Podcasts Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Encore: The Love Of Competition, Inside Appalachia

Appalachians love to compete. Whether it’s recreational league softball, a turkey calling contest or workplace chili cook offs, Mountain folks are in it to win it. But there’s more to competing than just winning or losing. In this show, we’ll meet competitors who are also keepers of beloved Appalachian traditions.

Appalachians love to compete. Whether it’s recreational league softball, a turkey calling contest or workplace chili cook offs, Mountain folks are in it to win it.

But there’s more to competing than just winning or losing.

In this show, we’ll meet competitors who are also keepers of beloved Appalachian traditions.

In This Episode:

Musgrave Reports From The Mountain Mushroom Festival

Tina Caroland shows off a morel mushroom at the Mountain Mushroom Festival in Irvine, Kentucky. Caroland has demonstrated how to fry morels at the festival for about 15 years. She purchased morels for a recent year’s cooking demonstration because Caroland and her family were slow to find morels at the start of the season.

*Credit: Nicole Musgrave/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Each spring, people take to the woods in search of morels, a seasonal favorite throughout Appalachia, and they inspire all kinds of competition.

Folkways Reporter Nicole Musgrave went to the Mountain Mushroom Festival in Irvine, Kentucky and found people looking for the most mushrooms — the biggest mushrooms — and the tastiest way to eat mushrooms.

An Accident Of Appalachian History Led To A New Style of Pizza

In Wheeling, West Virginia, people are passionate about their pizza. People there say that an accident of history led to a new style of pizza – Appalachia’s contribution to America’s great regional pizza traditions. Folkways Reporter Zack Harold visited DiCarlo’s Famous Pizza to find out more.

*Credit: Zack Harold/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Ever live in a place where there’s a competition between two restaurants, and people sort of decide which team they’re on?

Folkways Reporter Zack Harold says people in Wheeling, West Virginia are passionate about their pizza. That’s because an accident of history led to a new style and who’s better/who’s best contest that’s been going on for decades.

Brave Kids Continue Eisteddfod Tradition

Eisteddfod is probably not a word that rolls off the tongue of everyone in Appalachia. But in Wales, it refers to a traditional music competition that goes back nearly 1,000 years. Immigrants brought the tradition to southern Ohio, where it has endured for generations. Thanks in part to some brave kids.

Folkways Reporter Capri Cafaro has this story.

Playing To Eat And Eating To Play

Jared Kaplan holds the game he designed with Chris Kincaid.

*Credit: Clara Haizlett/West Virginia Public Broadcasting*

Another competitive tradition that’s endured for generations is weekly board game night. Whether with family or friends, we play Monopoly, Settlers of Catan, and sometimes even Candyland.

Folkways Reporter Clara Haizlett reported on a board game that matches West Virginia’s favorite cryptids with some of its favorite places to eat.

A Southern Ohio Town Honors The Appalachian Connection To The NFL

Appalachia’s connection to professional football has always been a little loose. Lots of pro players have come out of Appalachia, but there’s really only one Appalachian NFL team — the Pittsburgh Steelers, or two if you count the Atlanta Falcons, as a listener recently argued we should.

It turns out, at least one other professional team has Appalachian DNA — the Detroit Lions. That franchise began as the Portsmouth Spartans in Portsmouth, Ohio, just across the river from Kentucky.

Sports fan and WVPB Reporter Randy Yohe has this story.

——

What about you? What kind of competitions are happening in your neck of the woods? Maybe you know about a sport or contest we’ve never heard about. Or someone there makes pizza like nobody else. Tell us about it. Email us at InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.

Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Charlie McCoy, The Steel Drivers, Larry Groce, David Mayfield, and Dean Martin.

Bill Lynch is our producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens. Zander Aloi also helped produce this episode.

You can find us on Instagram, Threads and Twitter @InAppalachia. Or here on Facebook.

Sign-up for the Inside Appalachia Newsletter!

Inside Appalachia is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

New Podcast Delves Into Morgantown Disappearance, W.Va. Counterculture

A podcast titled “I Was Never There” aims to shed new light on the disappearance, amidst a backdrop of the era’s “Back to the Land” movement.

The disappearance of Marsha Ferber has puzzled the Morgantown community for more than 30 years. Now, a podcast titled “I Was Never There” aims to shed new light on the disappearance, amidst a backdrop of the era’s “Back to the Land” movement.

The show’s first three episodes will be available this Thursday, June 9, wherever podcasts are heard.

Chris Schulz spoke with the podcast’s mother-daughter creators Karen and Jamie Zelermyer about the upcoming show.

Schulz: Jamie and Karen, thank you both so much for sitting down to speak with me today. Explain to our listeners what “I Was Never There” is. Karen, why don’t you start us off?

Karen: Well, it’s the story of Marsha Ferber, who disappeared in 1988. So it is a true crime podcast, but it’s much more than true crime. It’s my story and Jamie’s story. It’s the story of 1970s and 80s in West Virginia, and the movement of people who are looking to create an alternative life through the back to the land movement, and then creating alternative businesses co-ops and Marsha was an entrepreneur. So she established cooperative houses called the Earth House, and she established the Underground Railroad and the Dry House. So it really is a very rich, full story of that time period. And then she disappeared. And what happened.

Schulz: Jamie, what can you add to that?

Jamie: For many years, I have been wanting to tell the story of the time and place which was West Virginia in the 1970s and 80s. We realized that it was hard to just tell our story without telling Marsha’s story, and vice versa, because they were so interconnected. My mom had worked at the bar, my dad is on the police report as her attorney when she disappeared. The podcast, I think, is the story of a disappearance. And it is also the story of a time in a place which was this glorious time in West Virginia in the 1970s.

Schulz: Karen, why tell this story now after more than 30 years?

Karen: You know, Jamie is actually the one who’s best positioned to tell that story. We’ve had a long interest in wanting to tell the story of that time and place in West Virginia. And she knew what a devastating experience it was that she went missing, and had just how hard it was for many of us to find closure.

Schulz: Jamie, why did you want to tell this story now?

Jamie: Obviously, true crime is something that interests people these days. But for me, true crime doesn’t really resonate unless there’s a bigger story behind it. Unless you can really get to know the person and understand the world that they lived in and the circumstances. I feel like the story of the back to the land movement and the way Marsha lived her life and the way my mom lived her life is not so different, you know, in terms of what they were fighting for, those issues are still the same today. So I felt like the story was very contemporary, and that there was a lot for us to look at in terms of what they were doing back in the 70s and 80s. And how that would translate to today.

Schulz: How was the process of making a podcast?

Jamie: I had never done audio before. I come from a film and television background, and I feel like when people tell the story of the 70s to be very cliche in terms of the visuals. So I loved the idea of doing it without visuals. The true crime part was pretty intense. We worked closely with the Morgantown Police Department. That was not something that I had experience with in terms of, you have to be very careful. You don’t want to falsely accuse someone, you want to make sure you’re getting your facts right. So it was, you know, a new process for me, but how lucky to be able to do something new, and to do it as a mother-daughter.

Schulz: Karen, what about for you?

Karen: You know, my initial motivation was what a trip that would be, how fabulous it would be to be able to do a project with my kid. And I didn’t have a clue what that meant. And it became a much more intense, emotional experience than I ever intended. The processing between Jamie and I and my having to think about some of the stuff I did back then. What was I thinking? I mean, really, what was I thinking? I could have lost my kids. You know, I mean, there was just some crazy stuff happening. It was an amazing process.

Schulz: Can you talk about the role of counterculture, and I guess, to a certain extent, drugs in this story?

Karen: One of the ongoing conversations that we had with our producers, and I would be adamant about this: Marijuana is not a drug. It’s also a story of drugs. So for me, the counterculture was about marijuana, and it was about psychedelics. And it was about believing that we could create alternative economies that weren’t based on greed, that were based on cooperation and equity. That is what the counterculture was for me. When I say drugs, I mean, cocaine and heroin, and now opioids, right, in West Virginia. But back then, that wasn’t the case of the counterculture. And I think those drugs are life destroying, and we lost a lot of friends.

Schulz: Jamie, as somebody who was a child at this time, what was your perception of this lifestyle, That you were kind of brought into so young?

Jamie: I loved it. We had a lot of great adults around. And I think, as my mom said, we’ve lost a lot of friends. I think that there’s a lot of light and there’s a lot of dark and something can be both. And we’ve talked about that, about Marsha a lot. That she had a lot of light, she was this really positive force who really loved deeply. And she was a drug dealer, whether

Karen: Selling pot

Jamie: Selling pot, maybe others. I think an important part of the podcast was this, this back and forth, it was important to look at both sides of it. And the drug part was very complicated. Obviously, whether it was an intentional disappearance, or a murder or witness protection, or any number of the theories, most likely drugs were involved.

Schulz: What do you hope people walk away with having listened to the show?

Karen: I hope they walk away with an understanding that all of the problems that we were trying to get away from and reject are just as bad today, if not worse, and I hope they think “Wow, those folks really took some big risks.” I still think we can change those things. So I hope that people look at what we did and hear our story and say, ‘It’s time for me to try that now.’

W.Va. Podcast Reaches Millions Each Month

Radio and television shows that interview actors and have millions of listeners each month typically originate from New York or Los Angeles. But what about St. Albans, West Virginia?

A fun effort that started out as a Facebook page to discuss comic books and science fiction has blossomed into a podcast with millions of listeners.

Eric Douglas spoke with Michael Wall about how the podcast “Too Opinionated” began and an upcoming audio drama based on the pandemic.

Douglas: Tell me who you are first.

Michael Wall, author of the Meisterkhan web page and host of the “Too Opinionated” podcast.

Wall: My name is Michael Wall. I’m West Virginia raised. I grew up in Winfield, I live in St. Albans and have been here my entire life. I graduated from Marshall University. I’ve got 30 years of management experience. But none of that is the fun stuff, right.

Douglas: Which begs the next question, how does a typical West Virginia life lead you to now be the host of a podcast with, according to your website, 5 million listeners a month? How does one make that transition?

Wall: I’ll give you the quick version. The thing to know is that it’s always been about wanting to connect as a family. In 2013, I’m looking for a way to connect with my son to share all this nonsense that’s banging around in my head. So we came up with a Facebook page. And we just started sharing stories and memes and things that made us laugh as a way to connect, you know, father and son. Five years later, the page is doing really well. Brett, my son, comes to me and says, “I’d like to start a podcast.” I’m like, “Yeah, let’s do that.” We didn’t know anything about it, had no idea how to go about it, or what kind of technology we needed. It was terrible. But we never hid the fact that we didn’t know what we were doing. I think that just being authentic helped us grow an audience.

Douglas: So let’s unpack a couple of things here. First off, the website and Facebook page are called MeisterKhan. Explain what that means.

Wall: Growing up, my favorite Christmas show was “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”. MeisterBurger Burgermeister. So when I was growing up, every competition we had, a group of guys, we would compete to be called the Meister. That meant you were the best. So that’s the Meister. My favorite Star Trek movie is “Star Trek: Wrath of Khan”. When I started that Facebook page with Brett, I said nobody else is gonna have this name. Nobody.

Douglas: That definitely sets it apart.

Wall: And then we called the podcast “Too Opinionated” because, we thought, we’re generational, and we would have differing opinions on things and we will kind of battle that out. It’s changed some over time, but we’ve kept the name.

Douglas: For about five years, you were sharing memes on Facebook and entertaining yourselves and just having fun. Three years ago, you decided to do a podcast. When did it take off?

Wall: It’s been a slow roll, if you consider three years a slow roll, and it’s taken a lot of hard work. It’s been a lot of researching who’s representing someone and then reaching out, developing a pitch, reaching out to try to get that person on the show, and developing that relationship over time.

We’ve gotten to the point now where we’ve got a couple of dozen publicists/agents/managers that are actually sending us guests, so we’re not having to do as much legwork. We’re still trying to get what we would call bigger names, although we have had absolutely unbelievable guests.

When we started, it was mostly shows from the 80s and 90s, big names back then. Now, we’re getting people that are on shows that are on TV right now. I think that started to really open things up. We were kind of strategic about it, we tried to target people that already had a big audience on their own. So that when they were on the show, and then they shared the podcast, it would already have an audience waiting. And it just kind of snowballed.

Douglas: So, how many shows have you done?

Wall: About 350 episodes. We try to release at least four episodes a week. I’m still working during the day, but each episode between getting the guest, putting the editing in, plus actually recording the episode, we’re probably talking four to five hours of work per episode.

It’s not like most podcasts. They’re putting out an episode a week, or bi-weekly or monthly. We’re not like that. You’re going to get 15 to 20 episodes a month out of us. I’m biased, but I don’t think there’s anybody else there that’s getting the quality of guests that we’re getting, and putting out the content that we’re doing, which is part of the reason I think it’s starting to catch on.

Douglas: Tell me a little bit more about the audio drama that you’re doing?

Wall: So we got a good friendship with Jennifer Nash. She played Patrick Stewart’s daughter on an episode called “Inner Light” of “The Next Generation of Star Trek.” She was Bob Saget’s girlfriend in an episode of “Full House,” she was on “Home Improvement.” She had this idea to write an audio drama, based around stories around the pandemic, but in a positive light. So she solicited our little group of friends, and asked if we had any good stories, and I submitted one. Other people submitted them, and she wrote this just incredible script. And then we went out looking for actors. It’s so good that it wasn’t that hard to get really big name actors to agree to do it.

It took a while to get all of it done, especially during the pandemic. In LA, you couldn’t do anything together. So you had to do it by Zoom or remotely. It’s 10 episodes, they’re short. So the whole thing’s probably a couple hours long. We’re deciding if we’re gonna release it weekly or all at once. But I mean, it’s amazing. I got to act with Ed Asner, which is probably one of the last things that he got to do. Sherilyn Fenn is our main star. Wait till you hear Eric Roberts on this thing. It’s so good. It’s called “The Last Saturday Night”.

It gave us a chance to really work with some big names Ed Asner, Sherilyn Fenn from “Twin Peaks,” Eric Roberts, Charlene Tilton, she played Lucy on “Dallas,” Tim Russ from “Star Trek: Voyager,” it’s just some big names.