Carrie Stapleton, long a key voice in Kansas City civic, political life, dies at 72
A few years back, Ailey Pope spent a summer in Kansas City living with her mother, Carol Coe, and her good friend, Carrie Stapleton.
Pope basked in their friendship. She tried to keep up with their stories and watched as they laughed late into the night, as they strategized, munched on popcorn and relaxed in front of the TV. They filled the house with joy.
“I remember thinking to myself, ‘This has to be what love looks like,’” Pope said at Stapleton’s funeral service on Saturday. “‘This is what true friendship sounds like.’”
Stapleton, a cherished friend and loved one and a pioneering communications leader in civic and political life in Kansas City, died last month at 72.
The memories from that summer the three of them lived together, Pope told The Star, keep her going now that both women are gone.
Coe, a former Kansas City Council member and activist, died at 74 in 2021.
“I just learned a lot about friendship, about sisterhood, but also just from a great mind in watching (Stapleton) and my mom just conversed on things that they had seen or things that they had learned,” Pope said.
U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver told attendees at Stapleton’s funeral service that even in recent days, while in the hospital following her cancer’s resurgence, she had cracked jokes as a stream of visitors stopped by to see her.
“I thought, ‘That is amazing,’” he said. “Here’s a woman who is very ill, but you get no ‘woe is me’ from Carrie, none of that.”
Brigitte Burgette-Bradley, Stapleton’s sister, told those present that even as she had been in the hospital, her sister had kept a list of the people who came to see her, who called or checked in.
“She kept that list because she planned to thank each of you personally when she got out of the hospital,” she said. “That was Carrie. Even in one of the most difficult seasons of her life, she was thinking about others, making sure no kindness went unacknowledged, no act of love left unreturned.”
Burgette-Bradley said her sister had spent her life building connections, showing up for others and bringing people together.
“That’s a lesson we all should embrace,” she said. “In those final days, we saw that same love return to her fully and beautifully. If you were there for her in any way near or far, please know this: she felt it, she appreciated it and she was grateful.”
‘A high achiever’
After graduating from Kansas State University in 1976 and an early-career stint in journalism as a reporter, columnist and editor at The Salina Journal, Stapleton moved to Kansas City and began working in public relations, according to her obituary.
Stapleton took pride in a role she held at the Black Archives of Mid-America, where she helped to promote a 1980 exhibition of the Emancipation Proclamation at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The exhibit drew more than 10,000 visitors over four days, her obituary said.
In 1988, Stapleton founded Phillips-West Public Relations and Communications, which handled a range of publicity and marketing work for firms and projects in Kansas City, including for renovations and updates at the Kansas City Convention Center/Bartle Hall, promoting bus service in Kansas City, hailing minority- and women-owned firms involved in work on the Kansas City Streetcar line and contributing to messaging around renovations at Arrowhead Stadium, family members said.
Family said Stapleton also held leadership roles in a range of professional organizations and served on several local boards and committees, including for the YWCA, the Kansas City Museum, the Kansas City Ballet and the Starlight Theatre.
Cleaver called Stapleton “by every definition, a high achiever.”
“She operated at a level of excellence as a Black woman in business, and she did it at a level that was inspiring,” he said. “Carrie had a thousand ideas.”
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said in a video played at the service that over the years Stapleton had “changed the communications business in Kansas City” and had demanded to be in the rooms that would shape corporate, political and philanthropic efforts in the city. She was, he said, a supporter, a mentor and a friend.
“I remember when I was running for office a few years ago, a pretty busy mayoral race, and Carrie was in this room of volunteers, probably not a one over the age of 25, and Carrie was there telling stories, pushing out orders, more than anything, making sure they knew that this was a big deal, that this was important, that the future of our community required and mandated their dedication,” he said.
A friend
Stapleton had a deep knowledge of the entertainment world, longtime friend Cheryl Dozier recalled. Among her favorite artists? Janet Jackson and Nelly. A few years back, when Jackson made a tour stop in Kansas City, Stapleton was able to meet the singer backstage.
“She was over the moon,” Dozier said.
Dozier recalled Stapleton’s draw toward working on health-related initiatives and her compassion for people and animals, for those who were less fortunate. She had a special place in her heart for cats over the years, including her beloved Denise, a three-legged feline.
“She nursed that cat to where it needed to be, and the cat was running around on three legs like it had four legs,” Dozier said.
When Stapleton had to leave home because of her declining health, she fretted over what would happen to another of her cats.
“She was concerned about herself, but she really wanted to make sure that that cat was OK,” Dozier said. “To me, that spoke volumes. She was always more interested in others than herself.”
Stapleton, Pope recalled, would always refer to her as her “little friend,” from early on in her life up until the last time they saw each other in March.
“I would always be that,” she said, noting that many in Kansas City have similar stories.
“There’s so many of me in Kansas City that it would blow your mind how many people she had an impact on like that, that she saw and was around and really, really identified in them early and poured into them early and never missed an opportunity to let you know that she was proud of you or an opportunity to say that, ‘You can do this.’”
