NEIGHBORHOOD ADVOCATE NEARS 76TH BIRTHDAY

June 1996. A Saturday night on the corner of 27th Street and Benton
Boulevard. A police officer has shot a suspect after what looked like a
drug deal.

Soon, a crowd of more than 100 gathers; some begin to throw garbage at
several dozen police carrying batons and shields. Young men turn over a car
and set it on fire before the crowd disperses.

The city buzzed about that melee for days. There were meetings. Editorials.
And lots of talk about cleaning up the corner, where drugs were brazenly
sold in the light of day.

But a big piece of the solution started with Rosemary Lowe -- a retired
cosmetologist and neighborhood institution who turns 76 on Tuesday.

Lowe -- a "stout Christian, diehard politician," in the words of one friend
- -- is also a tireless advocate for the Santa Fe neighborhood on Kansas
City's East Side. She served as its neighborhood association president for
several years and has fought for more streetlights, better housing and
stronger ties between community and police.

Associates say Lowe speaks her mind, and she knows elected leaders and city
programs like a mother knows her children's birthdays. She gets involved in
the government process and brings home resources to her streets.

Lowe's is but one face in a small army of volunteers steadying Kansas
City's neighborhoods. She stands out among them, though, not only for her
outspokenness, but for her durability -- she became active in her
neighborhood before John F. Kennedy challenged Americans to ask what they
could do for their country.

"She's an anchor, if you will," for that neighborhood, said Michael Avery,
chief operating officer for the Kansas City Neighborhood Alliance.

That was particularly evident in June 1996, after the altercation at 27th
and Benton. Some gang members in the area had heard Lowe speaking at one of
the meetings after the incident, said Atkins Warren, regional director for
the Justice Department's community relations service. And the young men
wanted to talk to her.

For Lowe, that was a bit of a stretch. She had worked hard for her
neighbors, assisting the poorest and oldest residents. But she did not know
these young men. She was nervous.

In the end, though, she agreed to the invitation, passed along by federal
mediators.

"I went down there, and they were so courteous and nice to me," she said of
the gang members. "They told me their side of how they felt, and I told
them how I felt. Then we just kind of jelled together."

Lowe arranged meetings between police and the gangs. She asked the Justice
Department to train the gang members in mediation and communication --
skills the young men would use to clean up the corner, to chase away drug
dealers. And they did, Lowe said.

"These were youngsters," Lowe said of the two dozen young men. "They didn't
know nothing but come down there and sell drugs and fight and tear up
everything. I wanted to get their minds in a different channel."

The young men asked Lowe for one other thing.

"What they required of me was to come up there every Thursday, from 1 to 3,
and watch them cut the weeds and pick up the trash," Lowe said. "And I'd
get out there, and we'd laugh and talk. So they got to be my good friends."

Lowe has a gift for making friends. She's been a mentor to a string of
young politicians, including City Councilman Troy Nash, who said Lowe
introduced him to neighborhood voters.

Landon Rowland, chief executive of Stilwell Financial, sits with Lowe on
the volunteer board of the Local Investment Commission. Rowland said he
regularly asks her for political advice.

With a smile, Lowe confesses to loving politics -- figuring out who wins,
who loses. She was one of the first candidates ever sponsored by Freedom
Inc. The black political club has given her awards for her voluntarism.

"She is the first one through the door every time we have a meeting," said
Mark Bryant, Freedom's president.

In her living room hangs a large black-and-white photo -- an artifact from
Lowe's first campaign. She lost that race for ward committeewoman but won
the second attempt. She defended the seat for 20 years.

Getting involved in the process is crucial, the Democrat said. As an
election judge, she's passionate about voting.

"If somebody's out there, and they don't vote, then they're useless," Lowe
said, a glint in her eye. "And if they need something, well then, why
haven't I seen you voting lately?"

That's one of the key lessons she learned when she was just starting in
politics. Its corollary? "If you don't do anything for the people in the
ward, they will not vote."

Just as with the young men on the corner of 27th and Benton, you have to
give people a reason to be part of the process, Lowe said. Community
leaders presented them with certificates and threw a reception for them in
honor of their work.

Lowe grew up in Arkansas, which, she said, was "like growing up in slavery.
... Everything was bad." Her grandparents, who often cared for her, owned
their large farms, where they grew cotton and corn. Moving to bustling
Kansas City at age 15 was a step into a wider world.

The Santa Fe neighborhood runs from 27th to 31st streets, between Prospect
and Indiana avenues. Lowe and her family moved there after a U.S. Supreme
Court ruling knocked down a housing covenant that had kept black people out.

She attends the same church and lives in the same house, though her son and
her granddaughter live with her now.

Their front hall is full of awards for Lowe, most for her neighborhood
work. Though Lowe is no longer neighborhood president, she's campaigning
for better housing for senior citizens.

"I've got a little 96-year-old lady who brought me the prettiest lilies for
Easter. Her house needed painting, she needed a new roof and she got all of
that," said Lowe, who located city programs to help her. "She was so happy."

That's her motivation, she said: helping people in need.

"If you don't know how to help people when they need you," Lowe said, "they
really don't need you."