The Cowtown Butchers roll toward a bigger audience a year after losing their leader

In the cold rain outside the River Roll Skate Center, they talk about Thomas Lyons.

“Expresso is why I skate,” James Surrette says, referring to Lyons by his roller-derby name.
“He gave me a set of pads and told me to try it out,” adds Rachel Jones, who this season joined the Kansas City Roller Warriors. “I was just a preppy girl watching a roller-derby match two years ago. But Expresso saw something in me.”

It’s been almost a year since Lyons’ skates stopped rolling around the track. After a practice at the Riverside rink on May 11, 2011, the Shawnee native and captain of the Cowtown Butchers collapsed and died. He was 43 years old.

On a Thursday night late last month, the team – what many still see as his team – is waiting to get into the white concrete building with the blue roof. For their weekly practice, 15 men and women have come bearing roller suitcases full of gear, dressed in hand-torn T-shirts and frayed shorts, and ready to sweat. The owner arrives, and each athlete pays $5 for the chance to practice while the rink is closed to the public.

“Pad up, boys,” says Will “Polish Hitman” Bonikowski, the team’s captain.