Summer semester has been a challenge to say the least. I thought it would be a lot easier than it was. If I make the Dean’s List this time I would be surprised because it’s looking like I will have two “B” grades in these two classes. Part of it was a requirement to have five people in attendence for my Speeches. Every person you were short it took 10 points off. I had three people so I lost 20 points off the top of all three of my speeches. That was the difference between an 88 and a 91 in this class. If I do another Speech class I plan on doing it in person. Also the History 120 class was heavy with reading and videos. I did great on the classwork but the tests were crazy hard. I can’t imagine for the life of me why a History test needs to be difficult by having five question-answer options and be reframed from different viewpoint to throw the test-taker off. I can understand why the EPA 608 is hard. If you mess up with refrigerants then great harm can be caused and you could be violating Federal law. What’s going to happen if I get a detail about history off? Nothing. It’s really not necessary to make it that difficult. These people aren’t studying to be Scholars or archeologists. We just need to get those core 42 general education credit hours so we can walk with a cap and gown. At any rate, I only have a final test left to take in that History class and I will be done with the Summer semester. Here are some of the photos I have taken recently.
Flower July 2026
Lovely view from Unity Village July 2026
this was a dreamlike scene in July 2026 Grandview, MO
this is the old red bridge in South KC that people put locks on as a symbol of their love photo taken July 2026
Harry S Truman’s house in Independence. July 2026
flower July 2026
An old Texaco station in downtown Lee’s Summit, MO July 2026
Back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s I was an active musician throughout the region. For a while I lived in a college town called Pittsburg, Kansas. Around Summer 2000 I started frequenting an open mic night on Tuesday nights at a bar called Kitchen Pass. It’s called Chatters now- but way back- when they started the business, they did so after the original Kitchen Pass in Joplin. On Tuesday nights from early 2000 until late 2001 it was a really good open mic with a lot of local musicians like Dan Albertini, Jon Artz, Kendra and I remember Josh Friskel hosted it. I miss Josh a lot. Anyway, among the many talented musicians I met in this era was a guitarist and college professor named Kevin Hiatt. He played guitar phenomenally. And I don’t say that lightly. You can find his music on Apple Music, Youtube and all the other usual music apps. I got to know Kevin at this open mic and found out he was a professor at Labette Community College. At the time that college had a program for music recording. They had a studio set up in a commercial building right outside Parsons, Kansas which was twenty miles or so from Pittsburg. At that time they had a Mac with Protools, DAT and ADAT. There were instruments, sound booths, and microphones. Pretty much everything you would need to record music with at that time which wasn’t very common.
I had been in several bands and played a lot of acoustic sets by myself up until that point. I had a Tascam four track recorder with the cassette tape and by late 2000 I had recorded an entire album of demos on that four track. Kevin took me one evening to the studio with my four-track and we bounced the tracks over to ADAT and I was able to re-record some parts that I felt needed it and he showed me everything that I had been missing. Over the next couple weeks we mixed it down and mastered it. All along he walked me through the process. I made a bunch of copies of that album and shared them with all my friends. If you still have a copy please get in contact with me. Kevin was an extraordinary person and he really made a profound impact on my life. From that point on I kept recording my own song ideas. By 2007 Protools and other DAWs became that industry standard over ADAT. By then I was able to buy a cheap laptop and install Ableton Live or something similar and get high quality results.
Years ago I was friends with Kevin on Facebook then over the years through the process of life I made new accounts and lost track of him until 2025 when I looked him up and noticed he had passed in 2024. I was deeply saddened by this news especially as I found out he was living in Kansas City, not far from me. It’s very unfortunate that I was unable to connect with him in the last few years since I got sober and made all the other advancements. Regardless I am forever grateful for Kevin Hiatt’s positive impact on my life and for that reason I wanted to make some sort of eulogy for my incredibly talented friend. When Kevin passed he didn’t have any next of kin family and he doesn’t have an obituary or anything available to represent his life. My hope is that my writing here will inspire others to also share some sort of eulogy or memorial for Kevin.
Kevin Hiatt was born in Kansas City, Kansas in 1956. In 1986 he earned a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Miami after also attending UMKC. He composed over 80 works of formal concert music- spanning orchestral pieces, electronic music and string quartets. Around 1996 Kevin started performing on 6, 7 and 12 string acoustic guitars. He was using open-string tunings and started utilizing a unique two-handed tapping that was mixed with complex percussive techniques. It was really quite a sight to see him perform. His guitar work was definitely inspired by John Fahey and Michael Hedges but with a highly structured classical architecture underneath. Kevin’s discography includes the albums- Another Look At The Sunrise, Strange Ships on a Blue Horizon, and a Holiday Jazz Songs EP. All those are available on Apple Music and Spotify, I also noticed both his full length albums were available on eBay and I purchased one. Kevin also has a notable presence on Youtube. I highly recommend giving him a listen.
I started my two Summer semester classes a couple of weeks ago. These eight week classes go fast and they really pile on the classwork. I have also prepared something I am planning on sharing in the next few days. SOme memories of an old friend that I wanted to honor. That post will be up soon– I’ve been pretty active on social media (Facebook) sharing a lot of original music. I have also taken a lot of photos recently. Here is some of my work
Some more of the ‘color pop’ flowers of June. June 2026
‘color pop’ June flowers 2026
sunrise at Blue Springs Lake June 2026
sunrise at Blue Springs Lake in June 2026
Turkey Vulture at Blue Springs Lake early one morning in June 2026
Jason Michael Dunnington 