July 16, 2025
Maddox Wood, an upcoming senior at Webb City High School, is in Carmel, Ind., this week participating in The Songbook Academy, a prestigious summer music program, hosted by five-time Grammy nominee Michael Feinstein.
On Thursday, July 17, Wood and the other 39 camp singers will perform solos during the Songbook Showcase. You can see it by livestream for free.
The Songbook Academy in Concert will be held at 7 p.m. Saturday, July 19. Feinstein will emcees as all 40 singers perform choral numbers, small group ensembles and featured solos, celebrating their growth over the week and paying tribute to iconic composers and lyricists of the Great American Songbook.
Pulitzer Prize nominee and author Michael Wallis will be in Joplin and Carthage on July 17 and 18 supporting the recent release of his book, “Belle Starr: The Truth Behind the Wild West Legend.”
250 copies of Wallis’ book have been purchased through an anonymous donation and are available for public and educational libraries within the tri-state region surrounding Joplin.
Location librarians (not the public) are invited to the Joplin History and Mineral Museum between 1 and 2 p.m. on Thursday, July 17, to receive library copies. One copy for each library will be available while supplies last.
Library representatives are asked to bring institution or library credentials as proof of association.
There will be two public lecture and book signing events:
These public events are free to attend, and the Joplin Historical Society will have books for purchase for $28.
Wallis’s new book offers a fresh, rigorously researched perspective on the real woman behind the legend, challenging long-standing myths and vividly bringing history to life. His program will provide guests with an engaging look at the blurred lines between myth and fact and the powerful stories that lie in between.
In the annals of legendary Wild West desperadoes, Belle Starr is remembered to this day as the Bandit Queen. Shortly after her murder in 1889, a highly romanticized, sensational book titled “Bella Starr… The Bandit Queen or the Female Jesse James,” was published – the first in a series of high-profile portraits to brand Starr as a villain.
Wallis parses over a century of mythmaking to reveal the woman behind the renegade legend. Of Belle Starr, he states, “Her life was so wrapped up in lies and innuendo that I wanted to unwind it and find the true story. She’s portrayed either as a wild gang leader or as a groupie to outlaws like Jesse James. She was neither. She, in truth, was a strong, independent woman. And that was hard to be in the post-Civil War South.”
Michael Wallis is known for authoring 20 books, including “Route 66: The Mother Road,” which earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination. His work has explored figures like Billy the Kid, Davy Crockett, Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd, and the Donner Party. As with those books, Belle Starr began with months of research, a draft sent to his agent, and further refining once it was greenlit for publication.