Advertise on podcast: Saving Stories

In this special September 11th edition of WUKY's oral history series Saving Stories, Doug Boyd, director of UK's Nunn Center shares an interview he conducted with Kentucky native Janet Foushee. She was working as a flight attendant on the morning of September 11, 2001 and recalls how and when she found out about the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the crash of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Today marks the 25th anniversary of the attack that forever changed America.

In this episode of WUKY's Saving Stories, Nunn Center for Oral History Director Doug Boyd shares audio from previously unavailable interviews with Wendell Berry, who passed away recently at the age of 92. The excerpts were recorded originally in 1996 and come from a radio show called Down to Earth, a long form interview-based program by award-winning writer and producer D. Cameron Lawrence.

In this edition of WUKY's Saving Stories, Nunn Center Director Dr. Doug Boyd shares audio from two oral history interviews with former Urban League of Lexington president P.G. Peeples who recently passed away at the age of 81. Both audio clips take you inside the mind of one of Kentucky's most influential civil rights and community leaders.

April is National Donate Life month and WUKY's Saving Stories observes the occasion with this highly personal, fresh episode. Nunn Center Director Dr. Doug Boyd introduces us to two of his high school friends. But as you'll soon find out, this is a rather extraordinary reunion story.

March 2026 marks the 65th anniversary of the start of the Peace Corps and in this latest edition of WUKY's Saving Stories, Doug Boyd with the Nunn Center for Oral History in the UK Libraries shares audio from an interview with Sargent Shriver, the diplomat tabbed by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to lead the independent government agency that sends American volunteers to partner countries for two-year terms to work on grassroots projects in education, health, agriculture, and other sectors. Shriver told the interviewer why he thought they only had one chance to make it work.

March 2026 marks the 65th anniversary of the start of the Peace Corps and in this latest edition of WUKY's Saving Stories, Doug Boyd with the Nunn Center for Oral History in the UK Libraries shares audio from a Kentuckian who was one of the program's earliest participants. Angene Hopkins Wilson and her eventual husband Jack Wilson got accepted into the program and in 1962 were sent to Liberia. Angene talks about what happened next.

Compromise has always been critical to the success of our political system yet its sorely lacking in the lexicon today. Nunn Center Director Dr. Doug Boyd shares interviews from two former Kentucky politicians who describe a time when members of both political parties got along and even socialized together.

In this edition of WUKY's Saving Stories we remember pioneering filmmaker Elizabeth Barret who recently passed away. Nunn Center Director Dr. Doug Boyd highlights an interview with former Appalshop fundraiser, co-producer and researcher Judi Jennings, who helped get the Stranger with a Camera project off the ground. She also talks about the pivotal decision to have Barret serve as the film's narrator.

Doug Boyd, director of the Nunn Center for Oral History in the UK Libraries shares audio from a recent interview with Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton reflecting on the years-long team effort to celebrate the city's 250th anniversary.

October 28, the Lyric Theatre in Lexington's East End neighborhood celebrated 15 years of rebirth. The current iteration of the arts and cultural center was officially reopened in 2010. In a 2015 UK Nunn Center oral history interview local activist Tom Tolliver talks about the effort to revitalize the Lyric, which had been shuttered since 1963; a result of the end of city-wide desegregation of public spaces. At first Tolliver was not on board with the idea and he describes what actions changed his mind.

October 17 is an important day in the history of WUKY. The station formerly known as WBKY signed on for the first time on October 17, 1940. To mark the station's 85th anniversary, this special edition of Saving Stories with Dr. Doug Boyd from the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History in the UK Libraries, features an interview with Ruth Foxx Newborg, the first program director of the Beattyville, KY radio station.

Saving Stories returns with a fresh episode on the integration of baseball. Not the Jackie Robinson story but another event that happened right here in Lexington. Nunn Center director Dr. Doug Boyd shares audio from an oral history interview with Lexington native Bobby Flynn, who in 1947 helped the Lexington Hustlers become the first integrated baseball team in the South. Flynn was white but had been rejected by the white teams because he was small. In the interview Bobby Flynn tells the story of being asked by manager John 'Scoop' Brown to join the Negro League team, and the reaction from members of the local white community.

WUKY's Saving Stories celebrates Bourbon Heritage Month with this special episode. Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History Director Dr. Doug Boyd shares this 1991 interview with Frederick Booker Noe II, who discusses the bourbon industry and the history of Jim Beam. The Nunn Center has conducted more than one hundred bourbon-related interviews spanning generations of famous personalities, but it wasn't until recently that Boyd and staff discovered this rare conversation between Noe and a Kentucky middle school student. The interviews were part of an educational media project under the direction of Henderson County North Middle School teacher Roy Pullam.

This week marks the 80th anniversary of the US bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which essentially brought about the end of World War II. In this special edition of Saving Stories Doug Boyd, director of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History in the UK Libraries shares an interview from a survivor of the bombing of Nagasaki.

As 250 Lex continues to celebrate Lexington's culinary traditions this month, we're highlighting this interview with Mamadou Savane. In 2018 the Nunn Center collaborated with Vanessa Grossl to interview immigrant entrepreneurs. The resulting project was called Savor, immigrant entrepreneur oral history project. Grossl conducted 20 interviews, many of which were conducted with food entrepreneurs here in Lexington. One of those individuals was Mamadou Savane. Better known to all of us as Sav. He talks about opening his West African restaurant (Sav's Grill) and starting a side ice cream business (Sav's Chill) that eventually became his primary venture which today we know as Sav's Gourmet Ice Cream.