Raise Up Radio
So many good things developed during the pandemic. One of them originated at the University of North Texas in Denton and is called Raise Up Radio. Dr. Sarah Evans, an ex librarian was visiting with her colleagues about ways to increase sharing information from libraries in small communities during the shutdown. One solution was radio. “People in rural areas depend on radio,” she says. “It's a perfect medium for libraries to use.”
She managed to get a government grant to launch the program. It started in the community of Pottsboro, 60 miles from Denton. “We met with the library staff and residents to find out what they would like to learn more about. Students got involved and the thing that was mentioned most was raising chickens. They decided to interview experts in the business and create a 4-segment series of radio programs, each about 8 or 9 minutes long. These would be on the library's web site, with the ultimate goal of getting them on radio stations.”
Dr. Evans sent me the 4 segments on raising chickens. They all start with a young voice saying: “Welcome to a chicken fact broadcast brought to you by the egg-ceptional Pottsboro Area Library and Raise Up Radio.” Dr. Evans says the heart of the program is getting community members together, exploring different topics and then creating audio programs. “We want the programs to be meaningful to the communities.”
Grant money is available for libraries to get audio production equipment. “We have a tool kit for libraries who want to do this.”
The students who did the programs in Pottsboro were in grades 4 thru 12. Some parents got involved and learned something themselves. “We had a mom and her teenage daughter who were part of the program. The daughter was really interested in leaning about chickens but the mom was actually interested in learning about podcasting and audio production.”
Some libraries that signed up for the program are doing oral histories, getting stories and experiences from older residents and exploring how the school systems and other entitles got started. Dr. Evans says to keep interest up, each segment has a science experiment that families can do together. “We'll be exploring how to fit an egg into a bottle,” says the student narrator.
Sarah says it took about three months to get the project started. “There was really a lot of excitement about it. A couple of family members asked ‘when will we do another series of programs and what are they going to be about?'”
She says so many good things have come from Raise Up Radio. “Kids get experience in meeting different people and interviewing them, then editing the recorded interviews and producing a finished audio product.”