Everywhere Radio

This week on Everywhere Radio, Xandr Brown, multimedia producer at the Daily Yonder, speaks with Beau of the Fifth Column. A portion of this conversation first aired as part of the Rural Assembly Everywhere virtual festival that took place on May 10 and 11, 2022. We are pleased to bring you the full conversation in podcast form here on Everywhere Radio. Since starting his channel three years ago, Beau of the Fifth Column has grown his YouTube audience to more than half a million subscribers, connecting with folks from all walks of life and political identities. It isn't surprising given that he doesn't shy away from most any topic, whether it's his almost hourly updates about the Ukraine and Russian conflict to more general sociopolitical topics like political polarization, the misappropriated words of George Orwell, or gun rights and law enforcement in the United States. When you're watching Beau of the Fifth Column, you know you're not just watching to hear what you already know. You're watching to see him illuminate a topic through his variety of experiences. You're there for his voice. In that spirit, if you're already familiar with his channel or this is your first time hearing about it, we hope you enjoy this conversation between Xandr and Beau. 

We talk with Anthony Flaccavento about his work in bridging the rural-urban divide, coming from Baltimore to Appalachia, and why farming keeps him humble. Listen to Everywhere Radio wherever you stream podcasts. Flaccavento is the co-founder of RUBI, the Rural-Urban Bridge Initiative.  Flaccavento is also farmer and rural development consultant from Abingdon, Virginia in the heart of the Appalachian Coalfields.  The Founder of Appalachian Sustainable Development, Flaccavento has focused most of his work over the past four decades on building healthier food systems and more diverse, locally rooted economies in Appalchia and around the world.  His consulting firm, SCALE, Inc, works with communities across the nation to evaluate, plan and build healthier farm and food systems and local economies. Flaccavento is the author of Building a Healthy Economy from the Bottom Up:  Harnessing Real World Experience for Transformative Change (University Press of Kentucky, 2016), along with “Healthy Food Systems:  A Toolkit for Building Value Chains” (self-published) and scores of articles and op-eds.  He writes and speaks regularly on rural development, bottom up economics, overcoming the rural-urban divide and and a range of political and cultural issues.  He has taught course on these topics at Future Generations University, Emory & Henry College and community colleges. Flaccavento was the Democratic Candidate for the U.S. House in 2018, and remains involved in trying to impact politics and the public debate.  He is the co-founder of RUBI, the Rural-Urban Bridge Initiative, through which he works with colleagues to lead public forums and trainings designed to help people understand and begin to overcome the rural-urban divide.  He has also compiled The Rural-Urban Divide:  A Guidebook to Understanding the Problem and Forging Solutions.  He is married to Laurel, a retired public school teacher, and has three terrific grown children.

Our guest on Everywhere Radio is Cynthia McCowan, a community activist and connector. She's an advocate for black lives in Athens, Tennessee, and is spearheading a project to ensure black histories and experiences are acknowledged in this small rural town.

Our guest Teri Carter writes about rural politics, and now she's living them. Carter talks with Everywhere Radio about why she's a progressive running as a Republican for magistrate in her Kentucky county, how she stays in relationship with neighbors, and how she became a political writer. About the guest: Carter lives in Anderson County, Kentucky, where she writes about rural politics. You can find her work at the Lexington Herald-Leader, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Daily Yonder. She has a BA in English from the University of Minnesota and an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from San Jose State University. She teaches at The Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning in Lexington, Kentucky, and is working on a book about stepfamilies. About the podcast: Everywhere Radio, hosted by Whitney Kimball Coe, features rural leaders and allies spotlighting the good, scrappy, joyful ways rural people are building a more inclusive nation. Everywhere Radio is produced by the Rural Assembly. All the links: 🔔 Subscribe to our Youtube channel: https://bit.ly/TheRuralAssemblyYT 🎧FIND all podcast episodes: www.ruralassembly.org/podcasts Subscribe: https://www.ruralassembly.org/newsletter-subscribe About this episode: https://www.ruralassembly.org/podcasts/everywhere-radio-teri-carter

On this episode of Everywhere Radio, we talk with Starre Haas, an advocate for women’s leadership and empowerment, mother, wife, and entrepreneur. We talk with Starre about her journey from accounting to women’s empowerment and politics and what it has meant to build a new community and life with her family in Hope, Alaska. Formerly with VoteRunLead, Starre is the founder and CEO of Community Connections Now, a company that focuses on empowering women through networking and leadership development and of the nonprofit, The Everyday Bold Woman, formed to spotlight and provide leadership training and financial resources to women, particularly mothers and homemakers, women who have been suffering as a result of the pandemic. Everywhere Radio is a production of the Rural Assembly. Learn more at rural assembly.org/podcasts.

Skylar Baker-Jordan is a freelance writer from Appalachia, covering topics from British politics to LGBTQ culture in rural America. Skylar and Whitney talk about Skylar's journey as "an upwardly mobile and openly gay" person who chose to return to rural America to make a difference in his own community.

Everywhere Radio returns for season two! Host Whitney Kimball Coe talks with Daily Yonder Editor Tim Marema about the role news journalism plays in a democracy, how the pandemic has affected Daily Yonder coverage, and why Reservation Dogs is one of the best shows, ever.

On this episode, we're sharing a conversation with author Diane Wilson (Dakota). Wilson sat down with Rural Assembly Program Associate Tyler Owens during Rural Women Everywhere to talk about Wilson’s most recent book "The Seed Keeper," which follows a Dakota family's struggle to preserve their way of life, and their sacrifices to protect what matters most. During this conversation Owens and Wilson explore where Wilson finds her inspiration, the importance of continuing a tradition of storytelling, and the importance of connection to the earth.  Diane Wilson is a writer, speaker, and editor, who has published two award-winning books, as well as essays in numerous publications. Her new novel, The Seed Keeper, was published by Milkweed Editions in March. Find the transcript and a full video of this interview at ruralassembly.org/podcasts/everywhere-radio-diane-wilson. 

This week on Everywhere Radio, Whitney welcomes Nikiko Masumoto, organic farmer,  memory keeper, and artist. Nikiko is Yonsei, a fourth-generation Japanese American, and works the same soil her great-grandparents worked in California. In an agricultural world where 86 percent of farmers are men, most landowners are white, and few are queer, she employs art and creativity to access her power as an organic farmer. Whitney and Nikiko discuss making art, family history, farming, and seeking wholeness rather than perfection.

This episode of Everywhere Radio features a conversation between Gladys Godinez and Norma Flores López, Chief Programs Officer for Justice for Migrant Women. From working in the fields at the age of 12 to advocating for Immigrants, Latine/x/os and migrant farmworkers in Washington D.C. today, Norma's story is inspiring. This episode, which first aired during Rural Women Everywhere, is brought to you by the Rural Assembly, Justice for Migrant Women, and United by Culture Media. Godinez recorded this interview for both Everywhere Radio and her own podcast, Courageous Mujer.

Connecting rural America to high-speed internet isn’t just about Zoom meetings and remote work. Reliable access can also make or break a farming operation. Just ask Meagan Kaiser of Kaiser Family Farms in Carrolton, Missouri. Meagan farms corn and soybeans along with her husband Marc, and she’s also a soil scientist and chief operating officer at Perry Agricultural Laboratory, Inc. She recently contributed to a comprehensive report that tells the story of broadband as an indispensable tool for farmers and the communities they serve. The report was produced by the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society and the United Soybean Board, where Kaiser is a member of the executive committee. This week on Everywhere Radio, Whitney talks to Meagan to learn about her journey into farming and soil science, and to find out what it’s like chatting with Vice President Kamala Harris.

On this episode, Whitney talks with journalist Aallyah Wright about her journey to journalism, reporting on issues of labor, race, and equity in her native Mississippi. Wright reports on rural affairs and leads race and equity coverage for Stateline. Previously, Aallyah worked for Mississippi Today, a digital nonprofit newsroom, covering K-12 education and government in the Mississippi Delta—her home region. As a member of the Delta Bureau, she investigated Mississippi’s teacher shortage, finding it was six times worse than in 1998 when the Mississippi legislature passed a bill to alleviate the crisis. She is a 2020 Mississippi Humanities Council Preserver of Mississippi Culture Award recipient, 2019 StoryWorks Theater Fellow, and 2018 Educating Children in Mississippi Fellow at the Hechinger Report. Wright graduated from Delta State University with a bachelor’s in journalism and minors in communication and theater.

On this episode of Everywhere Radio, Whitney talks with labor veteran Sandy Pope. Today, Pope is the Bargaining Director for the Office of Professional Employees International Union or OPEIU, an organization that represents more than 110,000 employees nationwide. With more than three decades of union organizing experience, Pope is perhaps best known for her 2010 campaign for general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, when she ran against a three-term incumbent, who happened to be the son of Jimmy Hoffa. Whitney and Sandy talk about what the future holds for rural workers — whether they're working in meatpacking, trucking, or manufacturing — as well as the communities that rely upon them.

This week on Everywhere Radio, Whitney talks with Sarah and Jan Pytalski, our first rural husband and wife team. Sarah is a senior associate at the global communications firm Burness, where she supports rural health equity work. And Jan is an associate editor at the Daily Yonder, and a colleague of Whitney's at the Center for Rural Strategies, which publishes the Yonder and produces this podcast. The three talk about yearning for rural life, honoring connections between people and the land, and much more.

This week, guest host Adilia Watson talks with Jazzmine Brooks, "The Rural Black Doula," about advocacy, mental health, and how doulas can improve birth outcomes in rural places.

This week, guest host Adilia Watson talks with Nelson Brooke, a Riverkeeper from rural Alabama. In that role, Nelson investigates pollution on the Black Warrior River and takes pictures of illegal polluting activity. His work was recognized by the Alabama River Alliance when they named him the 2010 Alabama River Hero. Don't miss this episode of Everywhere Radio, as we learn about the impressive biodiversity of rural Alabama and the importance of protecting our natural resources.

This week, Whitney talks with two young leaders investing their time and energy to create spaces, events, and intentional moments that foster community. LB Prevette is the Senior Community Partnerships Manager for the national nonprofit Lead for America. Michael Cooper is an attorney and journalist (and mayoral candidate) whose writing has appeared in a variety of local, state, and national publications. For this Everywhere Radio conversation, the trio talk about their work, shared Appalachian roots, and the kinds of people you want to go to a music festival and share moonshine with.

Whitney talks with Stephen Gong, Executive Director of the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), about making the experiences and contributions of Asian Americans visible in rural communities.

This week on Everywhere Radio, Whitney talks with political scientist and author Hahrie Han about democracy in a changing nation and what the rural “agora” means in the 21st century. As a professor and faculty director at John Hopkins University, Han studies civic and political participation, social movements, collective action, and organizing, particularly as it pertains to democratic revitalization.

Reverend Claire Brown is an Episcopal priest, writer, facilitator, wife, and mama living and ministering in rural Tennessee. She talks with Whitney about how rural churches and faith communities are called to show up on the front lines of social healing work in this moment — facing the challenges of the pandemic, responding to calls for social and racial justice, and grappling with how we build more just and inclusive communities.

This week, Whitney checks in with her neighbor Jeff Eastman, who is also CEO of the nonprofit Remote Area Medical (RAM). Whitney and Jeff discuss RAM's efforts to provide Covid-19 vaccines at its pop-up clinics, and how to overcome vaccine hesitancy in rural areas.

This week, Whitney welcomes Krista Tippett, the founder and CEO of The On Being Project and host of On Being. Whitney and Krista discuss the Covid-19 pandemic, the fiction of blue and red states, developing moral imagination, and creating the conversations you want to be hearing.

This week, Whitney talks with Eliza Blue, a shepherd, writer, and folk singer who lives on a ranch in South Dakota with her husband and two children. The ranch has been in her husband's family for five generations, but Eliza took a more circuitous route to South Dakota. She is a contributing columnist to our media partner, the Daily Yonder, and calls herself the "Accidental Rancher." Whitney and Eliza talk about the gift of outsider status and how a sabbatical from the city turned into life on the prairie.

You'll find the award-winning writing of Deb and James Fallows in publications across the web, from The Atlantic to National Geographic and more. Together, they are the authors of the bestselling book, "Our Towns: A 100,000 Mile Journey Into the Heart of America," now a documentary film on HBO. This week, Deb and James talk with Whitney about showing up and finding hope while telling the complex stories of America's small towns.

This special episode of Everywhere Radio features two speakers set for April's Rural Assembly Everywhere virtual festival: First, Harry Gottlieb, founder of Jackbox Games and a new organization called Unify America, talks with Whitney about making the US a country of problem solvers. Then, Kiran Singh Sirah, president of the International Storytelling Center, talks with Whitney about the healing power of stories, the art of the "porch sit," and the glory of Saint Dolly.

How did planning for a potential ICE raid lead to a festival celebrating immigrant communities in rural Nebraska? Hear this and other stories about living as an immigrant in rural America as community organizer Gladys Godinez and host Whitney Kimball Coe discuss the importance of inclusion, welcoming, and being seen.

For the inaugural episode of Everywhere Radio, Whitney interviews Wendy Feliz, the Founding Director of the Center for Inclusion and Belonging at the American Immigration Council. Whitney and Wendy talk about building common purpose between new immigrant communities and long-time rural residents, the prospects for progress on national immigration policy, the importance of welcoming and inclusion, and much more.