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Big Talk

Bloomington is home to the most fascinating, creative, and successful people. Big Talk host Michael Glab goes one-on-one with different guests each week, learning about their lives, their hopes, and their accomplishments. Find out what makes this town so special on Big Talk. Tune in every Thursday at 5:30pm, immediately following the Daily Local News.

New Stages Executive Director Rick Armstrong

He staged plays with his stuffed animals when he was a little kid. Rick Armstrong went on to spend much of his adult life helping young people learn the workings of theater, both onstage and off. Now retired from Martinsville High School, he’s taken on the challenge of leading Stages Bloomington Theater Company, a unique program for young people. Hosts …

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Literary Journalist Jeff LaFave

There are still young, exciting writers in journalism, even as we tumble headlong into the social media age. Jeff LaFave began work as a reporter for the Bloomington Herald-Times and now teaches feature writing and literary journalism at Indiana University’s Media School. Writing news stories can be an art and, as LaFave explains to Alex Ashkin, it’s a gift people are …

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Artist, Musician, Stuntologist: Sam Bartlett

He went from making old time music to making apple cider in Vermont. Then Sam Bartlett crossed the country serving as cities’ and towns’ artist-in-residence and “public art instigator.” His life took another turn with the publication of several of his Stuntology books. Bartlett creates art along the edges and, so, must make it constantly to survive. Hosts Michael Glab …

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Morgenstern’s Books Leader: Sam Eads

She asked her husband, a neurosurgeon, what he might want to do as an alternative to the pandemic-stressed medical field. Samantha Eads at the time was a nurse practitioner working toward her doctorate in Integrative Health. Her husband said he dreamed of owning a bookstore. Two weeks later Rick Morgenstern put out the call for investors in the second incarnation …

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Bishop Bar Owner Steve Westrich

It’s an oddity in a college town: a bar/music venue that shies away from an undergrad clientele. In 2009, Steve Westrich was emerging from a traumatic romantic breakup and decided to try his hand at a new, risky business. Also unhappy with his career to that point, he wanted to open the kind of bar he’d like to hang out …

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IU Cinema Director Alicia Kozma

She begins her second year leading one of the nation’s premier repositories of film and video. Alicia Kozma has studied, researched, written, and taught about films and other media since she was a teenager. She has focused on labor in media — who works in movies and TV and what their working conditions are — as well as gender both …

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Organic Farmers Juan Carlos Arango & Robert Frew

They didn’t become farmers until they were in their fifties. Now, Juan Carlos Arango and Robert Frew are all in. Their Sobremesa Farm just outside New Unionville, northeast of Bloomington, provides them and their customers with nutritious food grown using sustainable permaculture practices and it is a destination for vacationers, campers, and visitors from around the world who want to …

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Documentary Filmmaker Mitch Teplitsky

His advice to aspiring filmmakers: “Choose subjects that you can’t stop thinking about and that you’re really passionate about.” Mitch Teplitsky arrived in South Central Indiana five years ago and when he discovered the town of Spencer and Owen County, he couldn’t stop thinking about them. Now he’s working on a documentary about the area. He’s passionate about the people …

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BSO Conductor Alejandro Gómez Guillén

Now more than a half century old, the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra continues to provide South Central Indiana with professional-quality symphonic music. When conductor Alejandro Gómez Guillén came aboard, he pledged to diversify the orchestra and broaden its playlist and has done so. The BSO concludes its 52nd season with two performances of Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” Sunday, May 22, 2022. …

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Hoosier Art Historian & Author Rachel Perry

She went from shoeing horses to playing a key role in preserving and administering Indiana’s art history. Rachel Perry’s new book, Painter of the Dunes: A Life of Frank Virgil Dudley, was published by the Indiana Historical Society Press late last year. Dudley’s oils depicting the state’s spectacular sand dunes off the southeast shore of Lake Michigan helped bring them …

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