The group Mixed Feelings offers opportunities for people who identify as multiracial to share their struggles in defining racial identity. Members say it's time to reassess the nation's traditional black and white cultural dichotomy and to make room for those with roots in more than one group who want to embrace their varied identities.
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.
The latest edition of Politically Speaking takes a closer look at what’s historically known as the Board of Freeholders, a 19-person body that could present a plan merging St. Louis and St. Louis County to local voters.
Earlier this week, the Municipal League of Metro St. Louis submitted its last batches of signatures in St. Louis and St. Louis County to jumpstart the freeholders process. St. Louis County Board of Elections Democratic director Eric Fey said the county’s signatures will likely be certified on Monday.
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.
Stéphane Denève makes his much-anticipated debut this weekend as the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra’s new musical director. He is a self-described people person, who fell in love with music as a young child in a small town in northern France. We get to know a bit more about the person behind the artistry.
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.
Every September, many residents of Troy, Illinois, turn out to remember Airman Bradley R. Smith. He died in Afghanistan in January 2010. They honor him with an annual 5K run. Smith's parents started the event as a way to remember their son, who was awarded the Silver Star for saving members of his unit while under fire. But Smith's father says the event has become bigger than his family's loss.
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.
After the failure of Better Together, city and county leaders are planning to put their heads together to decide whether St. Louis and St. Louis County should merge. But even people amenable to a merger aren’t super optimistic this process will lead to systemic change.
Our Saint Louis Zoo is in the World Class of institutions of this kind. Make one click into the Zoo's Mission section and you'll find a strong, clear STL Zoo statement on Climate Change.
Animal areas, especially the Zoo habitat of Kali the Polar Bear, interpret the meaning of Climate Change for visitors in ways that make connections between our human experience, the animals we admire and love, and Earth systems that support us all. But the Zoo doesn't stop there.
The STL Zoo Climate Communications Initiative is training Zoo staff, volunteers and community partners in a science-based set of frameworks to purposefully, actively converse with the public about Climate Change. Hannah Petri, the Zoo's Manager of Docents and Interpreters leads this effort, and talks with Earthworms host Jean Ponzi about taking up this crucial topic with our fellow human beings.
State Sen. John Rizzo is the latest guest on the Politically Speaking podcast. The Democrat from Independence talked to St. Louis Public Radio’s Julie O’Donoghue and Jaclyn Driscoll. Rizzo has been a state senator since 2017 and previously served as a House member from 2011 to 2017. His district includes parts of Kansas City.
“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.
St. Louis Public Radio's Andrea Henderson checks in with local members of Remember the 400 following their trip to Virginia to mark 400 years since the arrival of the first African slaves.
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.
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