Merriam News

Sseven girls from Heartland Elementary School in the Blue Valley School District, now mostly middle-schoolers at Harmony or Aubry Bend, for a few years had been competing in an international problem-solving educational program, Odyssey of the Mind.

The demolition of a vacant shopping center that will become the future home of the area's first IKEA store is set for Wednesday in Merriam.

It was a day for firsts and lasts Tuesday for the SM East PTA. At the last meeting of the year, the group installed what is believed to be its first male president in Randy Davis and said goodbye to departing SM East principal Karl Krawitz.

Home-furnishings giant IKEA announced that it hired contractor for its Kansas City-area store, expected to open in the fall of 2014.

Deft, Netherlands-based IKEA will open a Kansas City, Mo.-area store in Merriam, Kan.

Swedish furniture- and meatball-maker IKEA picked J.E. Dunn - who else? - to build its store atop The Great Wall of Merriam.

If you are looking for a bicycle trail or walking path in the metro, a new map produced by the Mid-America Regional Council will help you find it - on your smartphone if you like.