David Eulitt

portraits

Steven Weersing, 17, of Joplin, Mo. suffered massive trauma from the May 22nd EF-5 tornado that destroyed the central section of Joplin, Mo. "A lot of people want to see my stomach and all that….I don't mind," said Weersing of the injuries and fungal infection that ate away his skin and bone kept him at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo. from June 1st until September 2nd. "That's mostly why I show them, 'cause I survived something really crazy. I died and came back to life."
   
An EF-5 tornado tore apart the second-floor apartment of Jordan Aubey, 27, a television reporter in Joplin, Mo., on May 22nd, 2011. The powerful tornado lifted he and the bathtub he was crouched in up into the skies. The resulting injuries…a shattered hip, and cuts and gouges across his face, hands, legs and feet…clarified his outlook on life. "I don't consider myself lucky, I consider myself blessed. The bottom line is that after you survive something like this, you're not wandering aimlessly. You do feel like you have a purpose."
   
Reola Ivory, 70, keeps an American flag taped to her living room window of her Kansas City, Mo. home. Ivory commented Monday on the news of Osama Bin Laden's death on Sunday night, killed by U.S. military forces. Ivory lost her son, Lacey Ivory, a sergeant major in the Army, when he was killed at the Pentagon on 9/11/01. DAVID EULITT/The Kansas City Star
     
  
A 14-year-old Kei Kamara sits in a wooden boat filled with about 40 Africans who are trying desperately to escape the war-torn city of Freetown, Sierra Leone. He, along with a handful of family members, is heading toward Lungi, a coastal town that houses Sierra Leone’s only airport.Make it there, Kamara knows, and they could fly to nearby Gambia, a much safer country.Kamara worries the boat — designed to carry 20 people — will sink. As the water splashes around at his feet during the hour-long ordeal, his fears only intensify.It’s just another type of terror for Kamara, who played soccer as a child amidst 12-year-old soldiers carrying guns and dead bodies strewn about the road. To this day, it’s still enough to give Kamara, now 25 and a forward for the Kansas City Wizards, nightmares."People like us," Kamara says of native Sierra Leoneans, "are scared for life. Sometimes I feel like I’m still living there. Every time that I wake up, I’m like 'I’m alive'… and I just pray."--Terez Paylor, Kansas City Star reporter
   
Retired Kansas senator Bob Dole, who held office in the Senate from 1969-1996, returned to his hometown of Russell, Kansas for Prairiesta, a once-a-decade celebration of Russell's founding in 1871. Dole was one of the honored guests at the celebration, where Dole posed for a portrait on June 10, 2011.
   
Esther McMurray, with her husband John, have been in the icy sweets and treats business for 43 years since July 4, 1952 at the Dairy Queen on Independence Avenue in Kansas City.
     
  
Ernie, a Kansas City character.
   
Russell Easterwood, a Kansas City, Kansas native, photographed in his temporary home inside a vintage school bus behind The Late Show Gallery in Kansas City, Mo.
   
Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Damon Huard will get his chance in the spotlight as the starting quarterback. Huard is taking over for an injured Trent Green, who suffered a severe concussion against the Bengals.
     
  
Scott Coons, CEO and president of Perspective Software in Shawnee, oversees the growing company that makes document imaging software that allows users to scan and import data electronically, reducing paper costs.
   
360 Architecture principal architects David Rezac, (project manager and partner-in-charge), left, Trevor Hoiland, (project designer), center, and Erika Moody, (interior manager), right, all worked on the H&R Block world headquarters in downtown Kansas City, Mo.
   
Kansas City golf legend Tom Watson has been honored with the Byron Nelson Prize, an honor he will receive in Dallas. The award -- presented annually since Nelson's death in 2006 by the Salesmanship Club of Dallas -- is given to a prominent golfer in recognition of his or her outstanding community service. Watson was photographed at Kansas City Country Club.
     
  
Clancy Martin, associate professor and chair of philosophy at UMKC, authored his first novel, "How To Sell," which borrows from Martin's morally questionable early life. Martin, explores the philosophical exploration of lies and deception, having been a shoplifter at age 5, kicked out of high school and having spent seven years in the diamond and watch business.
   
Alacartoona, a modern cabaret band featuring Kyle Dahlquist, upper left, Erin McGrane, upper center, Christian Hankle, lower center and Gregg Jackson, lower right, are working on a film featuring their music at the end of May from a local arts grant.
   
Andrew Stanley of Overland Park graduated from the University of Kansas in May but couldn't find any work in the non-profit sector or get hired by Teach for America, so Stanley will represent his church, Church of the Ascension in Overland Park, on a six-month mission in Guatemala, being the liason between the church and locals needing aid.
     
  
Andrew K. Godwin, PhD, joined The University of Kansas Cancer Center in October 2010 as part of the Cancer Center's goal of obtaining National Cancer Institute designation status. Dr. Godwin, the associate director of translational research, works in the field of personalized medicine and drug development. Dr. Godwin was photographed in his office on the University of Kansas Medical Center office in Kansas City, Kan. DAVID EULITT/The Kansas City Star
   
Kansas City Chiefs running backs Thomas Jones, left, and Jamaal Charles, right, share the running back duties for the team nearly equally, leading to the NFL's top rushing tandem through Week 7. Jones, the workhorse veteran, and Charles, the younger sprinter, form a duo that together is difficult for opponents to stop.
   
Sporting Kansas City's Ryan Smith, left, and Omar Bravo, right, along with their teammates will have the finest stadium in MLS in their new soccer-specific stadium when Sporting Kansas City plays Chicago in the June 9th home opener at Livestrong Sporting Park at the Legends in Kansas City, Kan.
     
  
Larry Scott, 59, of Kansas City, is on medications from St. Luke's Hospital for his heart attacks but because he doesn't have insurance, his delays in seeking medical care has led his heart function being severly decreased. St. Luke's found in a new study that patients with little or no insurance are more likely to postpone going to the emergency room when they have heart attack symptoms.
   
Actress Angela Bettis posed for a portrait in her wardrobe during a break in filming "Arkansas Traveler," a movie trailer by Kansas City-based film production company Wide Awake Films, shot in Weston, Mo. The trailer was filmed to attract investors for completion of the full movie.
  
Missouri State Fair, Sedalia.
     
  
Missouri State Fair, Sedalia.
   
Missouri State Fair, Sedalia.
   
Red Line Chemistry, rock band.
     
  
Angela Cervantes, writer.
   
Behzod Abduraimov, pianist.
   
Lauren Braton, actress
     
  
David Roddy of Audrain County at age 73 is the oldest inmate at the Moberly Correctional Facility's Old Timers Unit in Moberly, Mo.
   
Buck O'Neil, a Kansas City legend for his career with the Kansas City Monarchs baseball team in the Negro Leagues, celebrates his 91st birthday. O'Neil's birthday wish is to set a one-month attendance record at the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum,. The statue at background right is Satchel Paige.
   
Rachel Silk, 41, has been looking for work since August. Silk lost her condominium to foreclosure and is now living, with her two cats, in her mother's house in Shawnee, staying in what used to be her grandmother's bedroom.
     
  
Kansas City Wizards goalkeeper Kevin Hartman will be guarding the goal again on Saturday for the Wizards home opener, as he was every minute of the past two seasons. With 12 years in the MLS, Hartman has recorded the third-most saves in MLS history and is tied for the league-lead in shutouts with 10. Hartman also holds the record as the MLS career leader in all-time wins for a goalkeeper with 138, along with the all-time leader in postseason minutes played (4,042), saves (155), shutouts (14) and wins (22).
   
At 30,000 feet on a Northwest Airlines flight, Patrick Emmett had sudden cardiac arrest with a 100% blockage of his aorta. Fortunately, the flight carried a AED (automated external defibrillator) and Emmett's heart was restarted. When Emmett came to on the floor of the airplane, he felt like he was emerging from the inky waters of a deep, dark well. The experience inspired Emmett to found Kansas City's regional chapter of the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association.
   
After fouling out during his six attempts at the U.S. Olympic Trials and missing the team bound for Athens, Christian Cantwell is looking to retain his stature as one of the world's best shotputters. Cantwell made the Olympic team four years later and won a silver medal in Beijing, China.
     
  
Missouri death row inmate Dennis Skillicorn sat in the visitors room behind glass on Thursday, May 14, 2009, at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, Mo. Skillicorn was one of three men convicted of killing Richard Drummond in 1994 and was executed by lethal injection the following Wednesday.
   
Sam Andrew, a founding member of Big Brother and the Holding Company, serves as the music director for the Kansas City Repetory Theatre's production of "Love, Janis," a bio-musical about Janis Joplin, who started her singing career with Big Brother and the Holding Company.
   
Jacqueline Bonilla, 10, a fourth-grade student at Boone Elementary School (Center School District), wants to cook and work in a restaurant when she grows up.
     
  
Lisa Long was driving through Cass County farm country when somebody, from more than a mile away, pulled the trigger on a high-powered rifle. The bullet zipped over fields and pasture from the south as Long's car traveled west from her aunt's house. The two would meet at a point on 307th Street at precisely the same instant. Long's driver-side window was down six inches or so and the bullet was at the perfect trajectory to enter the opening as she drove past that point at 40 mph. The slug tore through her cheek, exited her mouth, then plopped onto the floorboard of the 1998 Ford Taurus.
   
KCTV-5 chief meterologist Katie Horner is always looking to the skies in predicting the weather in the greater Kansas City area.
   
World War II veteran pilot.
     
  
Zack Bailey, a senior at Oak Park High School, will travel to Columbia, MOfor his fourth trip to state wrestling finals in his four-year high school career. Bailey, who is going to the University of Oklahoma after graduation for wrestling, is trying to become only the ninth wrestler in Missouri to win four state titles. Bailey's room in his Gladstone home is lined with brackets of tournaments he has won.
   
Aaron Johnson, who goes by "A.J," creates art despite his blindness from a brain tumor when he was 13. A.J. 's art will be the feature of a one-man show on display through Accessible Arts at the Kansas School for the Blind beginning September 30th. The school will benefit from the proceeds of his works. A.J. is photographed wrapped in one of his unfinished quilts.
   
Chris Browning, aka "Road Warrior," who drove 63,000 miles in one year for his business and spends part of that drive time calling into sports talk radio shows in Kansas City.Part of a portrait series on sports talk radio callers.
     
  
William Currie, aka "Wolverine Willie," a sarcastic Michigan Wolverines fan that has used his on-air persona calling into both local and national sports talk radio shows.Part of a portrait series on sports talk radio callers.
   
Damon Huard, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback.
   
Ted Wienstroer , 55, uses a motorized chair to reach the second floor of his midtown Kansas City home. Story on the post-polio syndrome, which began to sap the strength of Wienstroer in 1992 after he contracted polio when he was twoyears old.Part of a portrait series on the last polio victims following Jonas Salk's 1955 polio vaccine.