St. Louis on the Air host Sarah Fenske was joined by Bill Freivogel of Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Mark Smith of Washington University, and Mary Anne Sedey of Sedey Harper Westhoff P.C. for September's legal roundtable. This included a federal lawsuit seeking class action status in connection with the so-called “kettle” arrests from 2017, an ongoing case about whether a Missouri representative can block a constituent on Twitter, and recent happenings in the St. Louis circuit attorney’s office.
Yesterday, Missouri Governor Mike Parson came to St. Louis for a packed afternoon of meetings. The topic: crime in St. Louis. His solution? More state troopers assigned to the city, in a variety of roles. And more funding -- $2 million -- for victims of violent crime.
In this St. Louis on the Air segment, Sarah Fenske talks with St. Louis Public Radio reporter Rachel Lippmann about the governor's priorities.
The Loop Trolley platform just outside the Pageant in the Delmar Loop was packed last Friday evening with people waiting to board. That hasn’t been a common sight in recent months following the launch of the controversial trolley, but on this particular night, something was different. Local comedian Yale Hollander was rolling out the first iteration of Laugh Tracks, a unique comedic combination in which attendees need only pay the $2 trolley fare for about 45 minutes of family-friendly standup while riding the nostalgic vehicle. He talks with host Sarah Fenske and with local developer and trolley booster Joe Edwards about the comedy, the trolley and more.
Forward Through Ferguson has released the second report of their State of St. Louis series, “The State of Police Reform: What has and hasn’t changed in St. Louis policing?”
The report concludes that since the Ferguson unrest, there have been more programs implemented than actual changes in policy, and that these programs bring short-term benefits, stopping short of lasting growth. The report says that the St. Louis region is in desperate need of holistic public safety policies that don’t rely on an arrest-and-incarcerate model.
Sarah Fenske talks with Karishma Furtado, data and research catalyst for Forward Through Ferguson, in this episode of St. Louis on the Air.
Host Sarah Fenske talks with Western Wear Night ringleaders Ryan Koenig and Lucas Hanner. The segment also takes listeners to the latest iteration of the monthly event at the Whiskey Ring, which in some cases has attracted hundreds of attendees over the course of the evening.
For five years, Champale Anderson has been distributing free snack bags to the kids in her neighborhood who would otherwise go hungry. She had been supplying the snacks out of pocket for awhile, and decided recently to start a GoFundMe campaign. She started the campaign with a goal of raising $1,500, and as of September 16, has raised more than $60,000. In this segment, Sarah Fenske talks with Anderson about her hopes for the campaign, which she is calling Champ’s Teardrops.
Before she became a household name for her internationally acclaimed illustration work, Mary Engelbreit was a typical young adult finding a way to make a living in St. Louis. In her late teens and early 20s, she worked at a local art store and an ad agency — and then landed a job as an editorial artist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. But she was let go during her probation period, as she tells host Sarah Fenske in this episode, after she challenged the fact that men were paid much more than women. Leaving the daily newspaper gave her the time to develop greeting cards, and from there, what would become a wildly popular company bearing her name. Throughout her career, her lifelong love for drawing has remained central. She continues to call St. Louis home, and she talks about her journey and her craft ahead of her appearance at this weekend's BookFest in the Central West End.
“Soul Train” was on TV. Groovy teachers were teaching “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” to the high school English classes. David Bowie stopped by Kiel Auditorium to promote a little album called “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.” Was there a more idyllic time to be a teenager than Creve Coeur in the early 1970s? For Jonathan, the protagonist of James Brandon’s new young adult novel “Ziggy, Stardust & Me,” it isn’t quite that simple. Sure, the music is incredible. But Jonathan is gay. And in St. Louis in 1973, that means intense and even painful therapy.
Bill McClellan has been entertaining and enlightening the readers of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for 39 years, all but three of them as its columnist. In recent months, even as he battles cancer for a second time, he has continued to file regular dispatches that probe the city’s past and its future with insight and good humor. In this episode, McClellan talks about the future of daily newspapers, the columns he’s lived to regret and the reason he continues to write, despite enduring regular chemotherapy treatments.
Since Jessica Ciccone moved back to her hometown of St. Louis in 2012 after years living in Boston, she’s found a niche connecting local professionals with business resources and service activities — and with each other. Those passions all come together in the nonprofit she helped to form a couple years ago, St. Louis Startup Ambassadors, for which she now serves as board vice president. The organization helps transplants find their way in what can be an insular town — although St. Louis natives and “boomerangs” like herself, who’ve moved back after years away, are also welcome. In this episode of the talk show, host Sarah Fenske chats with Ciccone and with Samantha Rudolph, the founder of Babyation, a company Rudolph describes as “unapologetically for moms." The shared their insights on starting businesses based in St. Louis and their experiences as professionals in a place recently named No. 1 among U.S. cities for its number of female entrepreneurs. The conversation also includes comments from Anthony Bartlett, who runs St. Louis Transplants, and Pravina Pindoria, co-founder of Tallyfy, as well as listeners.
Sarah Fenske talks with the new music director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO), Stéphane Denève, ahead of its 140th season. Marie-Hélène Bernard, president and CEO of the SLSO, also joins the conversation.
The Missouri Alliance for Historic Preservation is releasing its 2019 "Places in Peril" list today, which details places threatened by deterioration, lack of maintenance, insufficient funding, imminent demolition and development. Sarah Fenske talked with Missouri Preservation's executive director, Bill Hart, about the places included on this year’s list.
The Municipal League of Metro St. Louis is in the process of submitting petitions to the election boards of the city and county that would begin the Board of Freeholders process. In this segment, Sarah Fenske talks with political correspondent Jason Rosenbaum and Municipal League executive director Pat Kelly who help explain how the Board of Freeholders process will work in the coming weeks and months.
On Thursday’s St. Louis on the Air, host Sarah Fenske was joined by Richard Ivey and Bailey Gettemeier, the actor managers of The Darkness and Creepyworld, respectively. They talked about running haunted houses, getting punched in the face on the job, and what it means to work as a scare actor.
Dr. Benjamin Rush is not yet the subject of a Ken Burns miniseries, but he surely ought to be. The Philadelphia physician was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, an anonymous polemicist who helped inspire the Boston Tea Party and the editor of Thomas Paine’s wildly influential “Common Sense.” And, as detailed in a new biography by Stephen Fried, he both treated and became a close friend to several U.S. presidents. He personally brought Thomas Jefferson and John Adams back together after their friendship seemed permanently ended. In this episode, Fried discusses “RUSH: Revolution, Madness, and the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father.” Published last year, the book is just out in paperback.
A lot has been said about music streaming, from its power to shift consumer habits to its role in shaping how artists get paid. For better or worse – it’s completely disrupted the music industry. Host Sarah Fenske talks with Anthony Anderson, founder of GF Music Group, and St. Louis Musician Kayla Thompson (KV The Writer). Also featuring comments from Jay Washington (Qwerty) in conversation with STLPR producer Alexis Moore.
Two high-ranking city officials join host Sarah Fenske to discuss the state of the St. Louis Lambert International Airport privatization process: Paul Payne, the city budget director and chairman of the airport working group, and Linda Martinez, deputy mayor for development.
LA-based comedian and podcaster Rhea Butcher is well aware that there are some bad things going on in today’s world. But the focus of Butcher’s current “Good Things Comedy Tour” lies elsewhere: with the good stuff. “To only look at the bad would be to give in to the bad, I feel like, in these times,” the Midwest native tells St. Louis Public Radio’s Kae Petrin. “And so to have a good time, or to spend time in goodness and having fun and being kind and being joyous and happy, is not to ignore the bad things. It’s actually a form of self-care and growth and invigoration to take care of each other, I’ve found.” That’s the kind of vibe that eventgoers of all ages can expect at the Ready Room this Sunday.
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