Banner & Company

Candice Storey Lee was recruited to play basketball for Vanderbilt University, and halfway through the drive from Alabama, she changed her mind. She begged her dad to turn the truck around. But he stayed the course. That was 30 years ago, and since making it to West End, she has not looked back, though she admits she never thought she'd stay at Vanderbilt this long.

Three degrees later — bachelor's, master's and doctorate — she's the director of athletics at Vanderbilt, oversees about 425 student athletes and a $150 million budget. Head football coach Clark Lea called her the best leader he's ever worked for, and she's leading the school's sports program as some of its most high-profile teams, including football, are surging. She says the best is still to come.

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Banner reporters Steven Hale and Stephen Elliott get together to talk about the Metro Council. First thing’s first, Steven asks Stephen to weigh in on the Titans rebranded raccoon mascot T-Rac. Stephen carefully explains the situation with the Music City Center refinancing and expansion plans. Then they discuss police drones and the start of the vice mayoral race. Both reminisce on their blogging days of yore.

Produced by Andrea Tudhope

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A connector, mentor and start-up whisperer, Michael Burcham is one of the most influential figures in Nashville's business ecosystem. The founding president and CEO of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, he's a serial entrepreneur himself, starting three successful investor-backed businesses. He teaches business and healthcare innovation at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management.

Growing up in rural Mississippi, Michael was raised by his grandparents in a town with a Piggly Wiggly, a Sonic Drive-in and little else. He credits a teacher named Barbara Beard with helping him become a serious student, which eventually led him to medicine. But it was the business side that really fascinated him. The rest is Nashville business history — not that he's slowing down any time soon.

Guest: Michael Burcham, entrepreneur

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producer: Steve Haruch

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Banner reporter Steven Hale sits down with Steve Cavendish and Mikeie Honda Reiland to talk about Thursday’s execution of Anthony Darrell Hines for the 1985 murder of Catherine Jean Jackson Jenkins. They discuss the details of the case and the recent court fights surrounding it. Steven shares his history with Hines’ defense team, Mikeie explains what he saw outside the prison and Steve details his experience as a media witness.

Produced by Andrea Tudhope

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Kimmie Christian has been jumping Double Dutch for as long as she can remember.

“It's kind of like a passage, right?” she said. “When you're born, you just, everyone just jumps Double Dutch. My mom jumped Double Dutch. My aunts jumped Double Dutch. My sisters jumped Double Dutch. It's just kind of what the girls did in the neighborhood.”

She brought that longstanding tradition from her upbringing in Chicago to Nashville, where she started the local chapter of the 40+ Double Dutch Subclub. Around 40 women gather every Saturday morning to jump rope at the Southeast Community Center. Some who come to the meetups are first-timers who get to learn from the best. Two women turn the ropes and one jumps, as the other women in the room chant and clap.

For Christian, it’s about finding time to play. But it’s also about making relationships and finding community.

“We’re there for each other during grieving, deaths… We celebrate each other’s accomplishments, news jobs,” she said. “But overall we’re all one. We’re all sisters.”

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Banner reporter Steven Hale is joined by Steve Cavendish and Sarah Grace Taylor to talk about all of Thursday night’s primary election results, from Marsha Blackburn’s victory to Andy Ogles’ upset defeat. Sarah Grace details her time crisscrossing the state with the Blackburn campaign in a private plane before the three breakdown what to (and not) take away from who won and lost.

Produced by Andrea Tudhope.

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Middle Tennessee weather can be unpredictable — and dangerous. When things get iffy, a trio of "suburban dads" keeps the information flowing. But once the watches turn to warnings, they really get serious: That's when they start livestreaming on YouTube, tracking storms in real time and letting their audience know when to shelter and when it's safe to carry on.

Nashville Severe Weather started as a Twitter account to keep locals informed of potential rainouts and worse. It's grown into a high-tech multi-platform operation with hundreds of thousands of followers. Two-thirds of the team joined Demetria to talk about their origins — which go back farther than one might think — and their advice for getting through a nasty weather event.

Guests: Andrew Leeper and Will Minkoff, ⁠Nashville Severe Weather⁠

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producer: Steve Haruch

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Banner reporters Steven Hale and Lillian Avedian sit down to talk about the coming school year in Nashville and how Lillian approaches covering education. They discuss what Lillian learned from her first year on the beat, how she’s keeping up with schools while school is out of session and what she has her eye on this fall. Steven wonders if later start times will help him get his kids to school on time and they wonder if any teachers assigned The Odyssey for summer reading.

Produced by Andrea Tudhope

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Do you like scary movies? Larry Underwood sure does. He remembers growing up in Nashville watching Frankenstein and Creature From the Black Lagoon movies on television. The way those monster movies were sometimes introduced to the audience, by way of a "horror host" (like Elvira, Mistress of the Dark or Svengoolie) was also a big part of the appeal, setting up the "shock package" of creature features or out-there sci-fi movies.

Nashville has a long lineage of horror hosts, from Dr. Lucifur in the 1950s doing live skits to Sir Cecil Creape, who supposedly lived in the catacombs beneath the WSMV TV studio. Larry joined that pantheon as Dr. Gangrene, a mad scientist of sorts, and he's also written a book about it all, titled Masters of Terrormonies, documenting the characters and behind-the-scenes hijinks that have kept this beloved lo-fi tradition going for decades.

Guest: Larry Underwood, aka Dr. Gangrene, author of Masters of Terrormonies

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producer: Steve Haruch

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When the other kids wanted to watch Indiana Jones, Willie Steele took a chance on a baseball movie instead. He didn't know it at the time, but watching Field of Dreams by himself in 1989 would alter the trajectory of his life. He would go on to write his master's thesis about Shoeless Joe, the novel the film was based on, and then, in an unlikely turn, write the biography of that book's author, W.P. Kinsella.

These days, Willie is working on a new book about how Major League Baseball reacted to the events of 9/11, from the perspectives of the four teams that were closest to where the planes went down: The Mets, Yankees, Pirates and Orioles. And he's also learning how to throw a knuckleball — with some help from a few former big leaguers.

This episode was first broadcast in February 2025.

Guest: Willie Steele, writer and professor of English at Lipscomb University

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producer: Steve Haruch

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