WFHB FireHouse Broadcasting

Several times a year WFHB partners with the Bloomington Storytelling Project to host a live storytelling event, featuring local stories shared by the people who experienced them. There are only two rules for story submissions: they must be less than fifteen minutes long, and they must be true. In its third edition, the Bloomington Storytelling Project went to neighboring Brown County, where storytelling is an integral part of the local culture. Brown County is famous, or perhaps infamous, for storytelling, but according to project rules the Brown County folks had to stick to true stories instead of their usual "tall tales". A beer-drinking horse, a bully gets his comeuppance, and a little brother who likes to pee on things are all on the menu in this one-hour edit of a live event recorded on-location at the Muddy Boots Café in Nashville, Indiana on March 6, 2010.

With a cut in state funding compounding an already serious financial shortfall, the board of the Monroe County Community School Corporation has voted unanimously to cut five point eight million dollars from the local school budget. With personnel accounting for ninety percent of expenses, local jobs are lost - the equivalent of 88 full-time positions, mostly teachers but also librarians, athletic coaches, and many more. The cuts include closing Aurora High School, Bloomington’s alternative high school, and incorporating its program into a facility at Bloomington High School North. Local elementary schools are taking the biggest hit. More than four hours of desperate pleas from parents, teachers, and students had no effect on the final cuts, which were passed almost exactly as originally proposed. Superintendent J.T.

Joel Salatin may be certifiably insane. Or he may be the smartest farmer on the planet. Or both. Salatin is the irreverent and passionate voice heard in author Michael Pollan's bestseller "The Omnivore's Dilemma". This Virginia farmer and food activist runs Polyface Farm and was keynote speaker at the 2010 Bloomington Eats Green conference. Salatin wrote his own book, "Holy Cows and Hog Heaven: The Food Buyer's Guide To Farm Friendly Food". This charismatic lunatic farmer talks a mile a minute about how people need a deeper understanding of where their food comes from. Salatin is definitely NOT a vegetarian - his farm produces mainly animal products. As Michael Pollan said in "The Omnivore’s Dilemma", animals at Polyface have many good days and one bad day.

February is Black History Month, and local celebrations include a series of events sponsored by the city called “Black History Month Bloomington Style”. This year’s theme is perfectly suited for radio: “Conversations”. A panel of local African-American commentators engage with an active audience on an examination of black imagery in popular media, the achievement gap in black education, and paths to a more equitable future. Our panelists are Ghangis Carter, director of recruitment and retention at the Indiana University School of Education; Monroe County circuit court judge Valeri Haughton; Gene DeVane, retired from Cook Incorporated; and Reverend Anne Henning Byfield, presiding elder 4th Episcopal district AME Church.

The John Waldron Arts Center is run by the Bloomington Area Arts Council. Council board members say they must close the Waldron if they cannot raise $120,000 by March 1. On January 27 the arts council laid off its entire paid staff, the latest development in an ongoing financial crisis that has galvanized the local arts community. Public outcry rose to a fevered pitch when rate hikes for performance groups using the Waldron threatened to make the space too expensive for many of its users. The crisis prompted mayor Mark Kruzan to appoint an eight-member study group to help figure out how to protect the Waldron and its galleries, theaters, and classroom spaces. The study group has organized itself into three teams evaluating the building’s functionality, the cost of operations and a fair fee structure, and the legal aspects of its disposition.

January 12, 2010. The island nation of Haiti is struck by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake, causing unimaginable death and destruction. Haiti's interior minister says at least 100,000 people were killed, and the final death toll may be double that. Relief efforts face significant obstacles including the nearly complete loss of infrastructure. Millions of Haitians are now refugees in their own country, where basic services like water and electricity have been wiped out. The earthquake in Haiti has captured international attention, but how much do we really know about this place? It’s among the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere, but it’s also the first independent black republic in world. Tonight we learn about Haiti and its proud people in a campus forum featuring Indiana University’s top experts on Haitian politics and culture. Geology professor Michael Hamburger explains what happened below the surface.

After a full day covering local service projects honoring the King holiday, WFHB capped off our extensive coverage with a live broadcast of Bloomington’s official 2010 Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday celebration. Although it was a free event, tickets were required to ensure that the Buskirk-Chumley Theater was not filled beyond its capacity of around 600. Tickets were gone in less than 48 hours due to overwhelming interest in this year's keynote speaker, Reverend Jesse Jackson. Event organizers said Jackson is a dream guest for the MLK celebration, a respected figure who talked the talk and walked the walk right beside Dr. King in the 1960s at the height of the civil rights struggle. Light over dark, character over color, and plenty of football analogies pepper his speech in this WFHB radio exclusive recorded on-location at the Buskirk-Chumley in Bloomington, Indiana on January 18, 2010.

Local First Indiana is a new chapter of a national network of grassroots non-profits focused on supporting locally-owned independent businesses and local economies. Local First Indiana launched in Bloomington in November 2009 with a visit from Michelle Long, executive director of the Business Alliance of Local Living Economies. Long was formerly the director of Sustainable Connections, a local business network in Bellingham, Washington, which has grown over the past seven years to be the most effective economic development driver in that region. She says local economies survive and even thrive in economic downturns when local populations shift even a small percentage of their spending to locally-owned businesses rather than chain stores.

2009 sucked, and 2010 couldn’t possibly be much worse. That’s the gist of the annual economic forecast presented by experts from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. Some have declared that the national recession is over, but the IU Business Outlook Panel says the economy is on the ropes, and it will likely take three to five years to really bounce back. In Indiana, 2010 will be a tough year, but not tougher than the nation as a whole, according to Jerry Conover, director of the Indiana Business Research Center. Our other panelists are retired professor Bill Witte on the national and global outlook, Indianapolis finance professor Rob Neal, and economics professor Kyle Anderson. Together they are “The Fight Doctors”, recorded on-location at the Columbia Club in Indianapolis on November 5, 2009.

Dozens of local non-profits provide services for the homeless, but resources are sorely lacking for homeless families. That message was made clear by those who attended a public forum on affordable housing and shelters for the homeless, hosted by the Bloomington Community and Family Resources Commission. In this program we hear from two captains on the front lines of the battle, Joel Rekas from the Shalom Community Center and Lisa Abbott from Bloomington's Housing and Neighborhood Development. In our extended final segment we hear from other housing advocates and members of the public sharing emotional and sometimes very personal stories about their own struggle with poverty and homelessness. Recorded on-location at City Hall in Bloomington, Indiana on October 20, 2009 and moderated by city councilwoman Susan Sandberg.