Big Talk

Our chat with NAACP branch president Maqubè Reese and her colleagues and friends, Monroe County Prosecutor Erika Oliphant and legal researcher and advocate Guy Loftman, continues this week. Reese and Loftman recount how their childhood families nurtured their worldviews and their future. Oliphant talks about her responsibility to address wrongs and inequalities within the county judicial system. Part 1 aired …

Joining us in the WFHB studios with her colleagues, Monroe County Prosecutor Erika Oliphant and legal activist Guy Loftman, Reese talks about the historic civil rights organization and the work it’s doing locally. She stresses the importance of thinking on a micro level, acknowledging injustice and racism in the wide world but concentrating on listening and working here and now …

The executive director of the nonprofit antipoverty organization, the Rev. Forrest Gilmore, joins us again to update listeners on the state of homelessness and hunger in Monroe County and what Beacon is doing about those problems. Formerly known as the Shalom Center, the organization changed its name in 2020 to better reflect the various projects and programs it runs to …

She was the first hire of the new nonprofit in early 2021. The executive director of the Lake Monroe Water Fund, Michelle Cohen, hit the ground running and already has started programs to help upstream landowners control erosion and runoff that affects the waters of the lake. One of 48 such fundraising and activist organizations around the world. the Water …

Last week, Jeffrey began telling the genesis story of Bloomington’s community radio station. When he left off, the dreamers who’d held on to the idea for years were stymied once again. He picks up this week with the ultimately successful start up of WFHB. He also talks about his lifelong love for broadcast radio and his ham radio set up …

He held on to the dream for almost two full decades before WFHB went on the air. While he was living in a converted garage with no plumbing in 1975, Jeffrey Morris began making plans to start up a community radio station here in Bloomington. A revolving cast of friends and like-minded dreamers came and went as the years passed …

A veteran of community radio as well as nonprofit fundraising, Brooke Turpin came to WFHB during the pandemic and has professionalized the station’s efforts to support and market itself. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Turpin worked for the grandmama of community radio, KPFA in Berkeley. The flagship of the Pacifica Network of 140 nonprofit, community radio …

He was named the City of Bloomington Utilities department director when John Hamilton took over as mayor in 2016. At the time, the city’s drinking water delivery system was under fire both locally and nationally for taste and disinfectant-level issues. Since then, under Vic Kelson’s leadership, the Utilities department has refined its water cleansing process. As Lake Monroe ages, the …

With a dizzying array of private and public landowners as well as numerous governmental entities all responsible for the water that eventually drains into Lake Monroe from its plus-400 square mile watershed, someone needs to tie all those parties together to work to keep the lake clean. Maggie Sullivan, an environmental engineer, is the watershed coordinator for the Friends of …

With days to go before the deadline to vote, Big Talk has completed its second run of editions featuring candidates in the Democratic primary for Bloomington mayor. No Republican has declared as yet for the general election. An Independent has filed as a candidate. Big Talk will invite any and all candidates to appear on the program in the weeks …