Laura Spencer
Laura Spencer caught the radio bug more than a decade ago when she was asked to read a newscast on the air on her first day volunteering for KOOP, the community radio station in Austin, Texas.
After moving home to Kansas City, she learned the fine art of editing reel-to-reel tape as an intern and graduate assistant with the nationally syndicated literary program New Letters on the Air. Since 2001, she's focused her efforts on writing and producing feature stories as KCUR's Arts Reporter.
In 2011, Laura was one of 21 journalists selected for USC Annenberg’s seventh National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Arts Journalism Institute in Theater and Musical Theater. She's received awards from the Associated Press, Kansas City Art Institute (Excellence in Visual Art and Education), Kansas City Association of Black Journalists, Missouri Broadcasters Association, Radio-Television News Directors Association (regional Edward R. Murrow Award) and Society for Professional Journalists.
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After Mid-Production Stop Last Year, Lyric Opera Of Kansas City 'Treads Lightly,' Stays Optimistic AIt's been a year since the Lyric Opera of Kansas City performed at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. -
At least seven artists with Kansas City ties were up for a Grammy nomination. Three shared in the top honor. -
Kansas City's American Jazz Museum Launches Fundraising Campaign To Keep The Music Of Charlie 'Bird'The American Jazz Museum launched "In the Yard," to raise funds for youth programming, digitizing and preserving the collection, and a jazz incubator. -
Friends of Chamber Music started in 1975 as a series of house concerts, including performances by pianist Cynthia Siebert. Now, Siebert has resigned from the organization she founded. -
The Kansas City Symphony is moving across the street from its current home in the Vitagraph Building and will consolidate its operations — administrative, musical and creative. -
The Texas-based movie theater chain has filed for bankruptcy and plans to close venues in Texas and Missouri. -
The former Crispus Attucks Elementary School first opened in 1905 as a school for Black students in Kansas City. It's envisioned as an arts center in 2023. -
A tiny dollhouse dubbed the Mini Modern House includes mid-century interior design details — in miniature. -
The Chiefs were favored to win Sunday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV. But a Super Bowl championship back-to-back win hasn't happened in 17 years — and wouldn't happen this year either. -
Artist Phil Shafer, who's known as Sike Style, has created murals and installations featuring Kansas City Chiefs players across the metro.
