Tyler Walker is a self-described people person, which is a good thing because he spends most days working one-on-one taking pictures, specifically headshots, of people.

“For me, headshots are a way to get people confidence, show them their value. I love doing that one-on-one,” he said.

Walker runs KC PRO Headshots out of a studio in the West Bottoms neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri.

Wednesday may be one of the busiest days in his studio’s history. He hopes to take headshots of 50 different people in one day and he’s doing it all for free.

Walker and a photographer in Olathe, Kansas, are part of the 10,000 Headshots Project.

Hundreds of photographers across the United States are donating their time Wednesday in order to take headshots of 10,000 people who lost their jobs due to COVID-19 and are looking for a new one.

“It’s good to know that I’m doing something that made a real difference in a person’s life,” Walker said.

The work-based social media site LinkedIn said profiles with professional headshots get 14 times the number of views compared to profiles without a picture.

Walker said a good headshot is helpful in any job application.

As a people person, he knows people are struggling because of the coronavirus. He’s happy to be a part of a solution and give people a reason to smile.

“Giving someone a leg up to have a little bit more hope in trying to find a good job that will get them back on their feet, hopefully, I do my part to reduce a little bit of the anxiety and fear in the world right now,” he explained.

For information on how to sign up for a headshot through the 10,000 Headshots Project, visit the project website.

KSHB's Charlie Keegan first reported this story.

OLATHE, Kan. —

First Lt. Dustin Fergen had been deployed for almost 11 months overseas. He hadn't seen his family since Thanksgiving last year.

That changed Wednesday.

During an assembly at Heatherstone Elementary School in Olathe, Kansas, he surprised his two daughters. They both, fourth grader Joanna Fergen and first grader Angelica Fergen, didn’t see it coming.

"I was half expecting them to come running up to me, but it took a little coaxing. It was everything I could ask for," Fergen said.

Once the shock wore off, it was all smiles for the reunited family.

"But it all worked out and it was worth every second of the wait and the little lies we had to tell," Kim Fergen, the lieutenant's wife, said.

This was Fergen's first deployment. He serves as an intelligence officer in the 130th field artillery unit.

He’s now stationed a lot closer to home in Manhattan, Kansas.

The family says they have a lot of vacations planned to make up for lost time.

One Kansas City community leader mobilized Latinos to vote and run for office. Paul Rojas was also the first Latino elected to state office in Missouri.

His last name, Rojas, is proudly displayed around his home on Kansas City's westside. But his first name was given to him in school.

"My real name is Raul. I guess the nuns took the little foot off the R and made it Paul, a P, but that was not uncommon," Rojas said.

His father came to the United States from Mexico. The musician found work in packing houses.

"My brother used to say, 'You know Paul, whenever you go to a strange town, if you want to find the Mexican community, follow the railroad tracks,'" Rojas said.

Rojas grew up during World War II.

"I distinctly remember in school, when Rena Marino comes in and she was crying. They had just gotten notice of her dad. They sunk the ship," he said.

He joined the Navy as a teenager, serving during the Korean War.

"You have one son and you have one star. However, many sons were serving, that's how many stars were on your window. There was not a window in this Westside that didn't have one of these with a number of stars," Rojas said. "We have gone unnoticed for what we have given to this country. And all of us like myself, I'm very proud to be American citizens."

He became politically active, working to increase Hispanic representation.

"We formed a political organization. We, like in the Black community, we were controlled people politically. So, we changed that. It wasn't easy. There were threats made," Rojas said.

Rojas was the first Latino elected to the Missouri Statehouse in 1972. While doors opened for change, he received questions.

"Some people would ask me where you're from. You know, in the state Capitol, 'Where are you from?' Where am I supposed to be from, you know?" he said.

Despite progress, he said that discrimination persists.

"There is an organized movement to paint us as not worthy of holding such positions because they label us as being non-American this and being criminal elements, many of the things that are not true," Rojas said.

At 87 years old, he continues to be involved with the historic Guadalupe Centers organization, providing education and services to the Hispanic community in Kansas City.

He also speaks out against gentrification.

"The bulldozer that's going to run me out of here hasn't been built yet," Rojas said.

He said that young people give him hope for the future.

"Be proud of your heritage and be proud of who you are, and we are all made in God's image plain and simple," Rojas said.

Last year, Rojas was appointed by the Kansas City mayor to the city planning commission, which approves most major development project proposals.

Watch the video above for the full story.

Somebody has finally won the big Powerball jackpot. So far, we know the winning ticket was sold a store in Maryland. The single ticket is worth more than $731 million.

Maryland does allow its lottery winners to remain anonymous. The state itself has only had three Powerball winners ever, including the latest one.

It's not really considered a "lucky" state if you compare it to places like Indiana, where they've had 39 Powerball winners, or Missouri, where they've had 31.

So, is there such a thing as a lucky state? Experts in math and statistics say no.

“Every lottery ticket has the same odds, no matter where it's bought, no matter when it's bought,” said Dr. Lew Lefton, a Georgia Tech University faculty member who teaches math.

Lefton says it's expected to have clusters of winners, whether its broken down by state, zip code, or even gender.

It would be strange if the winners were evenly distributed by state.

“Random processes always have clusters and empty spaces. If you think about just throwing random points of paint on a canvas, some of them are going to be close together. Some of them are going to be far apart. That's just normal,” said Lefton.

Population density doesn't really have an effect on the chances of winning. Buying more tickets also doesn't really increase your chances of winning. It just increases the jackpot.

“The real odds are increased, but it's incrementally increased. It's so small that it's not substantial unless you start buying literally hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of tickets,” said Lefton.

Lefton says if you're going to play the lottery, you're better off buying just one ticket.

“Don't expect to win, but just enjoy the uncertainty of being wealthy for a moment and the possibility. That's enough entertainment for your $2,” said Lefton.

The jackpot for tomorrow night's Mega Millions drawing is up to nearly $1 billion.

Groundskeeper George Toma, 91, has prepared the fields for every Super Bowl played. He recently gave sister station KMBC a sneak peek of Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. Toma was part of this year's preparation, from stripping the previous field, laser grading and bringing in new sod."When you have a Super Bowl on natural grass, you have to start a sod 18 months ahead of the game," he explained. "So this sod has been growing on the farm in Georgia for 18 months."Next up: painting the end zone logos for the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Ed Mangan, NFL Field Director, described the respect Toma has earned through his experience."He's the guy who was at Super Bowl I. None of us were," he said. "He is just a walking history book."

A man from Kansas City, Missouri, won a contest to create a man cave and then turned it into a nursery instead with help from a popular TV designer.

"It started out as just luck," said Josh Taylor.

Taylor entered a contest to win a man cave and he won.

"I just need a place to sit down and unwind," Josh Taylor said in a video submission.

Next thing he knew, Tamara Day of HGTV's "Bargain Mansions," showed up at the door. But when she heard Taylor and his wife's story, the man cave idea changed.

"I feel like that was one of those moments where everything flipped upside down," Day said.

Josh and Amber Taylor said they had been trying for years to have a child through in-vitro fertilization. Amber had become pregnant twice but lost both. Shortly after winning the contest, the couple found out they were expecting again.

"They said, 'What if we did a nursery?'" Josh Taylor said.

The couple loved the idea.

"This is something that we wanted for so long, having a child, and so to have his nursery designed by Tamara Day, the best of the best, was just really, really exciting for us," Amber Taylor said.

"It's really nice this was done for them and they have something so much to look forward to," said Dr. Kristin Holoch, the couple's doctor.

The Taylors said their son is due on Oct. 31. Long after the baby's moved into the new room, there will always be a sign that Tamara Day was here with autographed IKEA dollar horse.

"It's so humbling that all these people did all of this for us," Josh Taylor said.

"I've never met more deserving people," Day said.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. —

A COVID-19 surge in Missouri that is being fueled by the delta variant has taken its toll on hospital staff there.

Registered nurse Brittany Dillard has been working at Mercy Hospital in Springfield, Missouri, since January.

She told sister station 40/29 News that she’s seen more patients die in the last two weeks from COVID-19 than in the last 6 months.

"There’s not a time I help a family member call their family and I don’t cry, I sit in the corner and just sob," Dillard said.

For the past 16 months, Dillard has been travel nursing across the country in hot spots areas. Last year, she was working on the frontlines in New York City.

"Sometimes, I wish I could wear a GoPro and bring people to work with me," Dillard said.

She said one of the hardest parts of her job is putting someone on a ventilator and intubating them.

"I wish people could see the genuine fear right before I sedate them and put them on the ventilator, because they have no idea if this is the last time they are going to be conscious," Dillard said.

She said throughout the pandemic, about half of her patients have come off of the ventilator and recovered, but that's not true with the delta variant.

"I have not had one patient where I get to take the ventilator off and they get to succeed and move out of our unit," Dillard said.

She said on top of that, she’s been seeing much younger patients in the hospital.

“We have mothers and fathers with kids, on their deathbed, losing their battle to this horrible, horrible virus,” Dillard said.

She said all but one of her patients recently admitted in the COVID-19 ICU have been unvaccinated.

"We hear all kinds of reasons, and they are not factually based on at all, it's all something they saw on a not credible site, and it's literally killing people," Dillard said.

Dillard said for the past few weeks, the ICU has been at full capacity at her hospital. She says at any one time, there may be over 100 people waiting in the emergency room for a bed.

Watch the video above to learn more about this story.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. —

A cup of coffee is how many people start the day. While prices have gone up during the pandemic, they could go up again.

"In the gas world, you and I would call this price gouging," said Tracy Allen, who's been in the coffee business since the 1980s.

Allen runs a company called Brewed Behavior, helping developing countries grow and sell coffee.

The world's largest coffee producer is Brazil and it is in a drought. But Allen said that's not the only thing pushing prices.

"Because of COVID, there was so much downtime, and nobody's working, nothing's moving, and now everybody's gearing back up, there's a shortage of shipping containers," Allen said.

With a shortage of shipping containers and coffee beans sitting on foreign docks, the price to ship it here has gone way up.

"So for me to get a container from Sumatra right now, which is typically $1,000 to $1,500 to get it to the U.S. is now close to $6,000," Allen said.

If you pay $10 a pound for coffee at the grocery store, Allen said do not be surprised to see that same coffee selling for $13 to $14 a pound. He also said that he looks for big sellers, such as Starbucks and Dunkin to raise prices, too.

The even bigger question is once shipments return to normal, will the price come down?

"And then the real question is, how many of those roasters are going to go back and take the price back down once it's up there right?" Allen said.

"So do you see this price hike as something permanent?" sister station KMBC asked.

"I'll fall short of saying it's temporary. I wish I knew," Allen said.

Video above: Doctor reflects on Hyatt Skywalk collapse 40 years later

On a balmy Missouri evening in 1981, this was one of the hottest places to be.

More than 1,500 revelers had gathered on the first floor of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency for a popular tea dance party hosted by the swanky 1-year-old hotel.

As musicians performed big band hits, couples swing-danced under long, novel skywalks spanning the second and fourth floors that seemed to float in the sky, historians have recalled.

Then, as the orchestra was said to be playing Duke Ellington's "Satin Doll," the fourth-floor skywalk collapsed onto the second-floor skywalk directly beneath it. Both walkways then crashed onto the ground floor, killing 114 people and injuring more than 200 others.

The catastrophe on July 17, 1981, is one of the deadliest structural collapses in U.S. history. That same year, the Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside, Florida, was completed — only to meet a similar, disastrous fate this June, when it partially collapsed killing at least 97 people.

Forty years after the Kansas City disaster, the memories are still vivid. And the lessons learned from it are as relevant as ever — not just for engineers and architects but for everyone, several people close to the tragedy told CNN.

Here's what they want Americans to remember:

Don't rush to judgment, and don't ignore the details

Bill Quatman was a 23-year-old architect just starting his career in Kansas City. He wasn't involved in the design of the skywalks, but he marveled at the way they seemed to float in the air — an unusual sight at the time, he said.

He and his wife had dined at the hotel a week before the collapse and had noticed another spectacle:

"A few thousand people were enjoying themselves at a tea dance, listening to big band music from an orchestra, dancing and laughing to tunes of Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington," Quatman said.

"We saw this tea dance going on (and thought), 'That looks like fun; we should come back sometime.'"

But on the evening of July 17, they had other plans. That night — after the skywalks fell — a friend told Quatman about the tragedy but mistakenly said the hotel's roof had fallen in.

"The first 48 hours, nobody really knew the cause, but there was speculation — just like there is today with the Surfside condos," Quatman said. "All sorts of theories floating around, and nobody knows ... I think one of the similarities is the rush to judgment."

Video below: Hyatt survivor says collapse forever changed him, changed Kansas City

The cause of the Surfside collapse is still under investigation.

One popular myth following the Kansas City disaster was that the song playing at the time of the collapse — Ellington's "Satin Doll" — somehow contributed to the skywalks falling, he said.

The theory was "harmonic vibrations from the band music caused the steel to oscillate," Quatman said. But experts and courts later determined there were fatal engineering design errors.

The original design had called for the second-floor and fourth-floor skywalks to both be supported with a set of steel hanger rods connected to the ceiling. But a design change was made over the phone between the steel fabricator and the structural engineer, Quatman said.

"They hung the second-floor bridge from the fourth-floor bridge and doubled the load on that connection, which was ultimately a fatal design change," he said.

The resulting design was "capable of withstanding only an estimated 30 percent of the mandated minimum," according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. A series of miscommunications and failures to double-check calculations and plans led to the collapse.

In the decades since, Quatman has spent much of his career as both an architect and lawyer speaking to engineering and architecture students to help prevent such catastrophic mistakes in the future.

"I always end my talks by saying you cannot ignore the small details," Quatman said. "The (connection) that failed was about 8 inches wide."

Don't take the 'simple things' for granted

Brent Wright was just 17 years old when he lost his mother and stepfather. Since then, every anniversary of the collapse has been challenging.

"Even though it's been 40 years, those memories come flooding back," said Wright, now 57. "It's emotional. All these years later, I still miss my mother and stepfather."

Karen and Gene Jeter had gotten married just 16 days before the skywalks collapsed. The newlyweds spent their final moments doing what Karen loved — dancing.

It was a skill she insisted her son learn — for the sake of his future dating life.

"When I was growing up, my mom said, 'Look, you need to learn how to dance. All the girls will love it if you actually know how to dance.' So she taught me how to dance," Wright said.

Footage of the Hyatt Regency's dance party showed his mother and stepfather having a glorious time, Wright said. The event was so popular, his father and future stepmother were also there.

But Wright didn't know that — or about the tragedy that would change his life — until the following day. On the night of the collapse, he was working the loading dock at a Macy's store to earn money for college.

"I had the radio turned on on the dock and heard something come over the radio about some accident. It wasn't clear what the details were," Wright recalled.

"I called my mom because I was going to ask her about it. Nobody answered."

Wright, who lived with his father at the time, came home that night and went right back to work early the next morning. Then his dad called him and told him to come home immediately.

"My dad just looked at us and said, 'I don't know any way to tell you this, but your mom and Gene were killed at the Hyatt collapse,'" Wright said. "It was absolutely awful."

The Jeters never got to see Wright and his younger sister Shelly become adults and have children of their own.

"They've missed so many things through the years," Wright said. "They missed me going to college, graduating from college, graduating from law school, getting married, having children. All those things, all those milestones in our lives. It's difficult, even 40 years later."

Over the years, he's learned to cope with grief — a process he knows families of the Surfside victims are just beginning.

"You try not to forget the past but also try not to let all the grief or the difficulties from the past hold you back from going forward," he said. "I know my mom wanted that. She would have said, 'Go ahead and live your life and be happy. But don't forget me.' So we don't."

To ensure his mother, stepfather and 112 other victims are never forgotten, Wright became president of the Skywalk Memorial Foundation. It led efforts to create the Skywalk Memorial, which features a modern design evoking two people dancing, along with the names of those lost. It also honors the hundreds injured and the rescuers.

"Even all these years later, none of (the rescuers) have ever been able to forget what they saw, what they did, which was selfless," Wright said.

This anniversary, Wright is also remembering the dozens of lives lost in the collapse at the Surfside condo building.

"All those people in Florida, my heart breaks for them. I want them to know that there are people everywhere who are thinking about them, praying for them," he said.

"I hope that they get help from mental health professionals because it's not something you can do on your own."

And there's a lesson everyone can take away from such tragedies.

"We all have to remember not to take those day-to-day, simple things (like) family for granted. You just don't know when you may never have another chance to see them again," he said.

"It's a good reminder, and it's something I've tried to do as I live my life is to try not to take those things for granted."

The mental health needs of first responders are crucial

Vince Ortega, then 26, was the first Kansas City police officer dispatched to the scene.

On the police radio, "The way it came out was (an) elderly lady had fallen off the escalator," said Ortega, now 66.

More calls quickly followed, but nothing prepared him for what he saw when he arrived at the hotel.

"People were running out, bleeding from the head," he said.

"When I went in, I saw a dead body right away. The rubble had flattened the body out. I could tell it was a woman because she had a dress on."

Ortega had no idea what had collapsed. So fearing another imminent collapse, he tried to rush as many injured survivors as he could outside to safety.

"You're just helpless because you're bringing out just a few at a time, and there's a whole lobby full of people," he said.

"Then water started coming out of the walls."

The collapse of the skywalks broke the sprinkler system, flooding the floor with several inches of water, Ortega said.

No amount of academy training can fully prepare a first responder for such a mass tragedy, he said.

"There was this one gentleman who was underneath the rubble ... 'I need help! I need help!' And he had his arm sticking out from the rubble," Ortega said.

"So my (officer) friend grabbed his hand and started to pull him out, and his arm just came off. And my friend just dropped it and walked out the door. He actually never came back -- he never returned to the police department."

Such overwhelming trauma highlights the need for first responders to have adequate mental health support, Ortega said.

"Back then they didn't really offer the mental health assistance" needed, he said.

That changed after other officers who had responded to the collapse started leaving the force.

"They did it after people started not showing up for work. And they figured out nobody wanted to admit they got affected by it."

Ortega said he's lucky to come from a family of first responders — including two firefighter brothers and a nurse mother — who helped him cope with the trauma.

But some emergency workers can be haunted by feelings of inadequacy despite their most valiant efforts.

"You always wish you could have done a little more," Ortega said.

He now thinks about the first responders in Surfside, who have been digging through tons of rubble for weeks trying to find those still missing from the condo collapse. Digging through the wreckage, one Florida rescuer said, has also meant "emotionally digging for more strength to continue."

Ortega hopes the Surfside teams can benefit from the lessons learned 40 years ago in Kansas City.

"Once it's done, please seek counseling," Ortega said. "Over the years, I've seen people leave the job with mental health issues because of the overwhelming tragedy that they see over time."

"Everybody is vulnerable," he said. "I was just fortunate."

As thousands of Kansas City children head back to the classroom this month, some elementary students will find something new in the curriculum. It's a coloring book that is designed to address some of the heavy issues they've faced in the past year, specifically COVID-19.

"This is sort of the representation of the coronavirus with the world," said Kathy Carver, president of KC Regional Simulation Alliance.

The creators of the coloring book want children to better understand the pandemic on their level. To understand that it's a health issue around the world, not just here.

"They hear about what, you know, is on the news or with their parents talking about. Maybe they don't understand so this was a way for them to also be able to share some of maybe the feelings that they have and to learn a little bit about COVID-19 and how to stay safe," Carver said.

Carver heads up a group of local health educators at KCRSA. Normally they take their hands-on learning approach into the classroom. That stopped with the pandemic, so they decided a coloring book was one way to engage the children and a resource for teachers to spark discussion.

"They know their children. They know how to be able to implement it in their classroom and at what level, or you know, what conversations they want to really engage," Carver said.

The coloring book also addresses cultural diversity. Another big topic of discussion this past year. Educators created the lessons. Students from the Kansas City Art Institute did the rest.

"The beauty is that you're going to see multiple students all sharing their artistic talent so you get culture, you get a flavor of how they also could represent everybody," Carver said.

And an understanding of how everybody's in this together. More than 4,000 of the coloring books will be in Kansas City Public Schools on Monday.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. —

What started as simple Post-It Notes on a hospital window turned into something much bigger — a mystery friendship that one 5-year-old battling cancer said helped him get through his treatments.

"We'd say, 'Who do you think is over there?'" said Liz Mixdorf, Meyer's mother.

Meyer is fighting a brain tumor, spending more than six weeks at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri. His family started making Post-It Notes into art on his window. Then one day, they appeared on a window at a different hospital across the street.

"Your mystery friends changed the window again," Mixdorf said.

On the other side is Truman Medical Center/University Health.

"Just doing something fun," said Johnna Schindbeck, a Truman Medical Center/University Health employee.

Staff noticed the work, so they started returning the favor.

"I know there are children over there, and I don't know what they're going through, and if I can make them smile a little bit, that's all that mattered," said Cheryl Grey, a Truman Medical Center/University Health employee.

With Meyer on the eighth floor at Children's Mercy Hospital and the nursing staff on the eighth floor at Truman Medical Center, it became a frequent Post-It Note art show.

"Every morning, he would hop out of bed as soon as someone switch and he knew," Mixdorf said.

For weeks the two sides exchanged pictures and messages.

"Other patients on the floor enjoyed them as well," Mixdorf said.

The artwork made one boy smile through a situation where it can be hard to find one.

"We'd love to say that he is cancer-free and I hope I can be able to say that soon," Mixdorf said.

Meyer's family checked out of Children's Mercy and got to meet the TMC staff that matched them Post-It for Post-It. Meyer left a final note, "C U later. Thanks."

Meyer had his final scans Tuesday morning at Children's Mercy. The family is hoping to get those back soon. They are now heading back home to Arkansas.