The stories are queued up and ready to roll.

Here's what's coming up on Positively Kansas.

America's housing crisis is forcing creative solutions.

We'll show you how a group in McPherson had the big idea of building tiny homes for the homeless.

Also, we'll take you to Salina, where the record business is booming.

It's a major hub for vinyl recordings.

You'll see and hear why.

Plus, you'll see how this Wichita woman turned her passion for sewing into a museum.

See what she hopes to accomplish with it.

We're glad you're here.

Im Sierra Scott.

It's time for 30 minutes of information and inspiration on Positively Kansas.

Positively Kansas is brought to you in part by before investing your hard earned money.

Make sure your financial advisor understands your objectives.

Mark Douglass CFP Serving our community for over 25 years, providing customized financial solutions that focus on the individual.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas serves more than 900,000 Kansans in various programs.

Independent member owned Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas and independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association proudly supports PBS.

Kansas program support provided by the F Price Kosman Memorial Trust and Trust Bank Trustee.

Bringing you that Kansas Wild Ed segments on positively Kansas.

A housing shortage continues to grip the nation just as inflation and a slowing economy make housing less and less affordable for many of us.

One possible solution is a foot in McPherson that could potentially be replicated in other communities across the state.

Chris Frank shows us what it's all about.

Volunteers from McPherson County churches are building tiny houses.

Their work is already being well received from those in need.

They're our godsend.

Yeah, they really are.

They're nice, and they're perfect.

For.

What we're.

Needing right now.

Just some place to keep us off the street.

While we're looking for a new rental.

A house fire.

Recently displaced Robert and Alice Peterson and their 12 and 14 year old sons from their McPherson home.

So they're living in one of the recently built small cottages here until they can find another house.

Both are locally employed, but they say rental houses are often hard to find here.

Very limited.

And when they do come up for when a house does come up for rent, you're lucky if it's on Facebook.

On Marketplace in 5 minutes.

We were kind of stuck.

If it wasn't for the coalition.

We'd be on.

The street, literally.

The coalition Alice refers to is the McPherson Housing Coalition.

They are organizing and overseeing the work.

The plan is to construct ten college houses on this half block section on McPherson, South Side.

The overall cost is budgeted for a half million dollars for an average of $50,000 for each house.

Oh, I'm very pleased.

This is this is really turned out very, very nice.

Chris Goodson is executive director of the McPherson Coalition.

I think a family's going to fit in here very comfortably.

They're going to be able to have everything that they need to live in these homes and be very, very comfortable.

The project started during COVID.

The pandemic increased the housing needs.

But homelessness has been a chronic issue in many communities for a long time.

Rising prices for housing is only making matters worse in Kansas and elsewhere.

Now, tiny houses can cause rise to many different images nationwide.

You have to define tiny.

Miniature and college homes.

Some of the tiny houses seen in Seattle, Los Angeles and elsewhere are a fraction of the size of the new McPherson cottages.

These houses are 440 square feet and will be fully furnished.

We're very excited because the three cottages that we have almost completed.

They have been adopted by different churches and we have really had hands off.

We've just told them, this is your parameters on size.

So in the children's room we want bunk beds, in the adult room we want a full size bed.

But hey, you can put whatever you can fit in here, but don't let it feel claustrophobic.

So we have stoves that will be coming and we have a full size fridge.

There will be a microwave and yeah, the kitchens are just beautiful.

I love them.

Chris Goodson says these are being built with local, skilled and unskilled workers.

All everything in this house that you see was all donated or we had people, craftsmen come in here and do the tile work, the flooring.

All this trim was all professionally installed by local contractors.

It's just been amazing.

The people in our community that have stepped up to help us.

There's no way we could have done it by ourselves.

But look, I mean, the craftsman look at those cabinets is absolutely beautiful.

And this work is so well done.

Nothing in here has been done cheaply, if that's a word that I can use.

We we really wanted to make sure that these homes were beautiful for the families that were going to live here.

So after the first three cottages were finished and occupied, local churches, each adopting a house organized weekend work parties to erect more houses.

Well, we've got about 12 guys out here trying to enjoy a Saturday morning out here to put together this house for these people to live in.

Elder Raber is owner operator of R&R Builders in Galva, along with Raber Roofing and McPherson.

His four sons are also in the construction business with him.

It's a it's a good cause, he says.

The work crew has both very experienced builders and those who don't do this type of work for a living.

These volunteers from the United Center Mennonite Church in Galva are working on their days off.

Some of them work Monday through Friday doing this type of construction work.

They're giving their labor to help others.

We're here to help where we can help.

That's what we want to do.

Two houses away, another work group from the McPherson First Christian Church are busy on their adopted house.

Yeah, we're just happy to do this.

And to put this structure up for this community, this cottage, cottage, these cottages, and help out where we can.

Churches and businesses are working together with donations or deep discounted items to build these houses.

Ten houses to be built is a start, but doesn't address all the needs for McPherson.

We have 30 families right now from the city of McPherson who are on a waiting list for these homes.

And she emphasizes these are strictly for those already living in McPherson County, not for those outside the area.

They're not going to solve the problems of the world.

But we definitely want to try to make a dent so that families in crisis have a place to go.

Now, these houses are not meant for a long term housing solution.

They're to be for a 90 day period while efforts are made to find a longer housing solution.

Right now, we're very limited here as to family finds himself evicted.

Where are they going to go?

It's a question the Petersons were seeking an answer to after their house caught fire.

People are always willing to help a little bit, but when you need a lot.

Of help, it door start.

Closing.

Real quick.

And volunteers continue working to get these doors open to provide short term housing solutions while those in need search for more permanent housing.

This is Chris Frank for Positively Kansas.

The Housing Coalition is also helping residents access services from other local organizations and to help them get back on their feet.

For hundreds of years, phonographs were the dominant form of sound recording and came eight tracks cassettes.

And in the 1980s, digital compact discs.

Now we have Internet streaming that can pretty much play any song ever recorded.

But some insist the oldest technology is still the best.

Correspondent Kevin Ivers shows us how Salina, Kansas is a major player in the resurgence of Thomas Edison's technology.

If you travel the A1 35 north to where it meets the 70, you will end up in a city of 46,000 people called Salina, Kansas.

In this city, just across the tracks resides a small office building that has had a huge impact on the vinyl record industry.

Acoustic sounds has been selling records and high end audio equipment since they started in 1984.

I sat down to visit with their owner and founder.

Hello.

My name is Chet and I'm originally from Lafayette, Louisiana.

A lot of people ask me why Salina?

No, no.

Excuse me.

A lot of people say, why Salina?

And you know what I say?

I say, why not?

Well, it's very Louisiana has a very unique culture, at least South Louisiana, actually in south Louisiana.

And, you know, they there's a lot of French speaking and there's a lot of music that they're really into having fun and passing a good time, as they say.

But, you know, when all that funds going on, it's hard to concentrate and work hard.

You know, a lot of temptations there.

There's a lot of temptations.

And that's why I live in Kansas.

Ask me the first question again is who?

Who am I?

And you said that's a good question.

I think I'm somebody that speaks my mind.

And you you I you get what you see.

I think I'm someone that, you know, where you stand with me and I try to be up front and I'm not trying to to keep.

You know what I'm thinking?

A secret.

I think everybody should know what I'm feeling.

I think it's a good trait.

And that's what I'm proud of.

I mean, I like collecting records, you know, like.

Like, I mean, this is Zeppelin, too.

This is a white label promo of Zeppelin, too.

I mean, I just didn't actually find this.

I mean, I bought it on eBay for 2700, you know?

But, I mean, I wanted this to be unplayed.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

And you might find this same record promo crate digging, but it'd be very hard to find it unplayed.

So sometimes you just pay for it and this is the Led Zeppelin road case.

We're getting like 12 to 15 grand for these right now.

Right.

Here's a bunch of cover.

This is the the cover before.

And you can see that the label they decided against this.

So they they did a paste over and you can see the other cover.

They were trying to save money.

See that?

You can see his lapel or his the you see right here.

Yeah.

Yeah.

These go for big bucks.

In addition to showing off his record collection.

Chad also offered us a look through his Museum of unique record players and Stereos.

We had like, this is the late, this is like sixties, you know, and then it goes into more like eighties, seventies, seventies.

Some of the players were fairly old.

Some players, however, were very new.

Like like right here.

This is a $200,000 turntable.

As the analog device began to play, you could hear the crisp, faithful reproduction of the music, almost as if you were in the recording studio watching the band perform the dynamics and textures were all there pouring out of the large speakers that take up the space in Chad's office.

This is a local legend in Louisiana.

Not just recording gone.

He just died.

Gone.

But on this recording he's doing, John Fogerty saw John Fogerty in Saint, and it's clear what his music is like.

My back.

Love Louisiana, is it?

You know, proud Mary.

Born on the bayou.

It's like a swamp.

PAUL But this guy was called the godfather of Rock.

So we called John Fogerty and told him that no one did his song, you know, and we asked if he'd like to participate on the album called Your Diet and said, this is John Fogerty song.

I Am Mark Shaw Portrait.

I am the.

Chief operating officer here at Acoustic Sounds, lots and lots of businesses are involved in this industry in some capacity, but very, very few go back as far as we do.

So we were we were kind of country before.

A country was cool, so to speak.

You know, all the majors and most independent businesses in the music business had kind of left, left records behind.

And so Chad was kind of carved out a a small but.

But.

A pretty.

Enthusiastic.

And passionate niche of of people that were still passionate about vinyl.

Acoustic sounds is, first and foremost.

All about vinyl.

Records.

So you know, we're really the only operation in the world that's fully vertically integrated as it pertains to, uh.

To a vinyl.

Product or vinyl record release.

So that includes everything from the recording.

To the mastering to the manufacturing to the graphic design.

The printing of.

The.

Labels inserts.

The direct to.

Consumer sales, the wholesale or distribution, everything but the actual jacket, the actual.

LP jacket we do ourselves here.

In Salina.

I'm a buyer, not a renter.

You know, all the buildings are paid for, everything's paid for.

So we buy the machines.

It takes to to manufacture what we do because we can control the time, the price and the quality.

Quality is a number one.

I mean, we call it quality record pressings.

And we knew when we called it that we were going to get criticized.

If they were anything less, then that's what we do and that's what we want to do and that's now what we have to do because that's what we're known for.

And there's no better feeling to me than to hear your favorite record.

And you had something to do with licensing it, pressing it, doing everything, having something to do with everything, and, and sometimes even meeting the artists and discussing the music with the artists.

And they come to me.

I mean, there's a picture back there of Pinetop Perkins and Henry Gray.

Pinetop Perkins.

There's Muddy Waters piano player for years.

And Henry Gray was Howlin Wolf piano player for years.

And those were the two main guys on Chess.

So, I mean, they have the best two piano players and blues.

Oh, God.

I've got to show you, if you go to the church, the studio, the recording studio there, a picture of Pinetop, and there's a picture of Pinetop playing the piano.

And the photographer took the picture, can see his hands reflecting in his sunglasses, like.

So that's a great picture of it.

You can see his hands in the sunglasses.

Well, then while he was here, my wife pull that down of the picture and he's sitting there.

So we took a picture of him, sign it.

Right.

And then he then he lifted it.

So the greatest picture of him ever, then he signed it and then he's holding it like that, you know.

So we've got lots of stuff like that, you know, or things like that that they are prized.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, it doesn't get any better than this.

You know, for me.

So I feel like I'm someone that is so lucky to be able to do what I love and make a living at it.

And I'm able to reissue my favorite albums that I've listened to all my life and make a difference and make them sound better than they've ever sounded before.

I would suggest anybody that that goes before they choose a career to try to choose a career that they love, like their own hobby, something they love.

You know, if you do what you love for a living, you never work another day in your life.

Vinyl record sales in 2021 reached the highest level since 1986 at $1 billion CD sales were half that.

Another throwback from the past is making a comeback, or at least that's what a Wichita woman is hoping.

She's decided to spend her retirement, teaching and promoting the craft she loves.

Jim Grawe has her story.

It's often said that clothes make the man or woman look very and trim, tiny, tasty, typically, and cannot.

She just stepped out of the salon of a Fifth Avenue cafe in his Nancy.

He looks like a page out of vogue.

But first, of course, some man or woman has to make the clothes.

Maybe it's a famous fashion designer.

The label broadens our trail.

Just this T-shirt.

Or maybe it's someone like Katrina Starkey.

I started out sewing by hand, making Barbie clothes and stuff, and I got my first sewing machine between second and third grade.

Her lifelong passion and career has been sewing for 50 years, stocked in ran an alteration and custom sewing shop in Wichita.

I. I had one particular customer that always wanted clothes that looked like Cher's.

Back to back.

Right now, she operates the Sewing History Museum in this historic house on North Waco.

It was something that I could do to thank Wichita for having supported us all that time and give back to the community.

Her goal with the museum is to inspire and encourage others in hopes of making sewing more a part of everyday American life the way it used to be.

And Dallas.

Is devoting.

Some.

Of her leisure to.

Learning to sew.

That's something.

She'll be.

Glad she did when she's older.

And right.

Now, she gets a.

Big kick out of Stockton has collected more than 500 sewing machines from all over the world.

Some date back to the 1850s.

I travel about five, five or six different states to get them all.

Some she bought.

Others have been donated.

The museum offers a walk through time that demonstrates the changes in technology, as well as the remarkable engineering of even the oldest machines.

A lot of people, if they had their great grandmother's sewing machine, they.

It's old.

It's ugly.

They junk it.

And we can refurbish and oil them.

And the old ones are much hardier.

They're much stronger than the newer ones.

Stockton is also scheduling classes to teach sewing, which she says is a very practical hobby that could bring a lot of creative joy.

In Wichita for Positively Kansas.

I'm Jim Gray with.

The museum occupies the first floor of the historic Chapman Noble House in North Waco.

You can find more information on this Sewing History Museum Facebook page.

Sometimes human activity can hurt wildlife.

Other times, the animals thrive on it.

In this week's Kansas Wild Edge report, Mike Blair discovered this on a busy street in downtown Pratt.

How Sparrows Don't Belong in the U.S.

They're not really welcome here.

Foolishly brought from Europe more than a century ago to become a pest and displacement of America's native sparrows.

But they're here to stay.

And they're commonly known throughout our country.

They are trashy residents of all urban environments.

House sparrows are highly adaptable and even clever.

Watch and you'll learn in part why they have been so successful in their adaptive home.

The junction of Highways 402 81 in Pratt is a busy Kansas intersection.

Thousands of trucks pass through here each day, carrying freight in every direction.

Stoplights control the flow, and in every red light cycle, chances are that at least 118 wheeler briefly stops.

And that sets up an unlikely buffet for a clever sparrow that nests on the corner.

Big trucks smash a lot of bugs as they travel along at highway speeds.

And since many have exposed grills that collect the insects where they're easily seen and reached, they offer fast food for a busy parent feeding its young.

The trouble is, a bird can't catch a speeding truck.

And that's where the stoplight comes in.

This mail house sparrow has things figured out, and he sits and waits for food to come to him.

When a truck pulls up, he has about 60 seconds to fly down, snoop around the radiator grille, pick off a goodie, and then fly back to the nest with a dead bug.

He'll do this again and again, wherever he spots easy pickings.

It seems like a dangerous business with traffic flowing all around, but the bird is used to it.

Sometimes even going under the hood.

There's no panic when the truck takes off.

The bird simply finishes hunting and then flies away as the vehicle picks up speed.

Crazy.

Oh, the sparrow.

Look around here and there for other food.

But he seems to like trucks the best.

There's a long summer and several broods of youngsters ahead of him.

No worries.

This food supply is endless.

As long as the traffic flows in the sparrows, ingenuity will make life easy.

I'm Mike Blair from Positively Kansas.

That's all for this week, positivelykansas@kpts.org is our email address.

Send us your story ideas.

I'm Sierra Scott.

We're so glad you took the time to watch.

See you again soon.

Positively.

Kansas is brought to you in part by program support provided by the F price Cossman Memorial Trust and Trust Bank Trustee Bringing you the Kansas Wild Edge segments on Positively Kansas.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas serves more than 900,000 Kansans in various programs.

Independent member owned Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas and independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association proudly supports PBS's Kansas.

Before investing your hard earned money, make sure your financial advisor understands your objectives.

Mark Douglass CFP Serving our community for over 25 years, providing customized financial solutions that focus on the individual.