Women for Kansas will host its “Showing Our Strength” Convention, Aug. 31 and Sept. 1 in Wichita. Registrations for the event, which will be held at the Drury Plaza Broadview Hotel and the Orpheum Theater, are now being taken.
The convention will open with a reception from 4-7 p.m. at the hotel, where participants will be entertained by Robin Macy and the Wonder Women. Participants will then walk five blocks to the Orpheum to hear the keynote speaker, Greg Palast.
Palast, who has been called “the most important investigative reporter of our time,” is a Puffin Foundation fellow in investigative reporting. The author of two New York Times best sellers, which are also motion pictures, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Case of the Stolen Election, Palast is a critic of Kansas’ recent voter policies.
Another featured speaker, Kansas author, Sarah Smarsh, will present during the luncheon on Saturday. Her focus will be how to talk to people with differing opinions, learned lessons she reveals in her soon-to-be-released book, Heartland: A Daughter of the Working Class Reconciles an American Divide.
Numerous other speakers will address Kansas policies and legislation, including Heidi Holliday, Kansas Center for Economic Growth; Davis Hammet, Loud Light; Annie McKay, Kansas Action for Children; Judy Sherry, Grandmothers Against Gun Violence, and Micah Kubic, the ACLU. Sandrine Lusk and Claudia Amaro will address immigration issues.
The Saturday convention will conclude with a banquet and candidate debates for governor and secretary of state. Jeff Jarman, Director of the WSU Elliott School of Communication, will moderate; Jim McLean, Kansas Press Service, and Dena Sattler, editor of the Garden City Telegram, will pose questions.
“Our first statewide Convention, in 2014,” said Lynn Stephan, Convention Committee, “was attended by 470 women from across Kansas. They left so inspired and motivated that this year we expect to fill up in a very short period of time.” The $189 cost for the Convention includes a welcome reception, admission to the Greg Palast event at the Orpheum, a T-shirt and goodie bag, lunch, snacks, and the closing banquet. A block of rooms is reserved at the Drury. To register, go online to Women for Kansas.org. If you have questions, contact Jan at janetmeyer2@hotmail.com.
The vision of Women for Kansas is to restore integrity, transparency, fiscal responsibility and balance to Kansas by electing moderates to public office. Their mission is to recruit, motivate and educate women who will actively participate in the process of electing moderates to public office who will advocate for moderate policies.