Overview: This is Adam Williams’ annual summer update episode, where he catches his breath in the recording schedule and takes a few minutes to summarize where the podcast has been and where it’s going.
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SHOW NOTES, LINKS, CREDITS & TRANSCRIPT
The We Are Chaffee podcast is supported by Chaffee County Public Health.
Along with being distributed on podcast listening platforms (e.g. Spotify, Apple), We Are Chaffee is broadcast weekly at 2 p.m. on Tuesdays, on KHEN 106.9 community radio FM in Salida, Colo.
We Are Chaffee Podcast
Website: wearechaffeepod.com
Instagram: instagram.com/wearechaffeepod
CREDITS
We Are Chaffee Host, Producer, Photographer & Website Manager: Adam Williams
We Are Chaffee Engineer & Producer: Jon Pray
We Are Chaffee Community Advocacy Coordinator: Lisa Martin
Director of Chaffee County Public Health and Environment: Andrea Carlstrom
TRANSCRIPT
[Intro music, guitar instrumental]
Adam Williams [0:12]: Hey, everybody. This is the We Are Chaffee podcast and I’m Adam Williams.
This is my annual summer update episode, where I catch my breath in the recording schedule and take a few minutes to summarize for you where we’ve been and where we’re headed.
If you have missed out on listening to some episodes in the past year, or the past three years, or just have never scrolled down through the podcast archive, either at wearechaffeepod.com or on your podcast player, like Apple or Spotify— If you haven’t scrolled down and taken in the overall collection of people who’ve joined me on this show, I encourage you to do that, because we now have nearly 90 episodes out there, in which we’ve learned from and dived deep into the stories and insights of so many topics and experiences.
We’ve talked about all the human things, including social and political challenges, history, spirituality and faith, identity and death, grief and loss and resilience, substance abuse and recovery, nature and environment, journalism and community, business and entrepreneurship, housing affordability, mental health and other aspects of health, like Alzheimer’s and traumatic brain injuries and others.
[1:22]: Among the latest episodes, I talked with rancher and memoirist Lara Richardson and with Reed Dils, who was a pioneering river outfitter in the Arkansas Valley 50 years ago. I talked with Coleen and John Graybill about John’s great-grandfather, the iconic photographer Edward Curtis. And MaryAnn Longwell, a mental health counselor, about our birthrights to grow, heal and evolve.
And there have been the artists Krista Jarvis and Jess Oatman, the founder of Trail Sisters and now Chaffee County Commissioner Gina Lucrezi. Tracy Arthur Kachadourian and I talked about conflict resolution, and I talked about affordable housing with Paul Andrews.
[2:03]: I immensely enjoyed talking with Rama Yigit, of Rama’s Bread, as well as Johnny Buschmann, whose episode about surviving the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School and his path of love and forgiveness in the decades since is so incredibly inspiring … Johnny’s episode is one of the most listened to in the three years that this show has been going.
I could go on. I cannot tell you how many favorites I have in the archive. It’s a long list.
I’ll say yet again, the personal is universal. What we experience as individuals is relatable to others. That’s one of the special aspects of a podcast like this. Everyone has stories and insights to share, and often they are willing to share them when someone asks and takes a sincere interest in listening. That’s part of why I love doing this work so much.
[2:58]: That said, it’s time to let you all in on what lies around the bend. This feels bittersweet. The We Are Chaffee podcast is coming to its end. The last episodes will be released in September. I said it’s bittersweet, because I have enjoyed doing this podcast the past three years and would have liked to continue it indefinitely. There are too many conversations still out there to be had with the folks of Chaffee County, too many people who deserved the opportunity to share their stories. Hundreds of neighbors. Thousands.
[3:32]: At the same time, I am incredibly grateful to have had this opportunity at all, let alone for three years’ running and for nearly 100 episodes. For context, 90% of podcasts don’t make it past episode three. Only around 5% live as long as ours has. So, we’ve done something here.
[3:56]: As you might recall, this podcast has been grant-funded through Chaffee County Public Health, as part of the larger We Are Chaffee community storytelling initiative. That funding has run its course. Other funding support has not materialized and I decided it was time to accept that.
[4:13]: So, we have a handful of episodes left, running on the usual schedule until the end of September. I hope you’ll hang around to hear from the amazing guests yet to come. As always, thank you all for being here. And til the next episode, as we say at We Are Chaffee, “Share stories, make change.”
[Outro music, horns and guitar instrumental]
