Advising Alger
On this edition of The Spark: Martha Woodroof steps aside and lends the interview chair to JMUPresident Jon Alger.
View ArticleHow I See Me In You
On this episode of The Spark: Martha Woodroof speaks with Jennifer Lockard Connerley, who paints portraits that, she admits, contain something of herself.
View ArticleA Finely Tuned Machine
On this edition of The Spark: Skilled piano technician John Schaldach shows there’s more ways than just performance to be involved in making beautiful music.
View ArticlePressing On
On This Edition of The Spark: Emily Hancock loves language and words, and also loves old-fashioned methods of printing them. She revels in using vintage foot-powered or hand-cranked presses, and...
View ArticleFor Love of the Stats
On this episode of The Spark: Rob Arthur is a Ph.D. cancer researcher at the University of Chicago. He also writes about baseball from a Sabermetric point of view for ESPN’s online arm, FiveThirtyEight.
View ArticleMule Smarts
On this episode of The Spark: A listener appended a note to her contribution requesting more stories about mules... so this week, Diane Sypes, who lives way off the grid in Hardy County, West Virginia,...
View ArticleComic Books for Life
Martha speaks with Sophia Weideman, who has been drawing cartoons her whole life, but it took a while for her to find her own superheroes.
View ArticleBanjo on the Brain
On this episode of The Spark: Two-time state banjo champion Seth Swingle. He was ten when he fell in love with the sound of the banjo at MerleFest. Now at twenty-five, he not only plays his instrument...
View ArticleOver Time: Riches to Rags
Barclay Rives describes his family as being on a riches to rags trajectory —he’s directly descended from politicians and landowners who were part and parcel of the Commonwealth’s Colonial History.
View ArticleHealing Horses
On this episode of The Spark: New Market’s Pat Murphy survived a truly horrible childhood that left her emotionally scarred in a number of ways. Including toting around a great fear of horses. She...
View ArticleFarmer's Son
On this episode of The Spark: Lawyer Nancy Lasater wrote a novel about a farm boy with dyslexia. When agents told her nobody would buy a book about dyslexia, she decided to publish it herself, after...
View ArticleDIY Vaudeville
On this episode of The Spark: Seven years ago Vaudevillian Carmel Clavin decided she wanted to make Staunton, Virginia, her home. And since it wouldn't feel like her home if she couldn't perform,...
View ArticleDealing with the Data in College Sports
On this edition of The Spark: Washington Post Reporter Will Hobson just published a five-part series addressing this question: Why do so many of the Power Five college's athletic programs, including...
View ArticleA Labrador Romance
On this episode of The Spark: For almost forty years, British-born Clare Senfield has been the doyen of Allegheny Kennels where she breads and trains and adores Labradors.
View ArticleBackyard Streetbeefs
On this episode of The Spark: Even the Friendly City of Harrisonburg has an underbelly of street rage... so how do you pursue conflict mediation when words fail... enter Chris Wilmore and Streetbeefs.
View ArticleA Novel Relationship
On this edition of The Spark, Martha Woodroof speaks with writer Erika Raskin. Erika grew up the child of Marcus Raskin (a human rights activist whom Dennis Kucinich called, "the dean of the American...
View ArticleThe Magic of Radio
On this edition of The Spark, Martha Woodroof sits down for a chat with Lulu Miller. Lulu lives half her life in Charlottesville, half in DC, and spends all her time making NPR’s wildly popular new...
View ArticleAn Eye For Eating
On this edition of The Spark, Martha Woodroof speaks with freelance, commercial photographer Ron Rammelkamp.Ron is not shy. His response to being laid-off by Rosetta Stone, was to knock on the doors of...
View ArticleBoutique Catering
On this edition of The Spark, Martha speaks with Mike Lund. Mike spent seven years in the kitchen of the famed Inn at Little Washington, working his way up to second-in-command under chef/owner Patrick...
View ArticleElementary Club Music
On this edition of The Spark: Martha speaks with Perry Shank. Mr. Shank teaches music to the lucky students of Smithland Elementary School in Harrisonburg. And yes, that involves singing and playing...
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