Kansas City mom and prominent Hispanic DJ dies

By Associated Press

Lisa Lopez-Galvan was a music lover and DJ in the Kansas City area who played at weddings, quinceañeras and an American Legion bar and grill. She mixed Tejano, Mexican and Spanish music with R&B and hip-hop, and volunteered as a host on a radio program.

She also was a devoted fan of Kansas City’s professional sports teams and went with her husband and young adult son to a parade Wednesday at the city’s Union Station to celebrate the Chiefs’ Super Bowl win. Afterward, her tight circle of friends learned that she was killed, one of 23 people shot when the parade ended in gunfire. Lopez-Galvan’s radio station, KKFI-FM, confirmed her death.

Rosa Izurieta and Martha Ramirez worked with Lopez-Galvan for about a year at a local staffing firm but had known her since childhood. They remembered her as an extrovert and a strong Catholic devoted to her family who was passionate about connecting job seekers with employment and ready to help anyone.

And, they said, working part time playing music allowed the mother of two to share her passion as one of the area’s few Latina DJs.

“She was definitely a pioneer. She knew how to get people going,” Ramirez said Wednesday evening. “She was always really good about shouting out people’s birthdays and just making people feel included and loved.”

The shooting victims ranged in age from 8 to 47, and half were under 16, police said. Izurieta said her friends believe Lopez-Galvan was shot in the chest and that her son was shot as well. Three people were detained and police said the shooting appeared to stem from a dispute between several people.

Police identified Lopez-Galvan as Elizabeth Galvan, 43, instead of the name she used on her Facebook page and the name used by her two friends and the radio station. Ramirez said that as a DJ, she went by Lisa G.

Izurieta sent an email Wednesday night to The AP saying, “Kansas City was on Top of The World and when all this occurred It Stopped.”

KKFI posted a statement on its Facebook page confirming Lopez-Galvan’s death “with sincere sadness and an extremely heavy and broken heart.” The station urged people to contact police if they believe they saw something.

The radio station also reposted a photo that Lopez-Galvan had at the top of her Facebook page, which appeared to be from a celebration. It showed Lopez-Galvan with her family. Her husband was smiling, she was laughing, and their teenage daughter was between them. Her son was on the other side of her, and they had their arms around each other. Both children were laughing, too.

“This senseless act has taken a beautiful person from her family and this KC Community,” the radio station said.

Izurieta and Ramirez said Lopez-Galvan’s Kansas City roots run deep. Her father founded the city’s first mariachi group, Mariachi Mexico, in the 1980s, they said, and the family is well-known and active in the Latino community. Her brother, Beto Lopez, is the CEO of the Guadalupe Centers, which provides community services and runs charter schools for the Latino community.

Lopez-Galvan and her two children went to Bishop Miege, a Catholic high school in a suburb on the Kansas side, and she worked for years as a clerk in a police department there.

“This is another example of a real loving, real human whose life was taken tragically with a senseless act,” Beto Lopez said in an interview Thursday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Izurieta said working with staffing companies — matching workers with light manufacturing companies — suited Lopez-Galvan well. She managed a branch office on the Kansas side before departing last fall for another, similar job.

When companies sought workers, the staffing firm would give branch offices the job of finding them. Lopez-Galvan was directing her staff but, Izurieta said, “she would always jump in if she saw a heavy load of people coming in.”

Izurieta described Lopez-Galvan as having “a selfless heart” and “very giving.” She recalled that in 2022, a pregnant co-worker did not seem to have many friends in the area, so Lopez-Galvan organized a baby shower.

Now, friends and family are planning to organize a vigil or memorial to honor Lopez-Galvan.

“She’s the type of person who would jump in front of a bullet for anybody — that would that would be Lisa,” Izurieta said. “We’re still trying to figure out what happened, how it happened. But some of us are thinking she would have been that person that would have jumped in front of anybody — you know, just to save a life.”