Wichita

Cessna Stadium, located in Wichita, Kansas, is the home of the Wichita State University Shocker track and field and soccer teams with a 30,000-seat... capacity. Originally constructed in 1969, and renovated in 1996, Cessna Stadium was built over the site of the Shockers' former home, Veterans Field. Wichita State University rededicated the facility on April 16, 2002 to mark the end of the seven-month, $1.3 million construction that included adding an eighth lane and resurfacing the track, reconfiguring the infield event layout, and building separate locker rooms for the Shocker men's and women's track and field teams. The first event in the renovated facility was WSU's annual K.T. Woodman Track and Field Classic, which is scheduled every April. One of the most modern and complete football facilities in the nation at the time of its completion, Cessna Stadium was home to Shocker football until the program's termination in 1986, and is still the venue of the Kansas State High School Track and Field Championship, the Shockers' annual K.T. Woodman Track Classic, as well as several Missouri Valley Conference Track and Field Championship meets.
more

The Riverview Apartments in Wichita, Kansas were built in 1928. They were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.

The Orpheum Theatre in Wichita, Kansas constructed by a group of local investors and operated by theatre mogul Carl Hobitzelle, opened on September... 4, 1922, and was the first atmospheric theatre in the United States though whether or not it can be considered a true "atmospheric theatre" has been contested by some. In 1984, it was given to the Orpheum Performing Arts Centre, Ltd., a non-profit corporation created to the preserve, restore and utilize of this significant part of the city's cultural and architectural history. The magnificent 42 ft high by 40 ft wide proscenium arch is the main feature of the auditorium. The sidewalls of the auditorium were accented by niches with mock tile roofs, grills and wooden lattice arches across the ceiling to create a courtyard effect. The theatre once held 1,700 seats but now only seats 1,281. The theatre was designed by renowned architect John Eberson with the concept of creating the ambiance of a specific locale. The Wichita Orpheum was designed to invoke a garden of old Andalusia. Its entire design, including that of the asbestos curtain, was that of a Spanish garden or court.
more

Intrust Bank Arena is a 15,004-seat multi-purpose arena located in Wichita, Kansas. The arena features 22 suites, 2 party suites, and over 300... premium seats. It is home to the Wichita Thunder of the Central Hockey League and is the second largest indoor arena in the state of Kansas behind only Allen Fieldhouse, which seats 16,300. On April 4, 2005, Governor Kathleen Sebelius signed the Intrust Bank Arena tax bill authorizing Sedgwick County to collect a one percent sales tax beginning July 1, 2005 for 30 months. On January 10, 2008, Sedgwick County announced it had reached a 25-year, $8.75 million naming rights deal with Intrust Bank, which complements a 20-year, $3 million deal with Cessna Aircraft Company to name an adjacent outdoor plaza, and a concourse area deal with Spirit AeroSystems. The City of Wichita has also placed a bid to host the first two rounds of the 2011, 2012 or 2013 men's NCAA Division I basketball tournament. However, there wasn't enough seating, nor any nearby hotels, so the arena was passed over.
more

Joseph Fidler "Joe" Walsh is an American musician, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He has been a member of three commercially successful... bands: the James Gang, Barnstorm, and the Eagles. He has also experienced success as a solo artist and prolific session musician, especially with B.B. King and Dan Fogelberg. Although Walsh is a native of Wichita, Kansas, he and his family lived in Columbus, Ohio for a number of years. His mother was a classically trained pianist. When Walsh was twelve years old the family moved to New York City. Later, Walsh moved to Montclair, New Jersey and attended Montclair High School there. He spent time in various bands playing around the Cleveland area, including The Measles while attending Kent State University. In response to moving to New York City, Walsh began a lifelong hobby of amateur radio with the callsign WB6ACU. In January 1968 he replaced Glen Schwartz as lead guitarist for the James Gang, an American power trio. Walsh proved to be the band's star attraction, noted for his innovative rhythm playing and creative guitar riffs.
more

Kirstie Louise Alley is an American actress known for her role in the TV show Cheers, in which she played Rebecca Howe from 1987–1993, winning... an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award as the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 1991. She is also known for her role in the thriller Shoot to Kill and the Look Who's Talking film series as Mollie Ubriacco. More recently, Alley has appeared in reality shows revolving around her life. Kirstie Alley was born in Wichita, Kansas, the daughter of Lillian Mickie , a homemaker, and Robert Deal Alley, who owned a lumber company. She has two siblings, Colette and Craig. Alley attended Wichita Southeast High School and became a cheerleader, graduating in 1969. She attended college at Kansas State University in 1969. In 1981, a car accident caused by a drunk driver killed her mother and left her father seriously injured. Her father eventually recovered. Kirstie came to Los Angeles to work as an interior designer and appeared as a contestant on the popular game show Match Game, where she won multiple games. She also appeared on the game show Password Plus in 1980.
more

William Eugene Smith was an American photojournalist known for his refusal to compromise professional standards and his brutally vivid World War II... photographs. Smith graduated from Wichita North High School in 1936. He began his career by taking pictures for two local newspapers, The Wichita Eagle and the Beacon . He moved to New York City and began work for Newsweek and became known for his incessant perfectionism and thorny personality. Smith was fired from Newsweek for refusing to use medium format cameras and joined Life Magazine in 1939. He soon resigned from Life, too. In 1942 he was wounded while photographing battle conditions in the Pacific theater of World War II. As a correspondent for Ziff-Davis Publishing and then Life again, Smith entered World War II on the front lines of the island-hopping American offensive against Japan, photographing U.S. Marines and Japanese prisoners of war at Saipan, Guam, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. On Okinawa, Smith was hit by mortar fire. After recovering, he continued at Life and perfected the photo essay from 1947 to 1954.
more

Arlen Specter is a former United States Senator from Pennsylvania. Specter is a Democrat, but was a Republican from 1965 until switching to the... Democratic Party in 2009. First elected in 1980, he represented his state for thirty years in the Senate. Specter is a moderate who staked out a spot in the political center. Specter was born in Wichita, Kansas to an American mother and a father who immigrated from Russia. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and served with the United States Air Force during the Korean War. Specter later graduated from Yale Law School and opened a law firm with Marvin Katz, who would later become a federal judge. Specter served as assistant counsel for the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of John F. Kennedy and helped devise the "single bullet theory." In 1965, Specter was elected District Attorney of Philadelphia, a position that he would hold until he lost his re-election bid in 1973.
more

James Charles "Jim" Lehrer is an American journalist and the executive editor and former news anchor for PBS NewsHour on PBS, known for his role as... a frequent debate moderator during elections. Lehrer is an author of non-fiction and fiction, drawing from his experiences and interests in history and politics. Lehrer was born in Wichita, Kansas, the son of Lois Catherine , a bank clerk, and Harry Frederick Lehrer, a bus station manager. He attended middle school in Beaumont, Texas, and graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School , where he was one of the three sports editors at the Jefferson Declaration. He also graduated from Victoria College in Texas and the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri. Lehrer joined the United States Marine Corps and attributes his service and travels with helping him to look past himself and feel a connection to the world that he would not have otherwise experienced. Lehrer began his career in journalism at The Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Times-Herald, where he covered the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963.
more

Annette Carol Bening is an American actress. Bening is a four-time Oscar nominee for her roles in The Grifters, American Beauty, Being Julia and The... Kids Are All Right, winning Golden Globe Awards for the latter two films. Bening is married to actor Warren Beatty, with whom she has four children. Bening was born in Topeka, Kansas, the youngest of four children. Her mother, Shirley , was a church singer and soloist, and her father, Arnett Grant Bening, was a sales training consultant and insurance salesman. Her parents, natives of Iowa, were practicing Episcopalians and conservative Republicans. Her sister and two brothers are Jane, Bradley and Byron. The family moved to Wichita, Kansas, in 1959, where she spent her early childhood. In 1965, her father took a job with a company in San Diego, California, and they moved there. She began acting in junior high school, playing the lead in The Sound of Music. She graduated in 1975, from Patrick Henry High School where she studied drama. She then spent a year working as a cook on a charter boat taking fishing parties out on the Pacific Ocean, and scuba diving for recreation.
more

Robert Duane Ballard is a former United States Navy officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for... his work in underwater archaeology: maritime archaeology and archaeology of shipwrecks. He is most known for the discoveries of the wrecks of the RMS Titanic in 1985, the battleship Bismarck in 1989, and the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown in 1998. He discovered the wreck of John F. Kennedy's PT-109 in 2002 and visited Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana, who saved its crew. Ballard leads ocean exploration on E/V Nautilus. Ballard grew up in Pacific Beach, San Diego, California to a mother of German heritage and a father of British heritage. He has attributed his early interest in underwater exploration to reading the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, living by the ocean in San Diego, and his fascination with the groundbreaking expeditions of the bathyscaphe Trieste. Ballard began working for Andreas Rechnitzer's Ocean Systems Group at North American Aviation in 1962 when his father, Chet Ballard, the chief engineer at North American Aviation's Minuteman missile program, helped him get a part-time job.
more

Joseph Fidler "Joe" Walsh is an American musician, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He has been a member of three commercially successful... bands: the James Gang, Barnstorm, and the Eagles. He has also experienced success as a solo artist and prolific session musician, especially with B.B. King and Dan Fogelberg. Although Walsh is a native of Wichita, Kansas, he and his family lived in Columbus, Ohio for a number of years. His mother was a classically trained pianist. When Walsh was twelve years old the family moved to New York City. Later, Walsh moved to Montclair, New Jersey and attended Montclair High School there. He spent time in various bands playing around the Cleveland area, including The Measles while attending Kent State University. In response to moving to New York City, Walsh began a lifelong hobby of amateur radio with the callsign WB6ACU. In January 1968 he replaced Glen Schwartz as lead guitarist for the James Gang, an American power trio. Walsh proved to be the band's star attraction, noted for his innovative rhythm playing and creative guitar riffs.
more

Kirstie Louise Alley is an American actress known for her role in the TV show Cheers, in which she played Rebecca Howe from 1987–1993, winning... an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award as the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 1991. She is also known for her role in the thriller Shoot to Kill and the Look Who's Talking film series as Mollie Ubriacco. More recently, Alley has appeared in reality shows revolving around her life. Kirstie Alley was born in Wichita, Kansas, the daughter of Lillian Mickie , a homemaker, and Robert Deal Alley, who owned a lumber company. She has two siblings, Colette and Craig. Alley attended Wichita Southeast High School and became a cheerleader, graduating in 1969. She attended college at Kansas State University in 1969. In 1981, a car accident caused by a drunk driver killed her mother and left her father seriously injured. Her father eventually recovered. Kirstie came to Los Angeles to work as an interior designer and appeared as a contestant on the popular game show Match Game, where she won multiple games. She also appeared on the game show Password Plus in 1980.
more

William Eugene Smith was an American photojournalist known for his refusal to compromise professional standards and his brutally vivid World War II... photographs. Smith graduated from Wichita North High School in 1936. He began his career by taking pictures for two local newspapers, The Wichita Eagle and the Beacon . He moved to New York City and began work for Newsweek and became known for his incessant perfectionism and thorny personality. Smith was fired from Newsweek for refusing to use medium format cameras and joined Life Magazine in 1939. He soon resigned from Life, too. In 1942 he was wounded while photographing battle conditions in the Pacific theater of World War II. As a correspondent for Ziff-Davis Publishing and then Life again, Smith entered World War II on the front lines of the island-hopping American offensive against Japan, photographing U.S. Marines and Japanese prisoners of war at Saipan, Guam, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. On Okinawa, Smith was hit by mortar fire. After recovering, he continued at Life and perfected the photo essay from 1947 to 1954.
more

Arlen Specter is a former United States Senator from Pennsylvania. Specter is a Democrat, but was a Republican from 1965 until switching to the... Democratic Party in 2009. First elected in 1980, he represented his state for thirty years in the Senate. Specter is a moderate who staked out a spot in the political center. Specter was born in Wichita, Kansas to an American mother and a father who immigrated from Russia. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and served with the United States Air Force during the Korean War. Specter later graduated from Yale Law School and opened a law firm with Marvin Katz, who would later become a federal judge. Specter served as assistant counsel for the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of John F. Kennedy and helped devise the "single bullet theory." In 1965, Specter was elected District Attorney of Philadelphia, a position that he would hold until he lost his re-election bid in 1973.
more

James Charles "Jim" Lehrer is an American journalist and the executive editor and former news anchor for PBS NewsHour on PBS, known for his role as... a frequent debate moderator during elections. Lehrer is an author of non-fiction and fiction, drawing from his experiences and interests in history and politics. Lehrer was born in Wichita, Kansas, the son of Lois Catherine , a bank clerk, and Harry Frederick Lehrer, a bus station manager. He attended middle school in Beaumont, Texas, and graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School , where he was one of the three sports editors at the Jefferson Declaration. He also graduated from Victoria College in Texas and the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri. Lehrer joined the United States Marine Corps and attributes his service and travels with helping him to look past himself and feel a connection to the world that he would not have otherwise experienced. Lehrer began his career in journalism at The Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Times-Herald, where he covered the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963.
more