Vital Voices

Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon was a member of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville for over 50 years. She was best known through her stage persona, Minnie Pearl. We talk with Belmont University's Don Cusic, co-author of the new biography Howdy! The Minnie Pearl Story, published in 2026 by the University of Tennessee Press.

We visit a kitchen in Scott County, Virginia, where late summer means the making of the garden-clearing relish known as chow-chow.

Dr. Kirk Pomper at Kentucky State University discusses the cultivation and uses of the pawpaw, the largest edible fruit native to North America.

In the second part of our interview, Retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Miles Burdine of Kingsport, Tennessee, continues his story about living with PTSD.

Retired U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Miles Burdine, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Kingsport Chamber of Commerce, shares his story of dealing with PTSD that resulted from his three deployments with the Marines in the Middle East.

Our topic is the recent outbreak of Cyclosporiasis in the United States, and our guest is Dr. William Schaffner, Professor of Preventive Medicine in the Department of Health Policy and Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

We learn about the valuable work of a new member of the police force in Johnson City, Tennessee.

Kingsport, Tennessee, lays claim to a recipe for Long Island Iced Tea that originated in the 1920s. We discover how city leaders are using that history to promote tourism.

We remember one of the leading figures in the field of Southern barbecue. Larry Proffitt, second-generation owner of Ridgewood Barbecue in Bluff City, Tennessee, died on June 20, 2026. The Ridgewood has been in the same location and in the same family since 1948.

John U. Bacon's book The Gales of November is a New York Times non-fiction best-seller. In this second part of our interview, Bacon speculates about the causes of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which went down in the waters of Lake Superior on November 10, 1975.

We contemplate the final hours of the freighter The Edmund Fitzgerald, with author John U. Bacon.

In part two of our look at the life of First Lady Edith Bolling Wilson, a native of Wytheville, Virginia, we visit with Farron Smith. She and her husband Bill have taken on the mission of seeing that the second wife of President Woodrow Wilson is never forgotten.

In the first of two programs, we explore the life and legacy of Edith Bolling Wilson, the second wife of President Woodrow Wilson, and we consider how she is remembered in her hometown of Wytheville, Virginia. Our guest is Dr. Adam Manuel from the Edith Bolling Wilson Birthplace Museum. This program includes a very rare recording of Edith's voice, from 1949.

East Tennessee State University scholars Dr. Lee Bidgood and Dr. Thomas Burton discuss the stories and songs of the nomadic group known as the Scottish Travelers.

Our guest is Scott Simon, host of NPR’s “Weekend Edition Saturday.” We discuss his latest book, Ulysses S. Cat and Other Animals I Have Known.

World War II historian Dr. Stephen Fritz discusses Adolf Hitler's role as military leader.

We take a tour through Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia with Robert Sorrell, author of the book Secret Appalachian Highlands: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure.

In this edition of “Vital Voices,” we examine the problem of hunger in Appalachia and what one organization is doing about it. Feeding Southwest Virginia is marking 45 years of service to a region where one child in every five is facing hunger. Our guest is Rachel Garnett with Feeding Southwest Virginia.

On December 18, 2025, the Lumbee Fairness Act was signed into law, giving full federal recognition to the tribe for the first time. Our guest, Dr. Lawrence Locklear, is an enrolled citizen of the Lumbee Tribe and Director of Southeast American Indian Studies at the University of North Carolina Pembroke.

We discuss the life and legacy of Ron Gonnella, one of Scotland's most influential fiddlers. Our guest is Dr. Jane MacMorran, a former United States National Fiddling Champion and Director of Appalachian, Scottish, and Irish Studies at East Tennessee State University.

Knoxville author Marilyn Mascaro writes of the coming of the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, through the perspective of her ancestors.