Telling Public Radio’s Story
Troy University Public Radio
WTSU WRWA WTJB
1. Describe your overall goals and approach to address identified community issues, needs, and
interests through your station’s vital local services, such as multiplatform long and short-form
content, digital and in-person engagement, education services, community information,
partnership support, and other activities, and audiences you reached or new audiences you
engaged.
During 2014, Troy University Public Radio has a number of new programming initiatives and
proposed partnerships to better serve the listeners in our coverage area and tell their story. We
are putting in place production elements for a new show “In Focus” which will be a mid-day
magazine program that will allow us to tape from many different remote locations; broadcast
regular features and segments from organizations and individuals in our communities; and
license and air content from the Public Radio Exchange, WBUR, and Rick Steves. Our program
will have three segments that will allow us to expand interviews and coverage of particular
topics and as it will be a weekday program we can dedicate time to longer storytelling and
reporting.
2. Describe key initiatives and the variety of partners with whom you collaborated, including
other public media outlets, community nonprofits, government agencies, educational institutions,
the business community, teachers and parents, etc. This will illustrate the many ways you’re
connected across the community and engaged with other important organizations in the area.
2) During 2013 we have collaborated with two groups, Southern Public Media and the Rosa
Parks Museum to support the “I Am Alabama” oral history project. Both of these entities as well
as Troy Public Radio are looking to assist people collect and preserve their stories, with
particular emphasis on the struggle for civil rights in the 60’s and the current debate and issues
surrounding the recent immigration legislation in Alabama. Over the past year Troy Public Radio
also ran a number of series dedicated to support larger public media initiatives across the
country. During the month of November in preparation for the National Day of Listening, TPR
ran daily promos featuring both national and local voices encouraging listeners to take time to
record interviews with their loved ones on the day after Thanksgiving. We interviewed
Storycorps founder Dave Isay twice as well as the program’s Memory Loss Initiative coordinator
Dina Zempskey for our noon hour program Community Focus. We also have recently begun
discussions to assist the Alzheimer Associations in the preservation of memories and stories of
individuals experiencing memory loss. Troy Public Radio also continues to provide it’s Radio
Reading Service to the visually impaired and we have looked to expand our volunteer pool to
include high school students and student producers at the station. Also through our noon hour
program Community Focus we covered the following topics: A. Environmental Issues: Alabama
Tree Recovery Campaign in areas ravaged by the April 2011 tornadoes; Arbor Month plans by
the Alabama Forestry Commission; Longleaf Pine Restoration; Fresh Air Family – the
importance of families getting outdoors; Owls and the Ecosystem; Wintering Hummingbirds; the
Wetumpka Marine Impact Crater; Alabama’s Coastal Environment. Forever Wild Tracts in our
coverage area; Charles Darwin, Geologist and Naturalist; Alabama State Parks; People Against a
Littered State (PALS); Boating Safety and Laws; Georgia Waterfalls, Bears, and the
Appalachian Trail. Geotourism; Wildland Firefighting; Renewable Energy; Alabama Water
Policy; Hummingbird Science; Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution; Alabama’s Pinhoti Trail;
Hurricane Katrina Anniversary; Alabama Gulf Coast; Apalachicola Maritime Museum’s
Paddlewheeler on the Chattahoochee River; Forever Wild Old Cahawba Prairie Tract; Seminole
State Park in southeast Georgia. B. Societal, Arts and Health Issues: Teaching youngsters to
dance; Asthma Awareness Month; Montgomery Area Council on Aging; Ehics in Business;
Adult Obesity; School Readiness and Pre-K in Alabama; Investment Fraud; African-American
DNA Research; Social Security; Oral History StoryCorps; Literacy Education; Bullying; Dealing
Constructively with Anger; Employment for People with Disabilities; Community Support for
Education; K-9 Police Dogs; Empty Bowls Project; Adult Fitness; the Impact of Rosa Parks’
Life ; Adult Literacy; Multiple Sclerosis; Fiber Arts; Children’s Diabetes Camp; Early
Childhood Care and Education. Tuskegee’s economic struggles; Jewish history and food
traditions; Art’s rehabilitative role with former inmates; Breast Cancer; Music Education;
Military Children and their needs; Services to Blind and Low-vision Citizens; Asthma; Artisan
Skills from the 19th to the 21st Century; Allergies; Tai Chi and health; The Senior Games
(fitness for Seniors); Central Alabama Crimestoppers; Substance Abuse; Alabama Blues Project;
Eating Disorders; Support for Bereaved Families; Interpretation of Events through Music; Helen
Keller; the Acting Craft; Talking Books for the Visually Impaired. Securities Investment and
Financial Literacy; Consumer Issues; Early Childhood Education; Dog and Cat Overpopulation;
Heat Sickness and Heat Stroke; Adult Literacy; Village Networks for Seniors; Kenya Relief
efforts; Crimestoppers; Families in Crisis; Interpreter Training; The Congo; Urban Land Use
Planning; Health Recovery using Tai Chi; Genetic Engineering; the Farm to Table Movement;
Lifelong Learning; Strokes; Star ID Driver Licenses; White Canes; the Reshaping of the U.S.
Population; Commercial Driver Licenses; Alabama’s Business Enterprise Program for Blind
Business Owners; Military Scholars Program; Higher Education and the Alabama Economy;
Grief Resolution; Using the Arts to KeepYoung People Engaged – a Rosa Parks Institute Project;
Dementia and the StoryCorps Memory Project; Vivian B. Adams School for Developmentally
Disabled Children and Adults in Ozark, AL; Moving Outside the U.S. to Serve Amazonian
peoples; Cuban Arts and Holiday Traditions. C. Global Issues: Current Events in the Middle
East; the Alabama Goodwill Ambassador Program. D. Historical Issues: Alabama’s new
Archaeological Museum; Alabama and Georgia’s Southern Frontier History; the Montgomery
Bus Boycott and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; the new Museum of Alabama at the Alabama
Department of Archives and History; the William Levi Dawson Institute at Tuskegee University;
the Korean War; the Creek Indian Heritage Center. Eufaula and Barbour County’s role in the
history of white settlement in Indian territory and commerce on the Chattahoochee River;
Holocaust Education; the Legacy of writer and artist Zelda Fitzgerald; History of Memorial Day;
Alabama Archaeology; the U.S. Flag; the 1829 Gold Rush; Korea and Vietnam wars. President
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Little White House Historic Site; F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald;
Alabama Governor’s Mansion; Alabama Voices, the story of Alabama from 1700 to 2000; Frank
Lloyd Wright House in Florence, AL; Archaeological findings at Horseshoe Bend National
Military Park; The Fort Mims Massacre; Integration of Tuskegee High School in 1963 (two-part
Interview); Post-Civil War Forced Labor of African Americans; Launch of the Creek Heritage
Trail; Creek Indian Wars of 1813-14; 50th Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s I Have a
Dream Speech; the last photograph of FDR; Labor Day remembrance of Opelika’s Pepperell
Mill Village; Medieval Spain; Mystery of Captain Meriwether Lewis’ Death on the Natchez
Trace; Former First Lady of Costa Rica and the Path to Costa Rican Democracy; Post-Civil War
Emigration of African Americans from the Chattahoochee Valley to Liberia; 19th Century
Montgomery; 1963 Birmingham Church Bombing Investigation; the Hallelujah Trail in Macon
County; Zelda Fitzgerald’s Years in a Psychitric Hospital; Vietnam Veterans History Project in
Florida; The Alabama State Capitol; Costume Arts; JFK’s Visit to Tampa, Florida; The Little
Bighorn Battlefield after Custer and the 7th Cavalry’s Defeat; FDR and Thanksgiving at the
Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia; JFK and MLK; Battle of the Holy Ground. E.
Economic Issues: Local Airports and Economic Development; Better Business Bureau establishing trust in the marketplace.
3. What impact did your key initiatives and partnerships have in your community? Describe any
known measurable impact, such as increased awareness, learning or understanding about
particular issues. Describe indicators of success, such as connecting people to needed resources
or strengthening conversational ties across diverse neighborhoods. Did a partner see an
increase in requests for related resources? Please include direct feedback from a partner(s) or
from a person(s) served.
We continue to hear very positive feedback from our listeners concerning the Radio Reading
Service. We not only hear about its importance to listeners to the broadcast but also the
volunteers who come to the station four days a week to record a broadcast for an hour. They
value being able to give back to their community in this important way as well as being a part of
the success of the station. Many of these other initiatives are still in their early stages but the
initial reports from the oral history recording sessions both on location at the Rosa Parks
Museum as well as in communities in our coverage area have been extremely positive. Once a
few of these recording sessions were scheduled participants asked for more to be scheduled in
the future.
4. Please describe any efforts (e.g. programming, production, engagement activities) you have
made to investigate and/or meet the needs of minority and other diverse audiences (including,
but not limited to, new immigrants, people for whom English is a second language and illiterate
adults) during Fiscal Year 2013, and any plans you have made to meet the needs of these
audiences during Fiscal Year 2014. If you regularly broadcast in a language other than English,
please note the language broadcast.
Troy Public Radio has also started conversations with stations and networks in our area including
WBHM and Georgia Public Broadcasting about a possible reporting project with NPR’s Race
Card Project. In conjunction with the 50 year anniversary of Rosa Park’s arrest in 1965 we have
proposed a series of stories, reports on the contemporary state of race relations in Alabama and
across the south. We envision the culmination of this project to include a visit to Montgomery of
a correspondent such as Michele Norris to host a public forum or panel discussion.
5. Please assess the impact that your CPB funding had on your ability to serve your community.
What were you able to do with your grant that you wouldn't be able to do if you didn't receive it?
Without the support of our CPB grant many of these initiatives could not have even been
envisioned. Through it we are able to provide vital programming such as Community Focus and
our other locally produced shows as well as the national programs with which we serve our
listeners. Our CPB grant allows us to purchase the national programs our listeners tell us they
rely on and supports our new reporting efforts to bring vital news and stories from across our
coverage area. During the past year we were also able to undertake profile raising efforts for the
station including advertising in newspapers and social media that brought our programming and
content to new listeners over the air and online. Our CPB grant allowed us to support these vital
programs and the infrastructure to air reports that were filed for local and national broadcast.
Without the support of this grant none of these efforts would be possible and our audience would
not be growing as it currently is nor would the be as engaged with their community and the
world as they currently are.