KU News Release

Kansas Public Radio to air local edition of popular ‘StoryCorps’

LAWRENCE — Kansas Public Radio is partnering with the Kansas Humanities Council to bring the StoryCorps Door-to-Door project to Baldwin City.

StoryCorps is a national oral history project in which peoples’ stories are recorded and aired on National Public Radio. The Kansas Humanities Council’s statewide initiative, “Kansans Tell Their Stories,” invites local communities and their residents to preserve and interpret their stories. KPR, based at the University of Kansas, is helping bring the two projects together.

Baldwin City’s chautauqua, or public educational assembly, takes place June 22-23. At the event, 16 people will be interviewed at length about their lives, important events, friendships, jobs and outlook on life. KPR will edit the interviews and plans to broadcast many of them on “Morning Edition,” the station’s signature morning newsmagazine.

“StoryCorps is so popular with our listeners,” said Janet Campbell, general manager of KPR. “We are thrilled to support bringing it to Kansas. We’re excited that Kansans’ stories will now be a part of the project.”

“We’re incredibly pleased to have KPR as our partner,” said Julie Mulvihill, executive director of the Kansas Humanities Council. “It’s a perfect fit.”

StoryCorps is featured regularly on Friday mornings on KPR as part of “Morning Edition.” The series has aired on NPR since 2003. More than 10,000 people have recorded their stories at several StoryCorps sites, including Grand Central Station in New York City, at mobile recording booths that tour the country and at community events. Other stories were recorded as part of the the Griot Initiative aimed at recording African-Americans or “do it yourself” recordings done at home.

StoryCorps interviews can be heard online. All StoryCorps interviews are archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

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