After more than three decades of entertaining and educating listeners, Blue Ridge Public Radio classical music host Chip Kaufmann is retiring. We've compiled a few highlights of his wonderful career here.

Historic African-American landmarks have disappeared in Asheville at an alarming rate. A project is underway to restore and relaunch Rabbit’s Café & Hotel, which played a very significant role in the community’s past. Today’s guest is musician Claude Coleman who is leading the project.

Friendship is the driving force behind a new organization that aims to improve racial equity in Asheville schools -- starting with classroom bookshelves.

For Spanish learners, the city of Asheville is plentiful with opportunities to improve their language skills. For a group of Buncombe County Schools Early College students, that means visiting McCormick Field, where players from Venezuela and the Dominican Republic are holding class.

Understanding resistance to oppression is critical to a deeper appreciation of freedom. Verdi’s “Requiem” was performed as an act of defiance by Jews held captive at an infamous concentration camp in Czechoslovakia during WW2. The performance comes to Asheville to help launch several educational and community initiatives.

North Carolina health officials are keeping an eye on the measles as it hovers nearby. The latest count by the Centers for Disease Control shows 880 individual cases of measles have been confirmed in 24 states, including nearby Tennessee and Georgia. The CDC says this is the greatest number of cases reported in the U.S. since 1994 and since measles was declared eliminated in 2000. State and local health officials have been spreading the “get vaccinated” message with a focus on children. But what

Two weeks from today, the primary election for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians will take place. Early voting is already underway on the Qualla Boundary as prinicipal chief, vice chief, all 12 seats on the tribal council, and three seats on the Cherokee school board are on the ballot. The general election will take place in September.

US Route 441 is a main artery in Western North Carolina. However, a crack in the road on Cowee Mountain in Jackson County has slowed traffic since late February. Nathan Tanner is the Department of Transportation resident engineer for three counties of Western North Carolina - thats district 2 of division 14. He explains why they decided to redirect traffic down to two lanes: “It’s not because we were worried that the slope would give way at any minute but because as those lanes shift as the

Town-Gown Community Building – As Asheville faces a range of critical challenges and decisions, we take a look at how the city and its university interact. Our guests are Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer and Dr. Nancy Cable, Chancellor of the University of North Carolina – Asheville. They discuss the need for a very open and honest collaboration between the two large institutions and the progress that’s been made to address major issues facing the community.

A Culture of Leadership – Western North Carolina faces a raft of important decisions for its future and looks within its community for leaders to manage these complicated processes. Leadership Asheville plays a critical role in this process and its Executive Director, Ed Manning, joins the conversation to discuss the progress that’s being made toward developing a more robust culture of leadership for the area.