There is a significant agricultural industry here in Southwest Florida. Growers in our region produce crops like citrus, tomatoes, watermelons, and other fruits and vegetables. This region also has a thriving livestock industry, with cattle and dairy farms contributing to the economy. But, times are changing for all of us and this definitely includes those working to grow food.

April 10 is Gopher Tortoise Day, as designed by the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission and the nonprofit Gopher Tortoise Council. So, we have a conversation about the importance of these large, long-lived reptiles that can be found in all of Florida’s 67 counties. These large, slow moving reptiles are crucial to ecosystems because of the deep burrows they dig and live in. More than 350 other species — known as commensals — take advantage of those burrows for shelter. Their main threats are cars while trying to cross roads, and development that occurs on the land where they live.

We meet the new Collier County Waterkeeper, Ray Bearfield. Bearfield is a former fishing guide and educator at Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, who first came to Naples in the mid-1970s as an editor of The Naples Daily News. He has written extensively about Southwest Florida for the Coastal Conservation Association, Florida Sportsman magazine, The Miami Herald and other publications.

Karyn Parsons spent six years playing the ditzy character, Hilary, on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The show was huge in the culture in the 1990s — it ran for six seasons beginning in 1990 and left an indelible mark on pop culture. Her character, Hilary, was — and still is — truly beloved by fans everywhere. What fans didn't know is that during her time playing Hilary, Parsons was devoting quite a bit of her own personal time to writing short fiction, and learning about history — particularly inspiring and empowering stories of African American achievement.

Bob Kealing's new book “Good Day Sunshine: How the Beatles Rocked Florida” explores the Beatles time in Florida in 1964, including two performances on The Ed Sullivan Show from a hotel in Miami just weeks after their New York debut.

We get a sense of how Russia’s war on Ukraine is impacting Russian people with Dr. Kathryn Stoner, she is Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law — both at Stanford University — where she is also a Professor of Political Science (by courtesy). Dr. Stoner is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.

Andy Barth spent 35 years as part of the news team at WMAR-TV in Baltimore, beginning as a desk assistant in 1971 and working his way up to being an on air feature reporter, which he spent decades doing before retiring in 2006. Barth produced two feature franchises, one called “Andy At Large” and the other “How Do They Do That?” in which he tried to focus on good news stories. He Mr. Barth recently on the FGCU campus to give a talk called “The Way We Were: The Early Days of TV” so we brought him by the studio while he was on campus to talk about his career, and how the world of TV, and TV news, has changed.

We explore global trends for democracy and authoritarianism with with Michael Abramowitz, President of Freedom House and the former director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Levine Institute for Holocaust Education, and a former national editor and White House correspondent for The Washington Post.

On Thursday, March 30 the Collaboratory in downtown Fort Myers is partnering with the Collier Community Foundation, and the Charlotte Community Foundation, to host a region-wide “On the Table” event with locations in all three counties. The aim is to facilitate conversations between people of all walks of life, on one day and often around meals, to try and generate authentic dialogue between people, some of whom may just be meeting for the very first time, about what issues or problems we’re facing, and how best to try and address those issues or overcome those problems.