STL on the Air 📻

On Friday’s St. Louis on the Air, host Don Marsh went behind the headlines on a newly published investigation by the Washington Post. That report found that 48 of the 148 women killed in St. Louis from 2007 to 2017 were murdered by an intimate partner – and that one-third of those men were publicly known to be a potential threat before the attacks occurred.

Wanda Ward. Jannard Wade. Malcolm Ryder. Those names probably don’t sound as familiar as Ruby Bridges or the “Little Rock Nine,” who are celebrated figures in the history of American civil rights. But during the same era in which Bridges and so many other black students were bravely challenging public school segregation in the South, some of their peers were also taking bold steps to integrate private institutions. That topic first piqued Michelle Purdy’s interest about 20 years ago, when she was an undergrad at Washington University exploring the history of education and particularly black education. Now a faculty member at her alma mater, she’s published a new book on the subject, and she joined Thursday’s St. Louis on the Air to discuss it with host Don Marsh.

On Thursday's St. Louis on the Air, host Don Marsh facilitated a discussion about homelessness in the St. Louis region with local activist Teka Childress of St. Louis Winter Outreach and city official Irene Agustin of the St. Louis Department of Human Services.

On Wednesday's St. Louis on the Air, host Don Marsh discussed efforts to link health and education with superintendent of University City Schools Sharonica Hardin-Bartley, director of Health Equity Works Jason Purnell and senior director of strategic initiative and partnerships at America’s Promise Alliance Monika Kincheloe. 

Audiences are collectively pretty familiar with falling through a rabbit hole to accompany a young girl named Alice on a strange trip involving everything from a queen to a cat to a jury composed of animals. But Metro Theater Company has added even more elements to Lewis Carroll’s classic story – in this case keyboarders, guitar players, bass players, an accordion, trumpet players and a clarinet, among others.

Amy Martin joins host Don Marsh to talk about how her environmental reporting led her to create and produce the Montana Public Radio show and podcast “Threshold,” which delves deep into focused environmental topics and issues.

Monday, December 10, 2018 marked the five-year anniversary of the merger between St. Louis Public Radio and the St. Louis Beacon. STLPR general manager Tim Eby and St. Louis Beacon co-founder and former STLPR news editor Margie Freivogel spoke with Don Marsh about the vision five years after its realization.

On Monday's St. Louis on the Air, host Don Marsh spoke with singer, actor and writer Storm Large ahead of her St. Louis visit. She will be performing her holiday cabaret "Holiday Ordeal" at the Sun Theatre on Dec. 11.

Elizabeth Stroble, president of Webster University, joins host Don Marsh to talk about her first trip to the university’s newest campus, located in the heart of Accra, Ghana. The five-year-old campus is currently the only U.S. college campus in Ghana.

For four seasons now, St. Louis Public Radio’s We Live Here podcast team has been telling community-driven stories for listeners “somewhere on the woke spectrum.” A couple weeks ago, co-producers and hosts Tim Lloyd and Kameel Stanley took that concept one step further and asked a handful of local young people to do the storytelling themselves. The fresh voices that were in the spotlight at We Live Here’s well-attended house party on Nov. 27 are also the focus of this week’s new episode of the podcast.

St. Louis Public Radio reporters Chad Davis and Ryan Delaney talk to Don Marsh about what the Ferguson-Florissant School District's redistricting plan means for Berkeley residents. 

Until a few years ago, Wendell Potter frequently crafted arguments against the idea of the U.S. government becoming more involved in health care. "I wrote a number of speeches for my CEO and delivered some myself that the government should get out of the way and let the free market work its magic in health care," the former Cigna executive says. "I came to realize the free market doesn’t work in health care like it does in other sectors of the economy … and that’s one of the reasons why we saw so many people who were uninsured and now a growing number of people who are underinsured." Potter discusses the status of advocacy efforts toward universal health care as well as the opposition at regional and national levels in this episode of St. Louis on the Air. Patrick Ishmael, director of government accountability for the Show-Me Institute, and Dr. Ed Weisbart, chair of the Missouri chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program, also participate in the conversation.

St. Louis Public Radio's science and environment reporter Eli Chen and John Hickey, director of the Missouri chapter of the Sierra Club, join host Don Marsh to talk about how climate change is affecting the state, as well as what is being done to try and prevent its most harmful effects.

Neuroscience experts Anneliese Schaefer, Deanna Bartch, Elizabeth Scott and Susan Appleton join host Don Marsh to discuss how neuroscience can help non-scientists understand the impact of early adversity on developing brain.

On Wednesday's St. Louis on the Air, host Don Marsh spoke with Andrew Delbaco, author of "The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America's Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War."

St. Louis Public Radio’s Jo Mannies joins host Don Marsh to remember the late George H.W. Bush, the 41st U.S. president. Marsh and Mannies reflect on their experiences as reporters during Bush’s time in politics as well as the former president’s legacy, successes and failures. 

On Tuesday's St. Louis on the Air, host Don Marsh spoke with guests working on research, treatment and advocacy for HIV/AIDS in honor of World AIDS Day.

U.S. diplomat and attorney Stuart Eizenstat recently published a 1,024-page book on the one-term presidency of Jimmy Carter, for whom he served as a chief adviser, and he's headed to St. Louis this week to talk about it. But in conversation with host Don Marsh on Monday’s St. Louis on the Air, Eizenstat also offered some thoughts on another one-term presidency he observed closely – that of George H.W. Bush, who passed away just a few days ago.

In the midst of a nationwide opioid epidemic among U.S. adults, one organization in the St. Louis region is seeing some more positive trends among younger people when it comes to substance use.

St. Louis Public Radio reporter Ashley Lisenby goes behind the headlines on this week's news concerning the assault of an undercover officer during protests related to the Jason Stockley court ruling in 2017.