Homelessness is not just an issue for big cities like San Francisco or New York City. Across America, communities large and small are struggling to provide shelter to people without housing. In Charleston, West Virginia, government and community approaches to help the unhoused have created more debate on an issue that is already divisive. Earlier this year, this episode received a second place award from the Virginias AP Broadcasters for Best Podcast.
Today Concord University is celebrating a new broadcasting facility on its campus. West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Jessica Lilly, a Concord graduate who teaches at the university, spearheaded efforts to get a college radio station up and running.
WVCU, Mountain Lion Radio, can be found online and at 97.7 FM on the radio dial in and around Athens, West Virginia. The station first began broadcasting May 1, 2015, and was granted licensure by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last year. Concord’s application was approved to build and operate an LP-FM educational station on the Athens campus.
Mt. Lion Radio now features a variety of music, news & public affairs, and local sports coverage. Content is created and curated by students, faculty, and staff at Concord, and members of the media are invited to get involved.
Concord University’s president Dr. Kendra Boggess said during an event to celebrate the station that the Mt. Lion Radio is directly in line with the university’s mission to provide a quality, liberal-arts-based education, to foster scholarly activities and to serve the regional community.
“The station will provide hands-on experience in broadcasting,” Boggess said, “as well as in elements of actually running a federally regulated organization.”
Follow the station on Twitter @WVCUConcord and on Facebook.
On this West Virginia Week, Gov. Jim Justice declared a state of emergency for the state’s educational system. We’ll also learn more about a group of organizations asking the state Supreme Court to side with Cabell County and Huntington in their lawsuit against opioid distributors. And we’ll hear about a South Charleston landfill listed as a Superfund site.
Founded in 2004, the Appalachian Prison Book Project has mailed more than 70,000 books to people incarcerated in Appalachian prisons, with the goal of expanding access to books and educational resources.
Multiple West Virginia politicians have voiced their support of student athletes protesting a transgender student’s inclusion in a track and field event.