Cynthia Newsome changed every room she walked into for the better | Opinion

Some people are room-changers.

Some people have the ability, energy, superpower — whatever you want to call it — to dramatically shift the tone of any and every room they enter.

Cynthia Newsome was a room-changer.

I know that there are thousands of people who were lucky enough to have met her, or just to have been in one of those rooms during her more than 25 years in Kansas City.

But for a few years, I got to watch Cynthia change one specific room every weekday, and I’d like to tell you how just how special that is.

Television newsrooms have some things in common with any other office space. But I think the differences are much more dramatic.

We’re never closed. We have people sitting at desks all hours of the day and night. Trust me when I tell you that the 2 p.m. coffee break that some folks depend on feels a lot different at 2 a.m.

We’re all working on potentially very different things, and some of those things might be pretty awful. Someone is covering a tragedy, trauma or trial of some sort every day.

All those folks are working on a deadline, too. Try to remember that big presentation you were assigned in school, and you had a week or two to put it together. The people in this room normally have a few hours.

And, I should mention, this room is filled with a bunch of Type A’s — probably very little explanation needed, especially if you’ve ever met me.

It’s not an easy room for one person to change.

But then she’d walk in.

Inevitably, Cynthia would have her hands full — a purse, dry cleaning, maybe some food and something she needed for either Awesome Ambitions, the organization she founded nearly 30 years ago, or something that she’d promised to bring to another co-worker.

On top of that, for most of the years I worked with her, she was also carrying the burden of a health battle that drained so much of her energy.

Even with all that weight, Cynthia would breeze into the newsroom, with her signature “Helloooo,” more sung than said.

And you could feel this Type A room almost come to a stop, in the best way possible.

Everyone wanted to either speak to her when she walked by their desk, or get her take on a story, or tell her about some content that was going to be in the midday newscast she’d be anchoring.

For a lot of that time, the desks belonging to me and my co-anchor Lindsay Shively were closest to the door, and we’d immediately swivel in our chairs to sort of just bask in Cynthia’s glow.

That sounds dramatic, but it’s the best way I can convey what her presence felt like in that room. And that was true every time I ever saw her walk into it.

Room-changers are rare, especially the ones who change rooms for the better. But I wish the world had a few more of them like Cynthia. I think we could all stand to interact with someone who makes us want to stop, smile, breathe and in a professional sense, elevate our craft a little bit.

As you may have seen in the reporting of her passing, KSHB 41 renamed our newsroom as “The Cynthia Newsome Newsroom” in late 2025.

We all thought it was very fitting then, of course.

But now, in the first few days after her death, I think all of us have stopped just for a moment to look at her name and photo on the wall, remember how we felt when she walked in, and spent a moment wondering if we can borrow just a little bit of her superpower. And when we do, strive to use it to represent her and her legacy in every story we tell.

On a larger scale, Kansas City may not have the luxury of Cynthia’s name and photo being visible every day now, but the legacy that she leaves for generations of journalists — and young women specifically — has the chance to change many, many rooms for years to come.

Taylor Hemness joined KSHB 41 as an anchor/reporter in November 2017.

This story was originally published May 21, 2026 at 1:19 PM.