Those who read their Marx too deeply and actually believe that the"capitalist classes" are some kind of entrenched and entitled aristocracy do not understand the way a city like Kansas City works.

The Blue Chip families that have sustained their power and prominence over generations have done so by working very hard at it. Their companies remain stable and prosperous because they have invested so much family energy and will in their success.

There is no better example than the UMB Kempers. After more than 50 active years, R. Crosby Kemper, Jr. still can't quite find it in himself to actually retire and continues on as Senior Chairman of the Board. Son Crosby Kemper, III might well have made a name for himself as a scholar and writer but returned to Kansas City in no small part because of the responsibility implicit in his family's destiny.

Crosby III now serves as chairman and CEO of UMB Financial Corporation and UMB Bank. It is no sinecure. Nor is the position held by his sister Sheila Kemper Dietrich as Executive Vice President and Divisional Manager of Trust and Wealth Management for UMB Financial Corporation and UMB Bank.

An essential part of the Blue Chip legacy is a genuine community involvement. As each of the Kempers has demonstrated, this is expected even during one's working years. As Adele and Donald Hall have shown, the involvement deepens as one progresses in age and time.

With Donald Hall as Chairman and Donald Hall, Jr. now as president and CEO, the family-owned company, Hallmark, had consolidated revenue of $4.2 billion in 2002, a 5.7 percent increase from the previous year. But Donald Hall has long made his presence felt not just through meeting the payroll. Hall's Crown Center complex anchors the urban core, and his work on Union Station helped preserve that landmark as well. Keep an eye also on son David Hall, Hallmark's Senior Vice President.

Wife Adele Hall, is by consensus the most influential woman in Kansas City. Few cultural projects of significance move forward without her oomph behind them. She has been named Kansas Citian of the Year and Johnson Countian of the Year. She has put her money and time in a range of causes from the Nelson-Atkins expansion to smaller ones like Wayside Waifs. The work of Adele and daughter Margi Pence on behalf of Children's Mercy Hospital has been essential to the hospital's success.

Now fully retired from the company he co-founded, H&R Block, Kansas City icon Henry Bloch has simply transferred his significant energy into philanthropy. In addition to his work on various corporate boards, he is a director of the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation; Saint Luke's Hospital Foundation; the Jacob L. & Ella C. Loose Foundation; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; The Henry W. and Marion H. Bloch Foundation; and the H&R Block Foundation.

Barnett and Shirley Helzberg are a shining pair. Barnett Helzberg is the former chairman of the board at Helzberg Diamonds, a family owned business started in 1915. Beginning in 1962, he expanded the company from 15 stores to America's third largest jewelry retailer with 145 stores in 23 states and then sold it in 1995 to Warren Buffett, who has the money to pay for such things.

Shirley has been board president of Starlight Theatre, the Kansas City Symphony and the Shakespeare Festival, and now the new Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City. One is not handed these assignments solely on the basis of money or character. It takes both.