U of M Radio on Your Historic Dial Podcast

On September 17, 2019, award-winning broadcaster, journalist, and author Cokie Roberts passed away at the age of 75. In her memory, on this episode, we’ll share a recording of the speech that Roberts gave at the University of Minnesota Law School Commencement Exercises, held on Saturday, May 9, 1992 at Northrop Auditorium.

KUOM radio's Minnesota School of the Air series People Worth Hearing About first aired in 1969 with programs that featured biographies of prominent African Americans. In 1971, the program broadcast an interview with Dr. Joyce Jackson, the newly appointed Principal of Central High School in Minneapolis.

Four months after the 1984 presidential election, Geraldine Ferraro visited Minnesota where she was greeted by a large and receptive audience as the guest speaker for the Distinguished Carlson Lecture Series, sponsored by the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.  Interest was so great that after full capacity was reached in Northrop Auditorium, accommodations were made for a screening at Williams Arena on campus. The speech was also broadcast live on KUOM radio stations throughout the Twin Cities.

The program series People Worth Hearing About originated with The Minnesota School of the Air director, Betty Girling. The series first aired in 1969. In this episode, a feature on Maria Sanford is highlighted along with the behind-the-scenes decisions on how to produce the script.

This episode features a woman who achieved many notable firsts, a political leader who used her voice to better her community, implement and sustain diplomacy, and develop her own potentiality: Eugenie Anderson, the first woman to be named a United States Ambassador. A profile of Eugenie’s personal and professional life was featured on KUOM on “Minnesota Honor Roll,” a program of The Minnesota School of the Air - a series of educational radio programs designed for school-age children to listen to in the classroom.

From 1938-1979, the Minnesota School of the Air brought educational programs into the classrooms of Minnesota and beyond over radio airwaves and through tape transcription. This episode takes listeners to Metropolitan Stadium to learn how to stay dry on a rainy day. 

On this episode of U of M Radio on your Historic Dial take a field trip in sound to the Como Zoo in 1978 and hear a surprising story of an animal theft and why lions do not make good pets.

On this installment of "U of M Radio on your Historic Dial," we’ll travel to the St. Paul campus to "A Clinic That’s for the Birds" – which also happens to be the title of the December 8, 1977 episode of Look What We Found.  If you haven’t yet deciphered the title of the broadcast, we are going on an audio tour of the Raptor Center.  The Raptor Center is a research and rehabilitation center for birds of prey which today cares for approximately 800 ill and injured raptors each year.

Today’s field trip in sound on the program "Look What We Found" is more of a staycation.  On the November 17, 1977 episode, program announcers Walter, Patty, and Bill, gave a tour of the KUOM radio studios and interviewed the staff at the station. 

In this week’s episode of Look What We Found, titled “In A Vietnamese Kitchen,” the producers teach an important lesson about cultural understanding by starting a conversation about cuisine. While interviewing the owner of Bamboo Village, Patty asked, “What made you decide to open a restaurant?” She replied, “I like a place where we can exchange the culture between the Vietnamese and the American and have something more to show, you know? We have a chance to interact with the American, to meet them on a day-to-day basis.” Episode 2, Season 2 of "U of M Radio On Your Historic Dial."

This year for U of M Radio On Your Historic Dial we’re going on a field trip in sound and time to the 1977-1978 season of the Minnesota School of the Air to look at what we found after these recordings were digitized and we were finally able to listen.

This installment U of M Radio On Your Historic Dial features Margeret Hasse on the KUOM program Minnesota Issues in her role as Executive Director for the Minnesota Alliance for Arts in Education. The year was 1984 and plans were underway for the establishment of an arts high school in Minnesota. Governor Rudy Perpich had implemented a task force to conduct a feasibility study for the establishment of the school. Can you guess what school this would become? That’s right, Minnesota was already laying the groundwork for the Perpich Center for Arts Education that operates today in Golden Valley. Not everyone was in favor of establishing a school that would centralize funding for arts education in the state. Margaret Hasse and the Minnesota Alliance for Arts in Education had concerns about the establishment of the school.

In this episode of U of M Radio On Your Historic Dial, you’re going to hear about an explosive week on the University of Minnesota campus, which occurred during an era of global tension, when the political felt intensely personal, especially to students and other young people. Forty-five years ago this month, anti-war protests in and around the University of Minnesota boiled over as angry demonstrators and police clashed in the streets.

May 7 marked the anniversary of the Guthrie Theater’s first ever performance in 1963, a production of Hamlet starring George Grizzard and Jessica Tandy. In this episode of "U of M Radio On Your Historic Dial," we’ll hear Sir Tyrone Guthrie explain his vision of the future of American theater in his own words, followed by interviews with the Guthrie staff from ten years later.

Science is at the forefront of this episode of U of M Radio on Your Historic Dial. In the late 1980s, there was a growing consensus that within 20 years, we would see a dearth of graduates in science-based fields, an issue that spurred the creation of today’s featured program, "Science Lives: Women and Minorities in the Sciences."

It’s starting to feel like spring, or what this Minnesota transplant refers to as “outside time.” With so much natural recreation to offer, it’s no surprise that Minnesota has a strong culture of conservation that goes back decades. Earth Day isn’t until April 22, but on this week’s program, Down the Conservation Trail, we’re getting a head start.