Join us for part two of our interview with Dr. Guy Consolmagno, S.J., Director of the Vatican Observatory in Rome.

A rebroadcast of our interview with Guy Consolmagno, Director of the Vatican Observatory in Rome.

We travel to Hiltons Memorial United Methodist Church in Scott County, Virginia, to witness the fall ritual of making apple butter, with members of the congregation.

Kentucky State University in Frankfort is the only full-time pawpaw research program in the world. We talk with Dr. Kirk Pomper, Professor of Horticulture, about the largest edible fruit native to North America.

The late B.B. King would have turned 100 on September 16, 2025. This program features excerpts from “Vital Voices” host Fred Sauceman’s 2002 visit with King in Indianola, Mississippi, where King played gospel and blues music on streetcorners as a young man.

We revisit our interview with Mary Louise Kelly, co-host of NPR’s “All Things Considered.” Her book It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs is now out in paperback.

We visit a home kitchen in Southwest Virginia to learn about the late summer ritual of making the garden-clearing relish known as chow-chow. Kay Wade and her family have been using the same chow-chow recipe since 1952.

In an interview from 2003 that has never been aired before, the late Frederick “Pal” Barger, founder of the regional restaurant chain Pal’s Sudden Service, talks about his business philosophy. With stores throughout East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, Pal’s became the first restaurant company in America to win the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Pal Barger died in October of 2020. August 23, 2025, would have been his 95th birthday.

We visit the tiny community of Broylesville, in Washington County, Tennessee, to talk with Cheryl Bennett. She and her husband Dwight own and live in the old Broylesville Mill, and they are documenting the history of mills throughout the region.

Dr. John Shelton Reed, an authority on all things Southern and a retired University of North Carolina sociology professor, returns to “Vital Voices.” This time his subject is a classic New Orleans cocktail, created in the 1890s. Dr. Reed’s book, The Ramos Gin Fizz, was recently published by the Louisiana State University Press as part of its Iconic New Orleans Cocktails series.