy Hanis)
A “Live at the Legends” free outdoor concert will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 16, at the Legends Outlets, on the Lawn, I-435 and I-70 in Kansas City, Kansas.
The featured performer will be the Ryan Lynch duo, a Kansas City area musician, lead singer and composer of The Champagne.
Lynch will be playing rock, blues, country and soul music.
Those attending may bring blankets or folding chairs.
