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This segment originally aired March 4, 2017. Sometimes a mess serves a very special purpose. For the Pyles family in Lake Stevens, Wash., words scrawled across their home help them communicate with their son, Jessie.

This segment originally aired March 4, 2017. Most abandoned landfills do not have a happy ending. Kitsap County alone has dozens of them, sitting around and festering in the ground. But one place, called the Gorst Creek Landfill, is finally getting cleaned up, thanks to some very dedicated peninsula residents and $27 million from the Navy.

This segment originally aired March 4, 2017. Former 88.5 KNKX Jazz Sunday Side Up host Ruby Brown had known for a long time that her brother Andy had battled mental health issues. But it wasn’t until last summer when he took his own life that she and her family were able to understand the extent of it. “I knew that he suffered from depression. I knew that he had mood swings that were pretty severe. They said that he [had] bipolar disorder when he was 17. He had been diagnosed with that. So I

This segment originally aired March 4, 2017. Last April, composer, arranger and conductor Paul Caldwell was weeks away from leaving Chicago for a new life and new job as the artistic director for the Seattle Men’s Chorus and Seattle Women’s Chorus. But after leaving his best friend’s place, he became the victim of a terrible hit and run accident. Caldwell was struck by a car, severely fracturing several bones in his body, including his legs and right arm. His head landed on a bag filled with

This story originally aired on March 18, 2017. More than 23,000 people lost their lives following the 1985 eruption of Nevado del Ruiz volcano in Colombia. In response, the United States Geological Survey and the U.S. Agency for International Development's Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance created the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program , to help prevent other volcanic eruptions from becoming disasters.

This week we share some of our favorite stories from out of town. The Hoh Rain Forest We take a trip to the Hoh Rain Forest and, while two young boys frolic in mud, we learn about the riches of the rainiest part of the lower 48. Connecting Transgender Men Telling the world its perception of you is wrong — and to say the way you see yourself is right — that can be a tough and lonely thing to do. A Spokane-based man noticed how hard this was for fellow transgender men, so he decided to help them

This story originally aired January 21, 2017. Malcolm Rene Ribot has been busy exploring America for the past year and a half. He’s hiked mountains, swam in hidden lakes, touched the waters of both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and slept under the stars. He’s done this in 48 states and plans on visiting the last two — Hawaii and Alaska — in the next few months.

Soap Lake, in Central Washington, is a small town with a really big dream. It’s home to about 1,600 people, and its economy has seen better days. A lot of small towns in that situation might respond by trying to lure a big-box store or coming up with a snappy tourist slogan. But those ambitions are far too puny for Soap Lake. Instead, since the early 2000s, the town has been working toward creating something big and weird and really kind of beautiful: They want to build the world’s largest lava

This segment originally aired on February 18, 2017. This week on Sound Effect , we bring you stories of TMI, as in too much information. The Jeopardy Champ Seattle resident Ken Jennings won 74 times in a row on the popular trivia show "Jeopardy!" and is the the second highest earner in game show history with a total of more than $3.1 million. He explains how he keeps all that information in his brain. The Home of The Cloud Quincy, Washington is home to seven major data centers for big tech

This segment originally aired February 18, 2017. Ken Jennings says knowing a lot of random facts can really come in handy when it comes to bringing people together — connecting with total strangers. He says having random knowledge about someone’s job or alma mater is a little bit like knowing about a person before you even get to meet them. Jennings says that the trick to being able to consume and retain so much knowledge is largely due to a wide interest in everything, because people are more