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It's time for Positively Kansas, tonight.

Never stop dreaming.

Minority owned businesses are on the rise in Wichita.

Find out why.

And I know this is gonna sound crazy, but I really felt like God was telling me to do it.

A Kansas filmmaker brings a conservative pastor and a gay Christian together for a frank conversation about faith and sexuality.

Learn about a new film that has people across the country talking.

And I was speechless.

We we have to fix this.

It's the final resting place for Wichita's founders and many historic figures.

But look at it.

You'll meet the woman who says enough is enough.

She's taking action to restore dignity to the city's oldest cemetery.

Plus, I always wanted to fly.

I wanted to be a full size pilot, but I always kind of scared of the thing crashing.

This Wichita man says it's the only way to fly.

He's one of the world's best drone racers, and he shows Jim Grawe what it takes to be top dog in this cutting edge, action packed sport.

I'm Sierra Scott.

Those stories and many more coming your way.

Positively Kansas starts right now.

It hasn't been an easy road for minorities to own businesses, both here in Kansas and across the United States.

But here in the Sunflower State, the story is gradually been improving.

And continues to look up.

KPTS's Anthony Powell takes a closer look.

I am starting to carry a larger corporate clientele, and that has been great to be able to stretch and grow.

Christina Long represents a slowly growing segment of the Kansas population, minority business owners.

Long is the founder of CML collective, a graphic design, communications and business development company.

While she continues to enjoy success, this entrepreneur is also very aware of how much progress still needs to be made when it comes to minority business owners in Kansas.

There is an increasing amount of minority businesses.

However, we still are underrepresented.

When you look at how we are and the number of us in the population compared with the number of businesses that we own, it is not equitable.

The statistics back up Long's contention.

According to the Kansas Department of Commerce, as recently as 2007, just 23 businesses in the entire state were certified as minority owned.

The good news is, by mid-March of 2017, that number had grown significantly to 230.

It's important to note that both of these figures may be larger.

Again, they represent the minority business owners who established certification with the state.

A lot of people either don't think that they can be an entrepreneur, or when they do have an idea, they do not know how to flesh it out to bring it to market.

That's why, in addition to running her company, long is also very active in educating minorities about business ownership.

She's involved with Wichita's Chamber of Commerce Entrepreneurship Task Force, which seeks to educate minorities about the steps they need to take and that are available to them in order to run a business.

We've got to put better support around minority entrepreneurs and one easy way to do that is to knock down the barriers between service partners and these entrepreneurs, to be able to connect them so that we can support stronger businesses.

Long says thanks to organizations and programs in Wichita like the chamber, the Small Business Administration, the Small Business Development Center Network, Kansas Lunch Prep, and many others.

More and more hopeful minority business owners are becoming educated on issues such as obtaining financing in order to realize their business ownership dreams.

Mario Quiroz, the owner of Milano's Restaurants on Wichita's west and east side, is another Kansas minority business owner.

Though it hasn't been easy.

Quiroz says it's been the Wichita community that has allowed him to continue going down the road of being an entrepreneur.

Though he's enjoyed much success with Molinos, Quiroz has also gotten a taste of how tough the restaurant business is.

He had to shut down two previous establishments, but he never stopped believing in being an entrepreneur.

Never stop dreaming dream and trying to achieve your goals nothing.

Life is not easy, but it depends on you, if you want to take it.

Attitude I think is means everything.

Quiroz says from the moment he immigrated from Mexico to Wichita, he sensed opportunity.

He graduated from Wichita State with accounting and business management degrees.

He also learned about business by working for other companies and reaching out to many of Wichita's most successful entrepreneurs.

Knowing that being an entrepreneur himself was his dream.

For me is being always trying to integrate into the society, become a part of the community, become a part of the Wichita community.

Christina Long and Mario Quiroz, two hardworking, successful Kansas minority business owners, who are hoping to show other minorities that they too, can succeed in this Sunflower State.

For Positively Kansas, I'm Anthony Powell.

An event for minority business owners was hosted by well-known Wichita advertising agency Apples and Arrows.

It gave business owners a chance to pitch their ideas.

Kansas has been in the national spotlight a lot in recent years for its conservative political and social views.

Now, a local filmmaker is tackling one of those hot button issues head on.

Jim Grawe is here with the story.

Sierra, it's a subject a lot of good people disagree about and struggle with.

Filmmaker Adam Knapp says, out here in Kansas is an attempt to respect all sides and create some honest, civil and open minded discussion.

This, lineman or a friend of a us lineman.

He pulled down his pants.

I became secretly sexually excited and stumbled out to the 50 yard line and cried my eyes out.

But Burt Humburg's personal crisis eventually led him to this conclusion.

Once my understanding of God was okay with me being gay, it was socially appropriate.

Theologically appropriate.

Was this appropriate?

Let's do it.

The story of this former Andover High and Southwestern College football star is coming out is the focus of a new documentary called Out Here in Kansas.

It was produced by local journalist Adam Knapp.

I wanted to make this film because and I know this is going to sound crazy, but I really felt like God was telling me to do it.

And God figures highly into this film.

Both Knapp and Humburg were raised in conservative Christian families.

Both attended Central Christian Church when it was led by Pastor Joe Wright, who helped lead the fight in the early 2000s for a state constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage.

We know that people have been struggling with homosexuality for centuries for some reason, and in this generation in which we're living, they decided to come out of the closet and demand rights.

The documentary includes a debate between Wright and Hamburg.

I now that I know what was going on.

I was attracted to men long before I ever knew about sexuality, and that would seem to me reason enough if I have credibility with you, to rethink your idea that it's a choice.

If you allow that, then you're allowing trouble in your life and you're disobeying what God's Word teaches.

If you've got this guy who's way over on this side of the equation and then you've got a conservative Christian pastor.

If these two can get together and discuss that issue without screaming and yelling at each other, then there's hope for anybody.

Knapp and videographer Kenneth Lin spent two years working on the film, and along the way, discovered the project was striking a chord with people across the country.

When I went out to, to pitch this movie in L.A. last year, they were they were pretty fascinated by the whole subject because a lot of them, the only thing they knew about Kansas, what they learned on The Daily Show.

In Kansas, it was not legal for state employees to be fired or harassed because they were gay.

And Governor Sam Brownback thought, I need to rectify that.

And it being Kansas, I guess.

Brownback, clicked his heels three times and said there's no place like homophobia.

Kansans have had some pretty tough laws when it comes to gay people.

Theyve, you know,.

There's not a whole lot of churches in Kansas, I would say, that are gay friendly.

I actually expect out here in Kansas to, make a bigger splash nationwide than it will in Kansas.

Nevertheless, Knapp says so far, he's thrilled by the response to out here in Kansas.

Right here in Kansas.

The premiere, as I told the audience that night it was the best night of my life.

We we filled up Roxy's downtown.

The movie got laughter, it got tears, it did standing ovation at the end.

From what I can tell, people are pretty delighted that I took the approach.

I did and that I wasn't shoving an agenda down their throats.

I'm a storyteller, and that's really all I was trying to do.

And the story does have a twist at the end, and people like surprises.

And we're not going to spoil that surprise ending for you.

You can find out where to see “Out Here in Kansas ”.

If you look for the link on the Positively Kansas page at KPTS.org.

The positive side of this next story is that times have changed.

A look back in history shows the faces of inmates at the Kansas State Penitentiary, now called the Lansing Correctional Facility, in the early 20th century.

The Lansing Historical Museum recently completed a project to digitize inmate mug shots from old glass negatives.

When we actually got them digitized, we were able to blow them up, and the quality of these images is just astounding.

We can see the pores on their faces.

But museum director Jennifer Meyer says the project became even more fascinating when she noticed several mug shots of young women from 1921.

She investigate it, and here's what she discovered.

These girls were picked up from a dance hall raid, and the Public Board of Health doctor who was in that area made a statement in the newspapers.

It was pretty clear that he was actually trying to find people who were in violation of chapter 205, which was a quarantine law at the time, for venereal diseases.

So he actually initiated that dance hall raid looking for, violation of chapter 205.

These girls weren't incarcerated for that, but they were then picked up for lascivious conduct.

Meanwhile, the men at the dance hall were picked up at all.

Those arrested included these two teenagers, Carrie Cox and Mary Walker.

Police say they were mingling promiscuously by dancing cheek to cheek.

Wow!

Meanwhile, a collection from 1926 includes many more women who were charged with violating the quarantine law.

Again, there were no men who were in prison for that.

But there's nothing on the books saying it's just women who get picked up or just men.

But, that is just ended.

That ended up being how the State Board of Health decided to, to quarantine the women who were in violation of this.

Photos of many of these women are part of an exhibit now on display at the Lansing Historical Museum.

Learn more about it on the Positively Kansas page at KPTS.org.

When you visit Wichita's Highland Cemetery here, you are literally visiting a museum of Wichita and Kansas history.

This cemetery is older than the city itself.

These 26 acres at 10th and Hillside are the final resting place of many of Wichita's early founders and city leaders.

13 Wichita mayors and a Kansas governor are buried here.

But take a look at the place now.

Graves are overgrown with trees and stones are sinking, broken or missing altogether.

What happened and what's being done about it?

Barb Myers is here.

She's a local historian, and she helped found the group friends of the Wichita Pioneers.

Their mission is to restore the cemetery.

Barb, how did the cemetery end up in this kind of deteriorated state?

Well, it's had many, years of vandalism, but, what really happened is it was, formally abandoned in 1982, which it became part of the city park system then.

The city doesn't have a lot of funding to be able to take care of it as a proper cemetery or as a museum should be taken care of.

So it's just up to volunteers like us to, to do that.

And when did the situation first come on your radar?

About 2 or 3 years ago, I started working on my masters for local history.

And of course, all of the founders of Wichita are either buried there or across the street.

So I was just out there doing research and just realized how how bad a shape things were.

And across the street is Maple Grove, Maple Grove Cemetery.

Which kind of came after Highland?

20 years later.

And they're, they're they're owned by a company, so they're taken care of on their own.

This is this one is one of only, 3 facilities in Wichita, of its kind that are run by the city.

So when you saw I didn't know, had you been out there prior to you beginning your research?

Not really.

Not something you really thought of?

I mean, you drive past it, and you just don't, you know, you see it from the street and you just think, oh, it's an old cemetery.

But then when you went in there and realized what was going on.

Oh, yeah.

What were your emotions?

I was speechless.

I mean, some of the the the four horsemen, the founders of the city, the people who were here before it was a city are buried out there.

And some of their stones are laying on the ground.

So it just.

And, you know, the governor that we talked about, Governor Stanley, he was the second, governor from Wichita to be buried here, also, the other one being, Governor Llewellyn over in, Maple Grove.

And, a piece of his is broken off, and it's just laying on the ground.

It just seems like we we have to fix this.

And why?

Why does it matter?

If you're going to go to a museum to see things, then you should also go out and pay your respects to the people who are still effectively buried.

I mean, they they are there and we need to give them that respect.

And what is the status of the restoration right now?

It's in progress.

We, we officially became a nonprofit this year.

and so we've we've been working to get, permission from families to be able to do that.

we we've, we did one about six months ago just to see how long it would take and what we would need and those kinds of things.

Our next one is in two weeks.

What challenges do you face in this effort?

First of all, finding the families and getting the permission because that that's an absolute we have to do that.

And then, of course, you know, getting the money together to do it.

We get a lot of stuff donated.

I, we I have to say thank you to those people who have, but we always need more more stuff.

How challenging has it been to get people interested or are a lot of people interested, but they maybe don't have the means or the the time to help?

We get a lot of students from WSU where I'm getting my master's.

so I'm able to get a lot of people involved that way.

I have a Facebook page that I have several hundred members of regularly.

So we get pretty lucky when we ask for volunteers.

A lot of the, a lot of the people on Facebook actually live out of the state, but their families are buried there.

So we've actually had people mail us donations to help with the effort, so that's always a good thing too.

Any idea how long this might take?

No idea.

No idea.

We have a, you know, a five year agreement with the city so far to be able to do it.

We'll see how long it takes.

All right.

Thanks.

Good luck.

Thank you.

You can find out more and see web exclusive video at KPTS.org.

Barb, thanks.

From preserving the old.

To creating something new, at least new to Kansas.

Have you ever heard of kombucha?

Well, it's kind of a fermented tea once sold only in health food stores, Wichitan Jim Schreffler says he's been drinking it for years.

The kombucha has recently become popular on the coast and Schreffler had an epiphany.

We were up in Oregon visiting my son and there is a brewery up there, kombucha brewery up there.

And, we went in and had a tasting at it and tasting it fresh, right out of the tap.

It was absolutely delicious.

And I said to my wife, I said, you know, honey, we need to do this in Wichita.

We need to bring fresh kombucha to Wichita.

So Schreffler, who's a plumber by trade, recently started operating his own kombucha brewery.

The drink originated in China around 200 BC.

It's fermented with yeast, kind of like beer, but is considered alcohol free.

Kombucha contains probiotics, believed by some experts to be good for your stomach and colon.

Kombucha is not going to cure anything.

First of all, okay.

It is a tonic for general overall good health.

It's good for your gut bacteria.

It's good for your immune system.

If you have a healthy gut, you have a healthy immune system.

It's good for digestion, so it's not going to.

it's not going to cure anything.

But it's good.

It's just a part of a good diet.

Schreffler says it's also delicious and refreshing.

And along with drinking it, he says he enjoys making the first Wichita Brew kombucha on the market.

I'm having a great time doing it.

I really am.

You know, I've been plumbing for 30 plus years, had, family, children, did a lot of it because I had to.

And now I'm doing something that's fun that I enjoy doing.

Crabby Cat Kombucha comes in many flavors and is available at the Wichita Green Acres markets and several coffee shops.

Some of the best aircraft pilots in the world come from Wichita.

Here's a man continuing in that tradition.

Check this out.

Here in the air capital, you can add Brian Morriss name to the list of world class aviators making their mark.

I always wanted to fly.

I wanted to be a full size pilot, but I always kind of scared of the thing crashing.

And now I have the ability to go anywhere, just like you're flying.

Morris is one of the world's top drone racers.

The first big race I won was in France.

It was called the 3D Cup.

and, the Sky hero were the people that were sponsoring me.

I hadn't spent a lot of time with them.

They're a Belgian company, but they they brought me over to France and they said, oh, you got to win.

And and I won, and I don't know how because I was so nervous during that race.

I was just shaking like crazy so I could barely hold on to the sticks.

And from there it snowballed.

And it specialist by trade drone racing has become his second full time job.

What makes me good at it?

The insane amount of time I spend on it.

He practices 20 hours during the week in Wichita and then travels to races around the world.

There's a drone race every single weekend.

Three, two, one, drone!

Here we go!

At the 2016 World Drone Prix in Dubai.

Yeah, it's really tense and it's getting fired up and the crowd as well is getting fired up.

Morris's second place finish earned his team a cool $270,000 prize.

This is amazing.

Morris was already experienced at flying radio controlled helicopters when he took up drone flying three years ago.

That put him on the fast track for becoming a champion racer, which he takes very seriously.

We never really know what kind of track we're going to show up to.

so you might get a small, tight track, which takes a little guy like this.

You might get a big open track, which takes, a fast one like this.

So you got medium range tracks.

We got night courses, so I have a special night camera on this one right here that can see at night.

His fastest drone can fly 80mph.

The best view is always from the onboard camera, which is what the pilots look at as they fly.

And it can be exciting to watch.

At the peak of the championship we are witnessing an interesting display of endurance and strategy.

Now that ESPN has started televising some of the races, the sport is really taking off and Morris is having to work even harder to keep a high ranking.

The biggest limitation here is, is whether we, the Florida guys, run all year round.

Those guys can practice and that's that's rough.

I remember last year it being 28 degrees and so maybe a little freezing rain coming down or something like that.

I'm right here practicing.

I don't have any choice.

I, you know, I got a, I got a, contest the next, the next weekend.

So I have to be be ready to go for it.

He's the latest Wichitan to make a name for himself in the aviation world.

I love the feeling of flying and this feels like you're flying.

You're in the cockpit.

A new kind of aviation trailblazer.

With his eyes in the sky and his feet on the ground.

There's a whole group of drone pilots that get together every week to race in the Wichita area.

And they say it's not that expensive to get started.

You can find out more on the Positively Kansas page at KPTS.org.

From a different kind of aviator to a different kind of artist.

Check this out.

What is it I appreciate here?

The sense of history and, I'm just, you know, learning what that is exactly by driving around, doing a little reading, talking to people.

I just love Kansas.

Mary Hockenberry of Hotchkiss, Colorado, recently visited Kansas and brought, a friend.

And I decided to keep her in the wedding dress today because I was thinking about how people actually wed themselves to the land.

And so she becomes that in this series of images.

Hockenberry is an acclaimed photographer with a style all her own.

I was going to play with my dolls out in the landscape, but I realized the Kansas landscape is way too big for dolls, so I brought my mannequin with me.

Basically, she's fun.

I like playing with dolls still.

I wasn't a really girly girl, but I like playing with dolls, so it's someone I can dress up, but I think it's deeper than that.

I think it's sort of a different kind of self-portrait.

so it's putting myself out in the landscape in a way.

I mean, I have taken self-portraits on, a tripod, but but this is way more fun.

It's like an alter ego or something.

I don't know how to explain it.

She spent a few weeks as artist in residence at the Red Barn Studio in Lindsborg while taking time to explore the Kansas countryside.

This is an abandoned house, a little bit west of Marquette on Highway four.

You know, as soon as I looked at it, I said, oh, Christina's world.

It looks like an Andrew Wyeth, painting that everybody's very familiar with.

Her mission was to interpret and capture the essence of rural Kansas in pictures.

We first drove across here in 2004.

We lived in New Mexico then, and I was so touched by the landscape, the old houses that were abandoned that I started crying when I would drive by them because they just somehow touched my heart.

And sometimes there's just no words, Jim.

I mean, it just it's an emotion more than something I can express in words.

On this day, Hockenberry was exploring not the lifeless and abandoned, but the timeless beauty of the central Kansas landscape preserved for generations by the Sandberg family.

I'm always taking pictures of abandoned places where I can't actually hear the story, but I was excited to meet these folks because this property has been in the family since his great grandfather, settled here in 1869.

Growing up on the plains, we've always seen the beauty of it, but it's nice to see somebody from Colorado come in here and appreciating what we know and what we see all the time.

But they've never seen it quite like Hockenberry photographs it.

I don't take portraits a lot.

That may be part of why I like to play with the mannequins.

She never tells me I made her look old, fat, wrinkled, anything.

If you still don't quite get it, Hockenberry says, that's okay.

A lot of times, she doesn't even understand what her pictures mean until years later.

But in the meantime, it's fun for her to ponder the possibilities and capture the beauty of Kansas in her own unique way.

If you'd like to see more of Mary Hockenberry photographs, we've posted a link on the Positively Kansas page at KPTS.org.

If you have questions or story ideas, please email me at jgrawe@kpts.org.

That's jgrawe@kpts.org.

That's all I've got for now.

See you next week Sierra.

See you Jim.

Speaking of next week, here are some of the stories we're working on for the next Positively Kansas.

It's a bittersweet anniversary.

There's no way to ever make up for the lives lost and the heartbreaking destruction.

But ten years later, Greensburg has been reborn into a city unlike any other.

We'll take a look back and look ahead.

Also, it was the only major league sports team Wichita has ever had, and it was hugely popular.

Find out why the story of the Wichita Wings is about more than just soccer, and why this story is once again creating a buzz around town.

We'll have those stories and many more next week on Positively Kansas.

I'm Sierra Scott.

We'll see you then.

Brought to you by Central Security Group, your experts in home automation, security and peace of mind.

View video on your smartphone and control your home's lights, locks, heating, cooling and more.

Security app compatible with Apple Watch and Amazon Echo.

The preceding program was brought to you by tz productions, offering 40 years of media experience.