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We visit the Elizabethton-Carter County Public Library and talk with archivist Joe Penza about the collection of historical items there, as well as a new grant the Archives has received.

In a special fundraising edition of “Vital Voices,” we’re joined by Marat Moore, a writer, photographer, activist, and former coal miner, who speaks about her loyalty to WETS and Public Radio over the years.

It’s a story repeated often in the mountains of Appalachia. A family has to leave the homeplace in search of employment. Missy Jones had to leave her home in Letcher County, Kentucky, for that reason. But in her new home 3 ½ hours away, she pays homage to the cooking of Eastern Kentucky.

We talk with Dr. Evan A. Kutzler from Western Michigan University about an 1898 cookbook that has been revived. He is the editor of From Biscuits to Lane Cake: Emma Rylander Lane’s “Some Good Things to Eat,” a reprint edition published by Mercer University Press in 2023. The Lane Cake was mentioned by Harper Lee in her novel To Kill a Mockingbird. The Alabama legislature has named it Alabama’s official “state dessert.”

Dr. Ronald E. Beller, President of East Tennessee State University from 1980-91, died on April 6, 2024, at the age of 88. This interview with him, from the WETS archive, was recorded on May 2, 2003.

With the Memorial Day holiday weekend upcoming, we get important boating safety tips from Matt Cameron, with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, the organization responsible for patrolling the state’s waterways.

We look back 63 years to a turning point in world history with Dr. Eduardo Zayas-Bazán, who, as a Cuban exile, participated in the Bay of Pigs Invasion on the southwestern coast of Cuba in April of 1961.

We hear a voice familiar to public radio listeners across the country: that of Larry Groce, creator of the program “Mountain Stage,” produced by West Virginia Public Broadcasting for over 40 years. Larry hosted the program from 1983 until 2021, when West Virginia native Kathy Mattea took over the hosting duties. In addition to the history of the program, we discuss a new compilation album, “Live on Mountain Stage: Outlaws and Outliers.”

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.

Dr. Colin Baxter, Professor Emeritus of History at East Tennessee State University, explains how Kingsport, Tennessee, and Hawkins County, Tennessee, helped win World War II, through the production of an explosive called RDX.