Garth Brooks Kansas City

Doctors return home

When Shan (pronounced Shawn) Wilson and a group of friends celebrated their 2002 graduation from Miller High School, west of Springfield, they took a float on the Current River. It was from Akers Ferry to Two Rivers. The river was clear and deep, rimmed with grey bluffs and white-barked sycamore trees. They paddled into a cave spring; they soaked up the sun, and they cooled off in the cold water. That night, the boys laid their fried and uncovered bodies on a gravel bar where swirling, grey clouds of appreciative mosquitoes blanketed them. Two days later, when they hit the take out point, burned to a crisp and covered with inching welts, Shan was sure of two things - he had just experienced the best trip of his life, and he wanted to live in the area.

Meanwhile, around the same time and just a few miles away as a crow flies, Kalenna Smith was delivering her valedictorian speech to 42 fellow Summersville High School classmates. Kalenna, a popular student and star volleyball player, had already mapped out her life. She wanted to become a doctor, and she wanted to live in the area.

Neither knew of the other, but just as the Jack's Fork and the Current River joined at Two Rivers, the flow of time and common dreams would bring Shan and Kalenna together, and nine years later, back to Texas County to live and work as Drs. Shan and Kalenna (Smith) Wilson.

Early ambitions

Shan Wilson is familiar with rural life. Farming was a part of the family businesses which included his father's management position at a trucking firm and his mother's presence as a P.E. teacher at Miller High School. Hunting and fishing were a part of his life growing up in the community between Ash Grove and Everton. "My family always hunted and fished," said Shan. "My first deer was a 6-point buck, taken with a rifle when I was 13, but the next year when I took my first deer with a bow, I became obsessed."

Extreme focus is a part of Shan's personality. By 8th grade, he knew he wanted to become a dentist. "At first I wanted to be an architect. I love building things, making small models."

But a day observing changed his mind. "My dad suggested dentistry, and after I shadowed my own dentist, I decided that was what I wanted to do," said Shan. "Dentistry is intricate work. You build things on a small scale while you get to help people."

The same year Shan was getting his first deer in Dade County, 13-year-old Kalenna also bagged her first button buck in the Shannon County woods where her dad, Kenny Smith, logged. Surrounded by family and attending the school where her mother Sandy was a career Summersville elementary teacher, activities were usually family affairs. So when her father's back was broken in a logging accident during her eighth grade year, Kalenna spent many long hours at the medical center in Columbia, Mo. providing family support. It was here she decided she wanted to become a physician and return home to practice.

Celebrity Royals Fans | I-70 Baseball

It seems to be celebrity week at Kauffman Stadium. Ned Yost brought his friend Jeff Foxworthy to batting practice on Tuesday, and Paul Rudd, Jason Sudeikis and Rob Riggle  will be at the game tonight playing some whiffle ball, singing “Take Me Out To The Ballgame,” and promoting their Big Slick charity poker tournament. Riggle  told  435 South

Foxworthy is probably only a fan so long as Yost is around, but we can include him for now. He said on the TV broadcast, “I’m jumping on board right now with the Royals. I want to be here when things explode.” As for Garth Brooks and Rush Limbaugh, I do not think they are actually Royals fans. They do have some connections to the team: Brooks took part in Royals spring training in 2004 to promote a charity, but the Royals are at least the third team with which he has done that. And the Royals paid him to sing “Friends In Low Places” in a Royals jersey to subject fans to watching it at every single home game, but that hardly makes him a fan. Limbaugh is from the area and worked for the team many moons ago, but I doubt he keeps up with them anymore. If you want to include those guys as fans, they probably take the cake as most well-known.