Kansas

Why an entrepreneur has no regrets about moving from Hawaii back to her Kansas hometown

Published

1 year ago

November 16, 2024

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Why an entrepreneur has no regrets about moving from Hawaii back to her Kansas hometown

Audra Dinell doesn’t regret moving from Hawaii to her home state of Kansas in 2020.
While being closer to family was one draw, another was affordable living in the Midwest.
Kansas has a lower cost of living than Colorado and Hawaii, the states Dinell lived in previously.

Audra Dinell, 38, said her move back to Kansas from Hawaii felt like she was starting over.

“We miss a lot of things about the places we left — the people, culture, mountains, and ocean — but no, we do not have any regrets about moving back to Kansas,” Dinell, who moved from Kansas to Colorado before living in Hawaii, said.

Amid the pandemic in 2020, she had an idea for a career shift and wanted to become a homeowner again after leasing a place in Hawaii.

She also moved back to be closer to family and for the “ease of living” in the Midwest where she said “things were easily accessible, affordable.”

Dinell and her husband moved from Wichita, Kansas, to Colorado in 2012 for her marketing career. They had their first child before they left Colorado for Hawaii in 2017 because of a job opportunity for Dinell.

Dinell said, “Hawaii was magical.” The high cost of Honolulu life wasn’t as pleasant.

“The cost of living moving from Honolulu to Wichita was shocking,” Dinell said.

Indeed, the latest data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that Kansas is much cheaper than the states she left behind. As of 2022, Colorado and Hawaii were 2% and around 11% more expensive than the national average, respectively. Meanwhile, Kansas’ cost of living was 10% lower than the national average.

Dinell said Wichita, which has a population of almost 400,000, is lively. She also likes the Midwest’s community feeling.

“When I left in 2012 versus coming back in 2020, I have personally felt this energy, this collective energy, of just people lifting up our city and bringing cool things and sharing ideas and helping each other out,” Dinell said. “I just think it’s such a vibrant, cool place to be right now.”

Dinell said moving back to Kansas during the pandemic felt risky but was the right choice. After having the chance to live elsewhere, she’s happy she, her husband, and their two kids took the one-way trip to the Midwest and that she gets to live in her dream neighborhood.

Dinell and her husband also sold many of their belongings because they didn’t want to deal with the shipping delays, adding to the feeling of starting over.

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Work and life in Kansas

Work was one of the things that drew Dinell back. Before the family moved to Kansas in 2020, Dinell considered starting a women’s leadership collective.

“My husband and I were talking about potentially moving home already, and I thought about this experience that I had while working in Honolulu with a professional women’s organization, and I thought, ‘I wonder if Wichita has anything like that?’” she told BI.

She said she found a “hole in the market” for this type of community and founded The Thread.

“We help women become more confident and build up their professional communities by working on their power skills,” Dinell said.

Dinell finds people in the Midwest are helpful, including for professional opportunities.

“One of the things I noticed is in the Midwest, there are less gatekeepers than in some of the other cities I’ve lived and worked in,” she said. “I’m able to get a coffee meeting with the president of a large nonprofit and really get to know different people in the community who I can help and who want to help me grow my career and business.”

While Dinell and her family are enjoying Kansas, she said she’s still able to afford visits to Colorado and Hawaii, given the Midwest’s cost of living.

Meanwhile, she finds there are a lot of fun activities for her kids in Kansas, such as going to the science center. She also likes the local parks for her children. Dinell also enjoys the restaurant options.

She loves where she’s at now, but Dinell said she misses some aspects of living in Hawaii and Colorado. Dinell liked biking to breweries and hiking in Colorado. In Hawaii, she would hang out at the beach multiple times a week. She said she thinks the people in Hawaii are great, and the state has ideal weather.

Dinell suggested people who are thinking about moving to the Midwest to book a trip to see what it’s like.

“I have friends who have visited us from Hawaii, Colorado, many different cities, South Carolina, and they’re always so surprised,” she said. “They’re like, ‘I can’t believe I didn’t know this was here.’”

What was your moving situation like? Reach out to this reporter at mhoff@businessinsider.com to share.

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Kansas

RESULTS: NE Kansas high schools to play Saturday after Wednesday sub-state wins

Published

7 minutes ago

March 5, 2026

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RESULTS: NE Kansas high schools to play Saturday after Wednesday sub-state wins

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) – Below is a look at the results from Wednesday night’s high school basketball sub-state semifinals in Northeast Kansas.

Editor’s Note: This story will be updated with what schools are hosting when that information becomes readily available.

WIBW Scoreboard

BOYS

6A Boys West Sub-State: Wednesday’s sub-state semifinal results

Topeka High 57, Washburn Rural 50 (will play Maize Saturday)
Junction City 70, Dodge City 56 (will play Derby Saturday)
Manhattan 58, Wichita-Northwest 56 (will play Wichita-East Saturday)

4A Boys East Sub-State: Wednesday’s sub-state semifinal results

Rock Creek 62, Louisberg 57 (will play Bishop Miege Saturday)
Atchison 74, Wamego 43
Hayden 72, Independence 56 (will play Atchison Saturday)
Eudora 76, Santa Fe Trail 68

GIRLS

5A West Girls: Wednesday’s sub-state semifinal results

Hays 80, Topeka West 18
Eisenhower 55, Seaman 41
Kapaun Mt. Carmel 71, Emporia 41

5A East Girls: Wednesday’s sub-state semifinal results

Shawnee Heights 89, Sumner 15 (will play Pittsburg Saturday)
Basehor-Linwood 74, Highland Park 28 (will play Piper Saturday)

3A Pomona-West Franklin Girls: Wednesday’s sub-state semifinal results

Osage City 75, Columbus 31 (will play Frontenac Saturday)

3A Sabetha Girls: Wednesday’s sub-state semifinal results

Silver Lake 48, Nemaha Central 26 (will play Riley County Saturday)
Riley County 51, Jeff West 40 (will play Silver Lake)

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Kansas

RESULTS: NE Kansas high schools to play Friday after Tuesday sub-state wins

Published

1 day ago

March 4, 2026

Press Room

RESULTS: NE Kansas high schools to play Friday after Tuesday sub-state wins

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) – Below is a look at the results from Tuesday night’s high school basketball sub-state semifinals in Northeast Kansas.

Editor’s Note: This story will be updated with what schools are hosting when that information becomes readily available.

WIBW Scoreboard

BOYS

5A East Boys: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results

KC Washington 68, Highland Park 38
Shawnee Heights 49, De Soto 37 (will play Leavenworth Friday)

5A West Boys: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results

Topeka West 55, Hutchinson 32 (will play Bishop Carroll Friday)
Emporia 61, Great Bend 41 (will play Maize South Friday)
Seaman 73, Valley Center 51 (will play Hays Friday)

3A West Franklin Boys: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results

Burlington 60, Osage City 35 (will play Baxter Springs Friday)

3A Sabetha Boys: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results

Hiawatha 73, Oskaloosa 48 (will play Heritage Christian Friday)
Silver Lake 58, Sabetha 39 (will play Perry-Lecompton Friday 7:30 p.m.)

GIRLS

6A West Girls: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results

Washburn Rural 60, Wichita South 32 (will play Derby)
Topeka High 69, Maize 45 (will play Liberal)
Manhattan 67, Free State 21 (will play Wichita East)

4A East Girls: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results

Rock Creek 71, Parsons 23 (will play Tonganoxie)
Wamego 54, Labette County 33 (will play Bishop Miege)
Hayden 2, Athison 0 (will play Baldwin)

2A Eskridge/Mission Valley Girls: Tuesday’s sub-state semifinal results

Rossville 71, KC Christian 49 (will play Maur Hill-Mount Academy)
Lyndon 61, Jeff. Co. North 31 (will play Valley Heights)
Valley Heights 65, Doniphan West 41 (will play Lyndon)

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Kansas

Doe v. State of Kansas | American Civil Liberties Union

Published

2 days ago

March 3, 2026

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Doe v. State of Kansas | American Civil Liberties Union

In early 2026, the Kansas state legislature passed SB 244, a law which prohibits transgender people from using public restrooms on government property that align with their gender identity and establishes a private right of action that allows anyone who suspects someone is transgender and in violation of the law to sue that person for “damages” totaling $1,000.

The law also invalidates state-issued driver’s licenses with updated gender markers that reflect the carrier’s gender identity. In February 2026, transgender people across the state received letters from the state Department of Revenue’s Division of Vehicles informing them that their driver’s licenses “will no longer be valid,” effective immediately. SB 244 also prohibits transgender Kansans – or those born in Kansas – from updating the gender marker on state-issued birth certificates and driver’s licenses in the future.

The same day SB 244 went into effect, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Kansas, and Ballard Spahr LLP filed a lawsuit challenging SB 244 in the District Court of Douglas County on behalf of two transgender men who had their driver’s licenses invalidated under the law. The lawsuit charges that SB 244 violates the Kansas Constitution’s protections for personal autonomy, privacy, equality under the law, due process, and freedom of speech.

“The invalidation of state-issued IDs threatens to out transgender people against their will every time they apply for a job, rent an apartment, or interact with police,” said Harper Seldin, Senior Staff Attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project. “Taken as a whole, SB 244 is a transparent attempt to deny transgender people autonomy over their own identities and push them out of public life altogether.”

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