End of September

Here I am at the end of a coupla months in Monroe...damn, so about a sixth of my Americorps time here is done. Crazy stuff, crazy stuff.

The station is making progress, most definitely, towards becoming a community station. It's slower than I thought it'd be though. Progress is coming along in the news, we've been on a month now and we're consistently putting together a news show every tues wed and thurs of every week. I have no clue on how many people are actually listening, but for those people who are listening, we're broadcasting access to government meetings and publicizing what organizations are doing in a place where that access did not exist before. I'm going to some crazy stuff in the news too...Board of Education meetings can get real heated, so those can be pretty entertaining. Good to see parent activism, but it runs into the brick wall of bureaucracy and nationally set rules, so there's only so much parents & local Board of Educations can do when rules are as nationally set as they are.

Went to a tractor pull last weekend, and that was pretty....well...it wasn't too pretty. Tractor went forward and pulled a buncha steel bars, then they unhooked it and hooked the steel bars to another tractor and that tractor went. Not too much to it, good place to just gather and talk, though, something to do.

Starting to hook up with local musicians and connect them with the radio station. That's where the empowerment is at, more than the news. Lewisburg has some good shows, so i'll be heading up there. Old folks' homes have good bluegrass music, so i'll be heading over there. There's a lot we can do to focus in on the talent there is right here in Monroe County and put that stuff on the radio rather than just playing what comes in from a corporate playlist. We've got a ways to go, but the music is real good times. Can sit and record a live show like nothin, it's great.

I'll be going up to the Appalachian Heritage Festival next weekend, getting back up to Shepherdstown, so that'll be pretty cool. I'll be recording that, so I'm really looking forward to it.

Anyways, I should get home and feed Baron. It's been a good two months, missing family and Tominda and Shepherdstown, but I get to go back there every so often to see them.