Dr. Ace Allen, a recently retired oncologist, past president of Congregation Ohev Sholom, and past board chair of The J - Jewish Community Center of Kansas City, has declared his candidacy for State Representative for Kansas District 28 in Johnson County.
“I am running for two main reasons,” he said. "First, I believe our Kansas tradition as a welcoming beacon of progress and innovation and superb public education is being undermined by narrow, fearful interests. Second, I can offer hard-won insights, as a physician who has practiced for over 35 years, that have direct application to identifying and solving problems.”
Raised in California, Dr. Allen moved to Kansas to attend medical school at the University of Kansas Medical Center and never looked back. He returned to his roots — his mother grew up on a dairy farm, and his grandparents were farmers from Pleasanton and Blue Mound, Kansas.
“This is where we’ve raised our family, found wonderful friends and community, built our careers. Visitors from the coasts quickly realize what a beautiful, livable, well-resourced gem this is,” he said. “We have a great, affordable, safe community, whose reputation is grounded in great schools, in welcoming new ideas and new blood, and in having enlightened, progressive leadership.”
“I am proud to be a centrist and a Democrat, with a long history of community involvement,” he continued. “I very much look forward to being an active part of our growing movement in Kansas to bring our state—our home—to its full potential as a model for supporting healthy, happy, prosperous, safe, well-educated people and institutions.”
The boundaries of House District 28 were recently redrawn, and Dr. Allen’s neighborhood was excluded from State Representative Mari-Lynn Poskin’s District 20.
“I was approached to represent this newly-redrawn district and am proud and excited to take up the challenge,” he said.
District 28 encompasses parts of Overland Park and Leawood, from State Line Road to Metcalf Avenue from east to west, and from 123rd Street to 151st Street from north to south.
Dr. Allen has lived in what is now District 28 for 30 years and worked for almost 20 years at the Kansas City and Topeka Veterans Affairs hospitals. Prior to that, he was on staff at KUMC for 10 years. While there, he staffed rural oncology clinics in Hays and Parsons, Kansas, and gave educational lectures in rural hospitals and clinics throughout the state. He also received advanced training in cancer prevention and control at the National Cancer Institute, and authored or co-authored over two dozen peer-reviewed medical articles.
As an entrepreneur, Dr. Allen also founded and led two medically-related businesses: the trade magazine Telemedicine Today, and an internet healthcare search engine, VitalSeek. Both were based in Overland Park. He has also been on the board of directors of several national and area nonprofits.
Dr. Allen is vocal about his pride in the Kansas City Jewish community and The J. In 2017, he wrote, “The J’s very existence stands in testament to the famous challenge from Rabbi Hillel, 'When I am for myself alone, what am I?' We are not alone, and must work together in order to live together. To thrive, we must support the institutions that strengthen our community. As we look back on our lives, we want to be able to say, 'This is who we are, and what we have done to help build our community.'"
Dr. Allen and his wife, Donna Oberstein, have two grown children.
