Former KC Mayor Kay Barnes tries to sell her small-town roots in her run for Congress

She takes questions, and the people rattle off challenges: the rising cost of higher education, the No Child Left Behind Act, transportation, the water supply, blight, lack of jobs. Barnes nods along. She wants to hear about Albany's assets — the children, the hospital, the golf course, the community center, the low crime rate, the quality of life.

"There may not be easy answers, but what I want to say to you today is, I look forward to working with you on this," Barnes says. "I want to do that. We can have some conversations during the campaign about this in more detail. And if I don't end up getting elected, then maybe I'll just come and hang out with you."

The line draws laughs from the room.

After the speech, a satisfied Barnes sits with me in the meeting room while her campaign staff huddles around a laptop across the table and pecks out a press release. I ask her what she was like growing up.

"What was I like?" Barnes pauses. "I think I was curious. Loved sports, mainly because of my father's influence, having been a coach."

Barnes was an only child who, in her school days, was a member of the National Honor Society, a class treasurer and a cheerleader. She learned to play golf at age 10. She lights up when she talks about decorating the family home for Christmas. "I was given carte blanche to decorate anyway that I wanted to," she says.

Barnes graduated from Central High School in St. Joseph in 1956 and earned a degree in secondary education from the University of Kansas. She married Doug Waldo, raised two kids in Brookside and taught in the Shawnee Mission School District. After 12 years of marriage, Barnes and Waldo divorced. Barnes served a four-year term on the Jackson County Legislature and then won a seat on the Kansas City, Missouri, City Council. She received a master's degree in public administration from the University of Missouri-Kansas City before meeting a man from Chicago named Frank Barnes. They married and moved to the Windy City for four years, from 1988 to about 1992. When Frank Barnes retired, they moved back to Kansas City. Frank Barnes died in June 2000, a year after she became mayor of Kansas City. A year and a half later, Barnes moved north of the river to Briarcliff — back into the 6th District.

Glorioso and Platt head for the door. Barnes is the last to leave. She has a lunch meeting, but she wants to make a detour. She wants to see if she can find her mother's former home.

"Which way are we going on the highway?" Platt asks.

"Right," Barnes directs. Platt turns onto U.S. Highway 136 toward New Hampton.

"Go kind of slow," Barnes says. "You're going to make a right. Not yet. Uh, just keep going."

Platt misses the turn.

"Oh, that was it," Barnes says. "I think you can maybe turn right here. We can backtrack. Probably easier to turn around."

Platt pulls into an empty lot and swings around.

"Up here, just beyond the Hy-Vee, make a left," Barnes says. "Right here. Yep, right here."

Platt follows the road into a residential area. Snow blankets the front yards. A stray dog wanders across the street.

"In the next block. Not this block but the next one," Barnes says. "OK, kind of slow down. It's this second one. Right here. Yeah."

Barnes is looking at a gray, ranch-style home with new siding and an archway over the front door.

"It looks different," Barnes says. "That front is new. It was flat before."

Later, over lunch at Gambino's Pizza in Stanberry, I ask Glorioso why Barnes talks up her family but rarely talks about herself.

"Kay's ego is totally in check," Glorioso says. "She seldom says 'I.' She believes in collaborations."

I ask him about the country routine. Glorioso says Barnes is being herself.

"She really does have a lot more country in her than people realize," he says.

Jason Klindt, of the Graves campaign, never called me about tagging along with the congressman. So in early May, I call him to follow up.

Klindt says Congress ended up staying in session longer than expected, and a couple of events were canceled after a tornado ripped through the Northland.

"And to be honest with you," Klindt continues, "you guys showed up at the mobile office, and I heard about that and it kind of creeped me out." Klindt says I showed up unannounced. He says he has "seen stories The Pitch has written before" that have made him wonder why I was there.

I explain that Graves' office sent The Pitch a press release about the event, so it seemed like it would be open to the public.

"Well, it is. I don't care if you go," Klindt says. "So I thought you were writing a story about that, to be honest with you. So I was like, I guess they're not interested in doing that."

Klindt says he'll check Graves' schedule. He says Graves will be traveling during his break from Congress at the end of May. "I'm not going to promise you a ride-along."