Ten Midwest Voices contributors are selected annually to write opinion columns that appear on Saturdays. Writers are invited to apply at the end of each year to serve the following year, January-December.
Ross Balano
Ross Balano is a lifelong resident of Kansas City. He attended Catholic schools and is a proud graduate of St. Pius X High School in the Northland. He graduated from UMKC in 1978 and had been a business owner until 2005 when he sold his security and fire alarm company to a large national company for which he now works as National Accounts Manager. A lover of youth sports, he has coached young people for years in baseball, football and basketball and was a co-founder of the Northland Vikings youth football program which serves boys from grades 3 though 8 and which is still thriving. He is also an amateur magician. He loves God, his family and his friends and is extremely proud to be a citizen of the United States of America which he considers the greatest country to ever grace the earth.
Jonathan Bender
A lifelong resident of the East Coast until last year, Jonathan Bender, 29, recently moved to Kansas City. A graduate of Brown University, he hopes to some day use his degree in bio-medical Ethics. He currently writes for The Star’s Prime Buzz blog and freelances for magazines and newspapers. He lives with his wife in Waldo, where he is working on his first nonfiction book fueled by vast amounts of iced tea. He dreams of owning a skee ball machine, but has settled for a puppy in the interim.
Christian Dashiell
Christian Dashiell grew up in Portland and first relocated to the Midwest to attend Sterling College, in Sterling, Kan. After taking a vow of singleness so as to remain free to return to the West Coast, he promptly fell in love and now lives happily with his wife and daughter in Kansas City, Kan. He helps coordinate a leadership development program for urban boys through The Hope Center. When his schedule allows, he finds delight in sipping coffee, smoking meat and watching soccer.
Debra Sapp-Yarwood
Debra Sapp-Yarwood’s undergraduate degree is in theatre from Southern Methodist University in Dallas. She had a brief professional acting career (which included the part of Mama Bear in the touring musical version of Goldilocks) before she got a master’s in journalism from the University of Missouri- Columbia. Now she is cashing in the guilt equity she built getting her husband through his mid-life crisis (law school and four years of “getting on his feet”). She left a 15-year career in not-for-profit management to come home and write.
Juanell Garrett
Mother of four adult children, Juanell Garrett believes motherhood is the real “toughest job you’ll ever love.” After 30 years in that position, including 11 years of homeschooling, she’s pursuing her second love—writing. She writes fiction and personal essays, but her favorite prose is opinion pieces because, as she says, “If there’s anything I’m an authority on, it’s my opinion.” Juanell grew up on a southeast Kansas farm; she's lived in the Kansas City metropolitan area for 25 years.
Roger Merryfield
Roger Merryfield has enjoyed a successful business career in accounting and finance in the Kansas City area after graduating from the University of Kansas and settling in Shawnee. He and his wife of 30 years have two children, currently college and high school sophomores. Roger believes that our public policy decision makers are paralyzed by partisanship and are so concerned with preventing “the other side” from achieving any success that they are failing to deliver meaningful solutions to real problems.
Ivo Ivanov
Ivo Ivanov was born and raised 5,581 miles from Kansas City, in Sofia, Bulgaria. His distinct Midwest voice didn’t learn to speak English until well into his 20s, a fact that somehow escaped the University of Kansas, which readily admitted him in its graduate school in 1990. Ever since, he has lived in Lawrence. He married in 1994 and has two children. Before arriving in The United States, he managed to serve two years in the army, participated in the student, anti-communist uprising that toppled president Petar Mladenov, and graduated from college. He has been a special correspondent for the Bulgarian National Television for 17 years, providing commentaries and analysis for everything from Super Bowls to political elections. He writes a popular weekly column in a large Bulgarian newspaper and a monthly column for the East European incarnation of Top Gear magazine. He is a marketing director for Community Living Opportunities Inc.
Linda Staten
Linda Staten is a full time professional writer who lives with her daughter and assorted furry critters in midtown Kansas City. She received an master’s degree in philosophy from St. Louis University, and was previously a college instructor in ethics, medical ethics and comparative religion. Over the years she has been active in both party and protest politics, and is interested in social justice issues. She speaks really awful Chinese and is addicted to sudoku and “Car Talk.”
Bob Sommer
Bob Sommer grew up in Hyde Park, N.Y. He graduated from Marist College and completed his Ph.D. at Duke University. After a corporate downsizing a little over two years ago, he decided to take Henry David Thoreau’s advice (with all its attendant risks) and live the life he imagined. Bob’s first novel, “Where the Wind Blew,” will be published this spring. His essays and stories have appeared in a variety of print and on-line publications. He and his wife, Heather, have lived in the Kansas City area for almost 20 years, where they have raised three children all the way to adulthood and been active in many community organizations.
Denise Tiller
Denise Tiller is a native Nebraskan and a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. A Fellow of the Society of Actuaries, Denise counted dead people for a living in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Newport Beach. Before moving to Stilwell, Denise and her family lived in Fairview, Texas, and Pound Ridge, N.Y. Several years ago, she retired from the business world to serve as COO of the Tiller Family. The family currently consists of her husband, two stepdaughters, three daughters, two sons-in-law, and three grandchildren, with branches in London, Glasgow, and San Angelo, Texas. She is the author of a mystery novel and reinsurance reference book.
