Tag Archives: audio

Sheryl Crow Aquatic Center

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Kennett, Missouri hasn’t had a public swimming pool since they demolished the ancient, aboveground monster that people my age grew up with. But thanks to the generosity of hometown-girl-turned-superstar Sheryl Crow (and others), they now have the Sheryl Crow Aquatic Center. The nine-time Grammy winner came to take part in the dedication ceremonies on Saturday and Barb and I were there for the big splash.

I don’t know Sheryl Crow (I don’t know any big stars) but she seems like one very classy, very smart, very down-to-earth lady. She still sees herself as a Kennett girl. That’s home. And she’s concerned that the little town has fallen upon hard times, economically. So she wrote ’em a check for a million bucks to build a municipal swimming pool just off the downtown “square.” Which is slowly dying. Some would say dead.

But Ms. Crow is giving more than her money to help revitalize the town. She’s giving her time and her name and a little of her wonderful talent. She performed a few songs with a local band, The Usual Suspects. Her daddy, Wendell, plays guitar in the band when he’s not lawyer’ing.

I’m terrible at estimating crowds because I avoid them like the plague, but I’d guess there were three or four hundred [The DDD reports 4,000] folks on hand and it was a beautiful morning. I got to see a lot of old friends, many of whom I had not seen in 20 years. I took a bunch of photos while Barb manned the camcorder. We’ll get some video posted as soon as I have time to edit.

Following the performance, Sheryl held a little pool-side news conference [5 min] for the half dozen TV and radio stations on hand.

AUDIO: News conference 5 min MP3

(Rumor: A crew from ABC’s 20/20 was following Sheryl around for some upcoming segment) When no one could come up with a coherent question, Sheryl took over and explained why she got involved in the project. Not sure if you’ll be able to hear it, but I thought the best question came from Barb, who wanted to know Sheryl’s best stroke when she was on the high school swim team (breast stroke).

I don’t know that a new swimming pool will save my old home town but I’m proud of all those folks for trying.

Special thanks to Kennett correspondent Charles Jolliff for link to photos of Kennett’s old municipal pool. UPI Super Photog Bill Greenblatt for the photo above and others. And Jan McElwrath and Randy Morgan with the Kennett Chamber of Commerce for organizing a great a event making us feel so welcome.

RTNDA’s Dan Shelley gets it

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Dan Shelley is a long-time and valued friend. For a dozen years he ran one of best (probably THE best) radio newsrooms in Missouri. In 1995 he moved to Milwaukee to become the news director of WTMJ. A year ago he was elected chairman of the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) and took over those duties a couple of weeks ago at the association’s annual meeting in Las Vegas.

In his first speech as chairman, he outlined five challenges or issues facing “electronic journalists.” We asked him about blogging, podcasting and satellite radio.

AUDIO: Interview with Dan Shelley 30 min MP3

I’m not sure Dan –or any other mere mortal– is capable of taking broadcast journalists where they need to go but he’s the right guy at the right time.

Execution journal: Donald Jones

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In his capacity as news director for The Missourinet, Bob Priddy has witnessed 15 executions. The most recent was the April 27th execution of Donald Jones, for which Bob produced an “audio journal” that begins as he leaves his motel in Bonne Terre to go to the prison and ends as he prepares to leave the prison about two and a half hours later. Bob telescoped the audio down to about half an hour and some segments have been shifted for context purposes (the reading of the final statement of Donald Jones, for example).

Bob was not allowed to take his recorder to the execution witness area, so he summarizes the events that took place in that approximately 90-minute span. The main voices you will hear are those of Missourinet News Director Bob Priddy, Corrections Department spokesman John Fougere, and Corrections Director Larry Crawford. Voices of various other officers will be heard as part of the process.

KBOA Trivia Bowl

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KBOA (Modern Era) - 04

Some Canadian guys developed the concept for Trivial Pursuit in 1979 and released the board game two years later and the game’s popularity peaked in 1984. But we had been playing trivia on the air at KBOA for a number of years by then and it was about as much fun as anything I ever did on the air. While cleaning out a closet this afternoon, I found a tape of a show (first half-hour) we did in May of 1981.


[Download/listen]. Team members: John Robison, Jeff Wheeler and Tom Colvin. Good friends, then and now.

FarmPolicy.com

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Keith Good solves the “not enough hours in the day to blog” problem by getting up at 4:00 a.m. I talked to him this morning (10 min) about his blog, FarmPolicy.com, which deals with U. S. agriculture policy. A really good example of the kind of citizen journalism (or publishing, if you prefer) that’s transforming and challenging mainstream media.

Adopt a sniper

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“Help real snipers get the real gear they need to help keep us safe.” The most amazing thing about this website is that there is a need for it. We send these people into combat without the stuff they need so the folks back home provide it. Update: WRN reporter Bob Hague interview with Keith Deneys, director of Adopt A Sniper. [8 min/mp3]

Slick Ballinger

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I’m not ready to give up on the video from Slick Ballinger’s recent Kennett appearance. In the meantime, you can download and listen to the audio. The first four songs are from the first set and (I think) the sound is better. The last five are from the second set and it sounds like the PA was little hot. This was recorded on my video camera so it basically sucks. But if you’ve never heard His Slickness… you might not even notice. I’d like to think they were recording this out of the sound system but have no way of knowing.

Sorry I can’t provide the names of the songs but I’m hoping one of Slick’s Rangers will ID them and I’ll update this post. Mother Sexton insists there are not a lot of good recordings of Slick online, which is difficult to imagine, but she would know. One more thing… it was difficult to cut the End Zone sets into individual songs. Reverend Slick and the Soul Blues Boyz slid seamlessly from one tune to the next. If I guessed wrong, let me know and I’ll repost.

Song# 1 [6 meg – 14 min]
Song #2 [7 meg – 17 min]
Song #3 [6 meg – 16 min]
Song #4 [5 meg – 11 min]
Song #5 [2 meg – 6 min]
Song #6 [4 meg – 10 min]
Song #7 [4 meg – 10 min]
Song #8 [4 meg – 10 min]
Song #9 [3 meg – 7 min]

First and only woman executed in Missouri

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Half a century ago, radios throughout the country were broadcasting the news that a woman had died in Missouri’s gas chamber… the first– and so far, the only –woman ever executed in a state prison. Bonnie Brown Heady of St. Joseph and her lover Carl Hall had been convicted less than a month earlier of the kidnapping and murder of a little Kansas City boy, Bobby Greenlease. Former prison caseworker Gail Hughes remembers the Heady execution in an interview with Bob Priddy.