KANSAS CITY, Mo. — KSHB 41 reporter La’Nita Brooks covers stories in Kansas City, Missouri, and stories offering solutions on crime. Share your story idea with La’Nita.
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Friends of Rhegan Spiegel are remembering her for more than her time as a University of Missouri-Kansas City volleyball player. At Turnsol Books, her influence remains woven into the space she helped shape.
Spiegel, affectionately known by friends as “Eggs,” volunteered and worked at Turnsol Books for several years. Her friend Caroline Crew, a co-owner of the bookstore, said Spiegel helped make the space what it is today.
“Like so much of what you see here is because of Rhegan,” Crew said.
From creating the bookstore’s children’s section to setting up a station where visitors could write letters, Spiegel brought ideas to the space that reflected her creativity and care for others.
Crew said Spiegel wanted to return to school to find ways to help her community.
“She was someone who thought about that, and she wanted to get skills to build it instead of just talking about it,” Crew said.
Spiegel, 28, was found with gunshot wounds in the street near East 42nd Street and Troost Avenue late Sunday night. She was taken to a nearby hospital, where she died.
As friends and community members grieve her death, Turnsol Books plans to hold a vigil in her honor Thursday.
The bookstore will bring back Spiegel's letter station, giving loved ones a place to write messages and share their memories of her.
“She just wanted to hang out with her friends and make the world a better place,” Crew said. “Which that shouldn’t be too much to ask for.”
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