Welcome to Florida

Congressional Republicans are trying to make it easier for developers to pave over wetlands in Florida. Byron Donalds is attempting to do the same thing from inside the state.

"Romper Room" was a wildly successful television show that attempted to bring kindergarten to TV. It ran more than 40 years on station's across the country. Wayne Hicks, author of "Did All My Friends Have Fun at Play: An Oral History of Romper Room," joins us to discuss the program.

The Boy Scouts organization in Hernando County wants to sell roughly half of a 1300 acre natural area it owns and uses for outdoor recreation for potential development.

Our guest this week is long-time Florida cave diver Tom Morris. Morris was featured in the famed "Water's Edge" PBS cavediving documentary. Morris tells us about the volume of caves in Florida, what causes them, and what's down there.

"Welcome to Florida" patrons receive exclusive access to our weekly Florida conservation newsletter for just $5 per month.

Lee County planning officials wanted to exclude public comment from rezoning decisions; residents laughed out loud!

Roseate spoonbills are one of Florida's iconic wading birds. Florida Audubon Executive Director Julie Wraithmell joins us to discuss the gorgeous pink bird.

On this episode we celebrate Florida's lifestyle magazine, 'Flamingo' magazine, as it enters its next 10 years of publication. Our guest is the magazine's founder and editor Jamie Rich.

The Hope Florida scandal involves Ron DeSantis, Casey DeSantis, and Ashley Moody, but the figure at the center of the theft is Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier. 

Amaris Castillo's parents run the Orlando Latin Market bodega in St. Pete. Several years ago, she began sharing stories of the bodega online; that effort has become a new book, "Bodega Stories," published in September of 2026.

Florida's public school textbooks downplay the impacts of climate change and protect industry from blame. 

Between the late 1600s and the U.S. Civil War, freedom seekers from across the South fled south, and by sail, to the Bahamas and Caribbean. This escape route from slavery is what is known as the Saltwater Underground Railroad. Our guest this episode, Stefan Moss, is a historian researching the Saltwater Underground Railroad and has developed a website and app sharing what he's learned.

Learn more about Florida's Black history through our "Florida Black History" YouTube channel.

A Florida university wants to build an airstrip in the Ocala National Forest. 

George Siegal is a former weatherman turned documentary filmmaker. Upon moving to Florida, he was shocked by the state's casual attitude toward hurricane preparedness. His documentary, "Built to Last: Buyer Beware," catalogues the numerous ways in which Floridians ignore hurricane preparedness and how you can make yourself and your home safer from storms.

The super wealthy have found a new way to exploit Florida's undeveloped land: private auto racing clubs.

You know them, you probably hate them, they're lovebugs - the little black bugs that get all over your car during spring and fall. Our guest on this episode,  Norman Leppla, University of Florida professor of integrated pest management and biological control, is the nation's leading expert on lovebugs.

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Florida wants to take almost $200 million from the federal government earmarked for electric vehicle charging stations and instead waste the money pursuing flying cars. Seriously.

Pamela Colloff spent a decade investigating the life and crimes of Paul Skalnik. Skalnik, among other things, was a longtime jailhouse snitch whose phony testimony was relied upon by Pinellas County prosecutors for decades. Colloff shares what she discovered in a new book out this summer, "Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast."

The Florida Department of Environmental "Protection" refuses to investigate a Key West utility company that has been injecting waste water underground only to have it surface elsewhere.

Everyone knows 1980s PBS TV painter Bob Ross, but most people don't associate him with Florida. Ross was born, raised, lived and died in Central Florida. The Bob Ross Art Workshop & Gallery in New Smyrna Beach is open to the public and carries on his legacy. Our guest this episode, Nicholas Hankins, carries on Ross' legacy through a new version of Ross' "Joy of Painting" TV show.

Ross mostly painted woodland and mountain scenes, but he did paint Florida on the show one time.