Yonder Radio

This week on Yonder Radio, we’re catching up on what midterm results mean for rural America with Daily Yonder reporters Sarah Melotte, Madeline de Figueiredo, and Julia Tilton.

Next, we have an interview between Skyler Baker-Jordan, Editor-in-Chief of the Glasgow Courier, and Haylie Shipp, host of the podcast Desolate Dating, about what it means to be single and dating in a small town.

We’re recognizing Veterans Day this week with a conversation with Army Captain Robin Peterson and Army veteran Ryan Chae, both featured in an episode of American Creed: Citizen Power, out on all PBS platforms now.

Then we head to western North Carolina where the Brasstown Carvers from the John C Campbell Folk School have been spreading woodcarving knowledge to the community for nearly 100 years.

Finally, Arts Midwest reporter frankie felegy brings us to the Midwest where folk schools bring together rural residents to learn crafts that otherwise could be lost.

Our musician this week is dreamy Appalachian folk band Woodbine.

You can find all this and more on Yonder Radio, rural conversations with national reach.

This week on Yonder Radio, we start with a conversation about the midterm results in Texas. Then we hear from journalist Astra Lincoln about how access to health care has changed with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

We hear about a folklife project that shines a light on postal workers and their role in rural communities. Then, we meet author Leah Garcés, who explores the relationship between animal advocates, farmers, and ranchers — and about where they find common ground.

Clay Bolt, photographer and the World Wildlife Fund’s Manager of Pollinator Conservation and Great Plains Communications, talks all things pollinators; and Daily Yonder columnist Donna Kallner brings us a story of a tick bite, and what we can do to prepare for next spring.

Our featured musician is Julia Keefe, who leads the Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band.

You can find all this and more on Yonder Radio, rural conversations with national reach.

This week on Yonder Radio, we’re starting out with a conversation with energy reporter Julia Tilton about data center bans across rural America.

It’s Halloween season and we’re celebrating the spooky with a trip to Madrid, New Mexico with reporter Anya Petrone Slepyan to look into their local ghost tour. Then, Daily Yonder reporter Ilana Newman talks to Betsy Gaines Quammen about her newest book, “This Haunted Land: Reckoning with Ghosts and the Stories that Shape America”.

Then we head to coal country where Mitch Troutman writes about the places and people who shaped him in his new book “The Bootleg Coal Rebellion: The Pennsylvania Miners Who Seized an Industry”.

Finally, Daily Yonder data editor Sarah Melotte questions whether the Texas panhandle is as rural as the Florida panhandle (who even knew there were this many panhandles?).

Our musician this week is country singer Matt Wynn.

You can find all this and more on Yonder Radio, rural conversations with national reach.

This week on Yonder Radio, we talk about the upcoming midterm elections — what they mean for rural America, and what primaries might tell us about how rural voters could shift the results.

Then, Daily Yonder reporter Anya Petrone Slepyan takes us to the Gay Rodeo in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where men and women compete in the same events — even bull riding.

We hear from bull rider Emma Treu about what fearlessness means to her, and we ask what we all want to know: what does it feel like to ride a bull?

Lotus-Porte Moyel with the Youth Voices program at the University of Montana tells us how she is working with rural and Indigenous high school students to report on and tell stories about their communities. And, we hear one of those stories from students at Bigfork High School.

Our featured musical guest this week is Leah Grams Johnson.

This week on Yonder Radio, we’re taking a dive into autumn with Daily Yonder reporter Julia Tilton who brings us a story about fall leaves in New England.

Then, Daily Yonder data reporter, Sarah Melotte, talks to us about Flock cameras and how rural communities are pushing back against automated license plate readers.

American Creed: Citizen Power is a new PBS series. We talk to Jonathan Blair and Sam Schimmel, who are both featured on the new series, about how their respective lives in Alaska and eastern Kentucky compare and contrast.

Then we have a conversation from the Rural Faith Initiative featuring Dee Davis, president of the Center for Rural Strategies, and Mistie Johnson, who runs Ignite Ministry in Neon, Kentucky.

Reporter Nhatt Nichols bring us to the Olympic Peninsula to a bird sanctuary where the local tribe is trying to expand protections.

Finally, from southwest Colorado we bring you a bookstore owner’s favorite rural book.

Our featured musical guest this week is from Seward, Alaska — Blackwater Railroad, a band who puts on a rocking good show.

We’re starting out in central Texas with a conversation between Daily Yonder health reporter Madeline de Figueredo and Bastrop County Cares executive director Norma Mercado.

We are also checking in with our pop culture crew this week to learn about three new pieces of rural media for the season.

Then, we learn about an impressive 40 year commitment from the McKnight Foundation to rural Minnesota.

In western North Carolina, we visited potters who are using wild clay for a Living Traditions segment, a project documenting Appalachian folk traditions.

Finally, we head to the Southwest for a beautiful short film, ‘The Way We Carry Water’ which documents the history and emotional significance of ah Say kee ah culture in northern New Mexico.

Our featured musician is Grammy nominated singer songwriter, Amythyst Kiah.

Join us for all that and more on Yonder Radio.

This week on Yonder Radio, we begin with Jana Rose Shleis, a news reporter with KBIA in Columbia, Missouri. She visited a nuclear power plant in Callaway County to learn about the financial and technical barriers to expanding the state’s nuclear power capacity.

Then, we hear from Heather Dawn Thompson, who spearheads the World Wildlife Fund’s efforts to support indigenous communities as they restore and harvest buffalo populations. We head to Vernonia, Oregon, to learn how a community rail-to-trail gained official status from the National Park Service as a National Recreation Trail. And reporter Nicole Musgrave takes us behind the scenes of West Virginia’s viral hip-hop songwriting contest, “Dear West V,” which swept across the Mountain State this summer.

Our featured musician this week is Wyatt Espalin, singer, songwriter, and lifelong entertainer from North Georgia.

Tune in for all that, and more, on this week’s episode of Yonder Radio.

This week on Yonder Radio, we begin with a conversation about healthcare affordability in Tennessee with Daily Yonder health reporter Madeline de Figueredo and Beth Beaudin-Seiler, director of the Healthcare Value Hub.

We’re taking a deep dive into the state of rural journalism this week with field notes from Jeremiah Ariaz, a photographer in Kansas, and a story from Daily Yonder contributor Kim Kobersmith about the Marfa Sentinel, a newspaper that started a coffee shop/bar to help fund local reporting.

Then, we head back to Appalachia, where Roy "Bam" Haslip, Former Lewisburg, Tennessee City Manager, responded to our question, “What is Rural?” for Rural Assembly Everywhere and we talk to filmmaker Emma Dessau about her newest documentary, “Roe Was Never Enough”, about abortion access in Appalachia.

Finally, we have a story from our host, Jared Ewy, about a Tarantula Festival in Colorado.

Our featured musician this week is Alex Dunn, a singer-songwriter from northern New Mexico who is touring both solo and with a band across the West this fall.

Tune in for all that, and more, on this week’s episode of Yonder Radio.

Yonder Radio's first-ever special report is called Power Dynamics: The Rural Data Center Boom. We're digging into how different kinds of power – from literal computing power to political and economic power – shape data center development in rural America.

Two-thirds of new data centers are going to be built in rural places, according to the Pew Research Center. That puts rural communities at the forefront of a nationwide scramble to build the physical infrastructure powering AI. Still, as the U.S. economy embraces AI, rural America has yet to feel the technology’s economic windfall.

Instead, many communities are grappling with competing visions for the future of their land, water, and energy resources, as data centers crop up to supply growing AI demand. Over the past year, the Daily Yonder has reported on the rural data center rush in nearly every region. What has emerged is a story not only of what gets built, and where, but also of who gets to decide.

We begin by talking with environmental reporter Delaney Nolan about how AI-generated misinformation helped put an end to an industrial-scale solar project in Iberia Parish, Louisiana.

Next, Erin Borla, the executive director of the Roundhouse Foundation, talks rural philanthropy in Oregon, and shares some wisdom from her grandma, Gert.

Daily Yonder Culture Reporter Susannah Broun interviews filmmaker Rustin Thompson about his new documentary, “The Last Picture Shows,” which tells the story of independent, small-town movie theaters across the West.

Oral historian Mi’Jan Celie Tho-Biaz stops by to invite us to a story feast, a project that brings people together over exquisite meals to learn from one another. And Daily Yonder contributor Nhatt Nichols takes us to Wyoming, where Indigenous communities are working to restore native buffalo herds.

Our featured musicians this week are Redd and the Paper Flowers, a “living room folk” band out of Knoxville, Tennessee.

Tune in to hear all that, and more, on this week’s episode of Yonder Radio.