The new season of Wyoming Public Radio’s podcast "The Modern West" just dropped its first episode. But the format is pretty different from how we’ve done things in the past. This season, we’re going out in the field with some of the reporters you’ll recognize from "Open Spaces." "The Modern West’s" host and producer Melodie Edwards talked to Kamila Kudelska about the decision to try something new this time around.
Editor's Note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Kamila Kudelska: So tell me about the very different format of this season of the podcast and why are we breaking the mold.
Melodie Edwards: It just seems like we have such a gift with the reporters that we have at this station, especially right now. There's an amazing talent in this newsroom right now, and they are out there doing these great stories. I know as a reporter who is out there in the field, that it really kind of can be frustrating, because you'll go out and do this really great story, and then you have to make it into a teeny tiny story for air. So this is an opportunity for them to try doing something a little longer with some of the stories that they really love the best. We've got some really fun stuff happening, and we can take our listeners out all over Wyoming and beyond, out in the field and just experience some of these really great stories that these guys are doing.
KK: Yeah, I've seen the lineup and it looks like we're getting an action-packed season. What are some of the big adventures we'll hear about?
ME: Episode one – which actually has already come out this week so people can go and listen to it right this minute, if they wanted – is Hannah Habermann’s. Folks might actually remember when she did this story for Open Spaces. She went out on the anniversary 100 years after Eleanor Davis was the first recorded woman to climb Grand Teton and climbed this mountain with a group of other women on that anniversary. So she had this great experience, and had to do a story that was only five minutes long for Open Spaces. But now she's going to have an opportunity for the Modern West to share the full experience of that. It was actually a very personal experience for her, so that's another whole aspect of the story that she gets to include in this podcast version.
We've also got Caitlin Tan. She went to Atlantic City, which is on South Pass. Everybody knows that drive but maybe you haven't stopped over and gone and visited Atlantic City, which is a really cool historic little town. But Caitlin did! And she happened to be on her bicycle when she did it. She encountered all these other bicyclists and hikers, and she was like, ‘What is going on here?’ So she did a really great podcast version of that story. So we get to go to Atlantic City and just wander all around, talking to all the crazy characters that live in Atlantic City. So that's going to be episode two. We have many adventures in this season.
KK: Can you delve into the stories that you're contributing for the season?
ME: Sure, I will be doing an episode about the arrival of wolves. They migrated down from Yellowstone and wandered into Colorado, and as many people know, Colorado is now actually introducing wolves in the state. They just released their first ten. But these wolves actually migrated in naturally, and that was five years before this. So those ranchers have had five years of experience to kind of pass along that information. I think that there has just been, in the reporting about the arrival of the wolves there, a lot of us-versus-them, and so what I really wanted to do is go to my own community where I knew a lot of people and show that there's actually much more nuanced feelings about these wolves. I think it's been really cool to just go out and hear from lots and lots of different points of view.
The other story that I am working on is going to be episode five. I went to the Wyoming Honor Farm, which is actually a minimum security prison. They're actually out growing the hay, feeding the hay to the cattle. When I was up there it was calving season so they were spending all day, hours and hours, taking care of the mama cows as they were giving birth and bringing all of these babies into the world. There were baby calves everywhere – it was adorable. But the really cool thing is that they have these prisoners also training wild horses. They have a collaboration with the BLM [Bureau of Land Management], and they are taking horses when they're pretty young. These prisoners, who are really struggling – they're imprisoned, and unable to leave, and here it is that they're dealing with a wild horse that was wild and now it's imprisoned and dealing with the feeling of like, ‘Okay, how do I come to terms with being a tame animal now?’ And so the parallels were really interesting. I got to talk to two prisoners who were very articulate about that, how that has been therapeutic for them to be working with these animals. Boy, they had really bonded with these horses. I got to get out into the corrals with them as they were training them. I'm really excited to share that story.
KK: Well, it sounds like a very exciting season. When can we start hearing these episodes? And where can we find them?
ME: So the first episode just dropped and that was Hannah Habermann’s episode about climbing Grand Teton. Then episode two is coming out in two weeks, and that one will be the one with Caitlin Tan visiting Atlantic City on South Pass. And every two weeks after, every other Wednesday, we will be having a new episode. So yeah, enjoy finding those in your feed wherever it is that you get podcasts.
Catch new episodes of "The Modern West" here.
