Frank Morris
Frank Morris has supervised the reporters in KCUR's newsroom since 1999. In addition to his managerial duties, Morris files regularly with National Public Radio. He’s covered everything from tornadoes to tax law for the network, in stories spanning eight states. His work has won dozens of awards, including four national Public Radio News Directors awards (PRNDIs) and several regional Edward R. Murrow awards. In 2012 he was honored to be named "Journalist of the Year" by the Heart of America Press Club.
Morris grew up in rural Kansas listening to KHCC, spun records at KJHK throughout college at the University of Kansas, and cut his teeth in journalism as an intern for Kansas Public Radio, in the Kansas statehouse.
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"It's like little by little, more and more, the life of the newspaper is leaving," laments Avis Little Eagle, who publishes a paper on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. -
China's retaliatory tariffs would hit farmers, who rely on exports to keep their business models going, harder than any other group, especially those raising hogs, nuts and fruit. -
Three militia members go on trial Tuesday for plotting to bomb Somali immigrants working in the Kansas Meatpacking Triangle, a constellation of minority-majority, hardscrabble pioneer towns, that depend on foreign labor. Somali immigrants have all but abandoned one town, despite civic and police efforts to reassure them that they're safe there. Some residents want them to return.
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In Immokalee, Fla., a former migrant farm worker has set up an impromptu aid station for farm workers who lost their homes and livelihoods to Hurricane Irma.
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If you get in a car accident on a rural stretch of highway in Kansas, one volunteer firefighter says, you'd better hope it happens near a county with a well-equipped fire department. -
The second largest Native American city in North America may have been in Kansas. In 1601, a group of Spanish conquistadors stumbled on a vast city. By the time French explorers showed up in the area a century later, the inhabitants had been decimated by European diseases and the city was gone. It's in Arkansas City, Kansas, where locals had been pulling "literally tons" of artifacts from plowed fields for years. But it wasn't until a high school kid with a metal detector found a Spanish cannon shot, that a local archaeologist knew he had a match.
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NAFTA critics say money and jobs go to Mexico, but U.S. companies, like Kansas City Southern, do benefit. The company, built around trade with Mexico, has been hit hard by Trump's victory. -
Donald Trump has championed gun rights, but it turns out, the Obama years have been good for the U.S. gun industry. In Kansas, the prospect of a Clinton win sparked some to spend big on guns. -
A Kansas waterslide recently decapitated a 10-year-old boy, and the tragedy is raising new questions about thrill ride regulation. No federal agency oversees amusement parks or water parks.
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Lead, the "useful metal," was the pride of the Romans. For the last 5,000 years, it was used in products ranging from water pipes and makeup to wine — until we discovered how poisonous it is.
