Main Street

Thursday, October 13, 2022 - Fargo’s Sawyer Anderson is one of 16 people to receive the 2022 International Young Eco-Hero Award. She won 2nd place in the 8-12 age group for her work raising money to build water wells in Zambia. She’s the author and illustrator of Water Works - An American Girl's Journey to Bring Clean Water to Africa. ~~~ Speaking of keeping the water clean, Chuck Lura discusses the benefit provided by beavers. ~~~ Tom Isern shares a Plains Folk essay, “Shane Did Not Live in North Dakota.” ~~~ Sue Balcom is here with a “Main Street Eats” discussion about kitchen shortcuts, or hacks, – some that are good, and some that aren’t.

Wednesday, October 12, 2022 - Matt Olien visits with Secretary of State candidate Jeffrey Powell. ~~~ The North Dakota Council on the Arts is holding an arts accessibility workshop on Thursday. We hear from Rhea Beto, the council’s accessibility coordinator. ~~~ Could autonomous tractors make farming more accessible? Maybe so. We have a report on the development of such tractors from Harvest Public Media. ~~~ And autonomous tools can also help wildlife researchers, as we hear in an episode of BirdNote.

Tuesday, October 11, 2022 - As we approach the November elections, we visit with candidate Tim Lamb, who’s running for Attorney General of North Dakota. ~~~ Speaking of the election, we hear from Josh Askvig, North Dakota state director for AARP, about the issues of importance for senior citizens.

Monday, October 10 - NDSU professor Ross Collins is the author of “Chocolate. A Cultural Encyclopedia.” No food in the world can offer as storied a history as chocolate. The book is a comprehensive look at cocoa’s history from ancient Mesoamerican beginnings to its omnipresence in Europe, North America, and the rest of the world. ~~~ Today is Columbus Day, but the second Monday in October is also observed as Indigenous Peoples Day. Today we acknowledge the latter by sharing a profile of Juanita J. Helphrey, one of the 2022 inductees into the North Dakota Native Hall of Honor. ~~~ How Will We Know When the Pandemic is Over? That question is discussed in an excerpt from Conversations on Healthcare as hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter visit with Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, head of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health. ~~~ Two thirds of farmers say the pandemic affected their mental health. The U-S Department of Agriculture has funding available to help with mental health, and as Kendall Crawford reports for Harvest Public Media, some Midwestern states are distributing the resources not only to farmers, but also to business and community members they interact with.

Rick Steves discusses “Art of Europe,” his new show on PBS. ~~~ News director Dave Thompson is here to discuss the week’s headlines. ~~~ Matt Olien reviews “Blonde,” a look at the rise to fame and the epic demise of actress Marilyn Monroe.

Thursday, October 6, 2022 - In an update from the Prairie Public Education department we hear about a continuing education opportunity for teachers called “Amplifying Student Voices.” We visit with Darcy Bakkegard and Tim Wollenzien. ~~~ Tom Isern has this week’s Plains Folk essay, “Taking a Bite Out of a Ground Apple.” ~~~ Louise Erdrich’s book “The Night Watchman” is being featured this month in a One Book, One community reading project, and she’ll be appearing at an author event Thursday, Oct. 27 that will also be streamed live online. We share an interview from 2020 as Erdrich visits with NPR’s Scott Simon. ~~~ Sue Balcom joins us to discuss green tomatoes – ripening, frying, chutney and more.• The author event will be streamed live at https://www.concordiacollege.edu/streaming/and at https://video.ibm.com/channel/concordia-college

Wednesday, October 5, 2022 - From fecal transplants to renewable energy, the new book Flush: The Remarkable Science of an Unlikely Treasure explores why we might want to make our number two, a number one priority. We visit with science writer Dr. Bryn Nelson who’ll be speaking at Ferguson Books in West Fargo on October 6.

Tuesday, October 4, 2022 - While The Windmill Watched: A Slice of Rural America in the 1950s is a memoir from sisters Jackie Pfeiffer McGregor and Janine Pfeiffer Knop about growing up in Menoken, ND. It’s now being made into a movie from Bismarck’s Daniel Bielinski of Canticle Productions. ~~~ Chuck Lura shares a Natural North Dakota essay on the fall bird migration. ~~~ The annual LGBTQ+ Summit will be held in Mandan this month. Here to discuss why such a gathering is helpful are two of the organizers, Mattie Bogard and Cindy Roholt.

Monday, October 3, 2022 - We visit with Christopher Vondracek, author of “Dancing with Welk: Music, Memory and Prairie Troubadours.” It’s a cheeky retelling of Lawrence Welk’s story, blending memoir, travelogue, and cultural history. ~~~ Kevin Locke, the renowned storyteller, musician and hoop dancer passed away Saturday at age 68. We hear an excerpt of a Storycorps recording Kevin did in 2018, and we visit with David Swenson of Makoche Studios in Bismarck, who worked with Kevin on a number of projects.

Friday, September 30, 2022 - It’s our monthly Journalists Roundtable. In addition to news director Dave Thompson, we have special guest journalists Jill Schramm, associate editor with the Minot Daily News; and Monica Hannan, managing editor at KFYR-TV. ~~~ Matt Olien reviews “Don’t Worry Darling.”