Advertise on podcast: Radio Boise Podcast

Community radio has a story worth telling — and Wayne Birt has been part of it for decades. In this special episode, we sit down with Radio Boise Program Manager Wayne Birt, who's been with the station since nearly the beginning and has been part of the community radio world since the 1980s. From the roots of community radio in the 1970s, to the Prometheus Radio Project's barn raisings of the early 2000s, to the fight to preserve independent voices amid waves of media consolidation, Wayne has a wealth of stories to share. He's also an absolute blast to talk to! As Radio Boise celebrates 15 years on the air during this season's Radiothon, we look back at where community radio came from, why it matters, and what it takes to keep independent, community-powered media alive.

Business partnerships are far more intimate than most people give them credit for—so why do we enter them without planning how they will end? In this episode, we sit down with Kelsey Jae, founder of Law for Conscious Leadership, a Boise-based attorney with dual degrees in law and public policy from Pepperdine University who helps values-driven leaders navigate legal frameworks with emotional intelligence. Together, we break down why business is fundamentally built on relationships, why every serious joint venture needs a thoughtful exit strategy, and how the core negotiation skills used to structure conscious businesses seamlessly transfer into Kelsey's other work as an amicable divorce attorney. Whether you're launching a company with a co-founder or rethinking how we navigate life's big legal transitions, this conversation exposes the surprising power of learning how to leave well.

Hosted by Esteban Anastasio. The portal to a new and weird world begins with Miles Davis, with his track from his experimental electronic jazz fusion era, the title cut of this episode. Followed by Amina Hocine with ātamōn I . Enjoy and be challenged, both at the same time. music merch community ātamōn I

Hosted by Rebecca Evans. Ken trades his co-host hat for that of a filmmaker, his primary vocation. They talk about their first documentary film Bravo: Common Men, Uncommon Valor.

When we walk through Boise today, we see tree-lined streets, historic homes, familiar neighborhoods, and local shops. But have you ever wondered how those places came to be—and what the city looked like before it was the Boise we know today? In this episode, we’re exploring the history of Boise through the details that make a city feel like home: its trees, its neighborhoods, the transportation systems that helped it grow, and the many little grocery stores that once dotted the streets of Hyde Park and the North End. Our guide is Barbara Perry Bauer, a local historian and founder of TAG Historical Research & Consulting. For more than three decades, Barbara has researched Idaho’s historic places and uncovered the stories behind the buildings, streets, and communities we often take for granted. Her work includes exploring how Boise’s streetcar system shaped neighborhood development and documenting the dozens of small grocery stores that once served the North End—not just as places to buy food, but as gathering places where neighbors connected. Barbara helps us see how our city’s history shapes how people moved around, where they shopped, how neighborhoods took shape, and even how the landscape around us came to look the way it does.

Hosted by Esteban Anastasio. First off, yon namesake, Why Patterns by Nils Vigeland and Morton Feldman. A work for flute, glockenspiel, and piano you say? This is for you. Followed by Bill Baxter's Ambient Space Drift Music V. Only the choice stuff here. Enjoy.

Hosts Hailee Lenhart-Wees and Leslie Bing go guest-less and riff on signs of aging; if they're at the point in their friendship where they should be sharing location with each other on their phones; Leslie's basic girl phobias; Hailee's executive dysfunction; big regrets; Hailee's complicated family tree; and their unsolicited advice for comics.

Today, we’re talking about a challenge facing rural communities across Idaho and beyond: how to pay for the water infrastructure that keeps small towns running. Whether a community serves a few hundred people or hundreds of thousands, the cost of building, upgrading, and maintaining safe, reliable water systems doesn’t necessarily shrink with the population. In smaller communities, those costs can be especially difficult to manage when spread across a smaller customer base. Joining us is Chelsea Chambers, a Funding Solutions Specialist at Merrick & Company, who helps communities navigate complex funding opportunities and secure and manage financing for water infrastructure projects. A Boise State University graduate with a background in technical writing and communications, Chelsea brings a focus on strategic planning, collaboration, and telling the stories that help communities move projects forward. She also brings a strong commitment to public service and environmental stewardship through her involvement with organizations including the Idaho Environmental Forum, the American Water Works Association, and the Pacific Northwest Clean Water Association.

8-year-old Creighton joins hosts Hailee Lenhart-Wees and Leslie Bing for a rousing episode of the Boise Comedy Sessions. You'll want to listen to hear a kid completely burn a 31-year-old woman, learn that Marie Antoinette actually actually said "Let them eat cake," and find out what he thought of seeing comedian Brian Regan live.

Boise comic Sophie Hughes joins hosts Hailee Lenhart-Wees and Leslie Bing to talk about filming her special, her insane start in comedy, and how she's feeling about the current political climate in Idaho.

In rural Idaho, your doctor may need to deliver a baby one day—and know how to treat a rattlesnake bite the next. And in a state ranked dead last in the nation for physicians per capita, getting those doctors here matters. In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Alexis Ericsson, a Soda Springs native and Idaho WWAMI graduate now beginning her Family Medicine Residency in Boise. We talk about why WWAMI is so important to Idaho, what makes rural medical training unique, and why rural doctors need to be prepared to care for just about anything—and anybody. We also discuss the importance of rural residency programs, building Idaho's medical workforce, and creating a path for Idaho students like Alexis to train here, stay here, and serve the communities they call home.

Hosted by Esteban Anastasio. The title says it all. This is a piece by minimalist, drone, computer composer and mathematician Catherine Christer Hennix from 2023. Enjoy.

Hosted by Rebecca Evans and Ken Rodgers. Matt Bunk is an interdisciplinary artist obsessed with death, memory, community, and their interplays. He is a founding member of the curated happening collective Address Book and a proud field worker for the Ecogeoglyphic Observatory. His poetry can be found in outlets like Elsewhere: A Journal of Place, Oroboro, and Paper Plane Press. He makes music with bands including All Around Cowboy and Teal's Wedding Band

Jonathan Kuntz returns to take a deep dive into predatory gambling. Moving beyond ethics and morals, this episode brings hard stats and real-world examples to unpack how modern gambling targets teens, drains middle-class savings, and impacts banks. Jon is a professor emeritus at Boise State University's College of Business and Economics. He has studied gambling policy and its economic impacts for decades and serves as chairman of the national board of the Stop Predatory Gambling Foundation. His latest concerns extend into the rapidly expanding world of prediction markets—where billions of dollars can be wagered on everything from elections to sporting events.

Congress, political parties, and elections can seem complicated from the outside. But how did we get here, and what does it actually take to become a candidate? We recently spoke with Charles Hunt, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Boise State University. Hunt earned his Ph.D. in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland, and his research focuses on Congress, congressional elections, representation, and political candidates. He’s also the author of Home Field Advantage, which examines the role a candidate’s local roots can play in congressional elections. In our conversation, we covered the history of how we became Democrat vs. Republican, dabbled into how Congress and congressional campaigns work, and what it takes for people without political experience, but may be just as qualified, to run for office.