STL on the Air 📻

Gabe Montesanti came to St. Louis for grad school at Wash U, and quickly found herself sucked into the roller derby scene. She discusses her new memoir, her complicated family relationships and how she owes everything to a near-catastrophic injury.

The new documentary “Head Over Heels: Remembering Wrestling from the Chase” explores St. Louis’ wrestling mid-century heyday. Film producer and local historian Ed Wheatley discusses the matches, the TV series and the documentary.

In 2015, Lori Lawson won a World Cup with the U.S. national team. But she and her teammates were paid significantly less for the win than male players — and that unequal system persisted until last week, when U.S. Soccer announced a new collective bargaining agreement that equalizes pay for men and women. Lawson joins St. Louis on the Air to discuss what led to this historic agreement.

Amur leopard cubs Anya and Irinia were born last month at the St. Louis Zoo. Steve Bircher, curator of carnivores at the St. Louis Zoo, explains how their birth is part of an elaborate scientific matchmaking service that’s meant to preserve the species. Fewer than 100 Amur leopards now exist in the wild.

Guitarists Phil Ring and Ryan Wasoba share the secrets of Thor Axe, a long-running side project for members of indie rock band So Many Dynamos that brings humor (and influences of Nintendo video game soundtrack) to the St. Louis band scene.

Beloved by Monarch butterflies, Mead’s milkweed has become threatened as prairie habitats disappear. Now researchers at the Missouri Botanical Garden have made a surprising discovery that is giving the species a fighting chance at survival. MoBot scientist Christy Edwards discusses how her research changed conservation practices.

Bennie Terrell has worked for 22 years as a fuel specialist in Missouri’s Mark Twain National Forest. He describes how prescribed burns help restore ecosystems — while also addressing an ongoing controversy over a prescribed burn gone terribly awry in New Mexico.

Seven months after landing in St. Louis, nearly 600 Afghan refugees are living in permanent housing. But the International Institute has higher aims: to turn St. Louis into a destination for more Afghan refugees. CEO Arrey Obenson and Moji Sidiqi, who manages the Afghan Support Program, discuss what’s on tap.

Missouri’s only senior center devoted to immigrants and refugees resumed its popular senior groups in April. Producer Kayla Drake went to the Macklind International Senior Center’s picnic in Tower Grove Park — their first since the pandemic started.

Up until about a decade ago, it was believed that prominent 19th-century St. Louisans Robert and Virginia Campbell had never enslaved people at the St. Louis mansion that bears their name. A small detail in a St. Louis census changed that understanding, and now the story of an enslaved woman, Eliza Rone, is told in the new exhibit, “The Back of the House: Servants and Slavery at Campbell House.”

Ben Westhoff discusses his relationship with Jorell Cleveland, with whom he was paired by Big Brothers Big Sisters — and his quest for the truth about Cleveland’s life and death after the 19-year-old was murdered in north St. Louis County.

Former Post-Dispatch metro editor Alan Achkar recently returned to lead the daily as its editor-in-chief. He discusses what got him into journalism, what brought him back to St. Louis, and why he’s axing arts reviews. He also takes questions from callers.

Kit and Webster Heffern are keeping a 109-year history alive with their jewelry business, Elleard Heffern Fine Jewelers. The father and son discuss their unusual paths to the family business, as both pursued careers in science and engineering before embracing their roles, and heritage, as purveyors of luxury.

After St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones signed an $84 million infrastructure bill that will repave the city’s most pothole-riddled streets, the Community Mobility Committee made an unusual request: Slow down. The committee’s Liz Kramer tells us why, and what the city can do to better protect pedestrians on those streets.

A new investigation by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reveals how Rams owner Stan Kroenke and the NFL worked hand-in-hand to secure the team’s relocation to Los Angeles. Business reporter Austin Huguelet gives an overview of the saga.

Toni Taylor and Emanuel Powell have direct experience with “fatal state violence.” That’s the term used by Arch City Defenders to describe deaths in the region’s jails and at the hands of its police. One year into the Fatal State Violence Project, Taylor and Powell describe the tragedies that informed its creation and how they reach other families struggling in grief.

STLPR Statehouse Correspondent Sarah Kellogg discusses how the state’s 2022 legislative session ended Friday with a congressional map — and how bickering over that map derailed many red-meat Republican priorities.

When Joanna Busby realized she couldn’t find formula for her 3.5-month-old son, she started a Facebook “formula swap” group that’s grown to 900-plus members in the St. Louis region. As the national shortage continues, Busby shares what she and other parents are doing to keep their kids fed.

The Globe Building’s new “sensitive compartmented information facility” brings new opportunities to St. Louis-based geospatial intelligence firms that require a classified environment to conduct business. Geospatial intelligence and national security expert Keith Masback shares what the facility brings to the region.

Opera Theatre of St. Louis Artistic Director James Robinson is at the helm of both “Awakenings” and “Harvey Milk,” two operas readying for world premieres within a week of each other. Robinson discusses both shows, the source material they draw upon and his work bringing “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” from its St. Louis debut to the Met.