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Tim Fox was literally born wrapped in a newspaper — his dad delivered him at home in Cortland and swaddled him in the Cortland Standard. And somehow, he has spent the 45 years since telling Central New York’s stories. In this episode of Truthfully, Tracy, Tim walks us through what it takes to last 45 years at one station in one community — what kept him here, what he gave up, and what he got in return. He talks about the years of hard news — writing the Challenger coverage alone in the newsroom, being caught between armed deputies and an armed family out in the country, having people come at him with pipe wrenches and pit bulls — and why he eventually made the turn toward something entirely different. Tell Me Something Good, the Friday evening segment he fought 40 years to get made, has generated more positive reaction than anything he has ever done in his career. People stop him on Salina Street. Emails pour in. And a story about two women selling hot dogs at Wegmans for the United Way hit harder than almost anything he expected. We also talk about what local television means to a community, what the current generation of journalism students at Newhouse is getting right, and what Tim wants CNY to carry forward. Be kind. Realize what we have here. Make the most of every day. 🍊 🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: [INSERT YOUTUBE LINK] 📱 @newschannel9syracuse | 🌐 localsyr.com📺 Bridge Street — weekdays on NewsChannel 9 WSYR🎬 Tell Me Something Good — Friday evenings at 5:25 📸 @lovingmycompany | 🛋️ @kayleenspicer | Season sponsor: @tangosquared ✨ A huge thank you to our season sponsor Tangosquared — you make Truthfully, Tracy possible every single week! Truthfully, Tracy is a CNY podcast dedicated to real conversations with real people. New episodes every week.

Rob O’Connor grew up in arcades. Spent 20 years in event planning. Helped his father build the Syracuse Nationals into one of the largest classic car shows in the country. Watched that same father give $1.75 million back to CNY charities without ever asking for credit. And then during Covid, sat down with a napkin and a 20-year friendship and decided to give gaming a real shot. What he and his business partner Matt built is ELITE Gaming — a 20,000 square foot facility in downtown Syracuse that uses esports and technology as a bridge to the students traditional school programming has lost. In this episode Rob walks us through the gap he saw — 60,000 students in Onondaga County and the surrounding area not participating in any school activity — and how gaming became the entry point to reach them. We talk about what kids are actually learning at ELITE through podcasting, drone technology, robotics, live streaming, and content creation, and why those skills are exactly what employers like Micron are going to need from the workforce CNY is building. We talk about David, the Syracuse City Schools student who came in struggling and walked out a team captain, a graduate, and a mentor. And we talk about why Syracuse is slow to embrace something new — but unstoppable once it decides to get behind it. This one is full of hope. 🍊 🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8x0ybykx0jI 🌐 elitegaming.gg | 📱 @elitegaming_gg📍 2 Clinton Square, Syracuse NY 📸 @lovingmycompany | 🛋️ @kayleenspicer | Season sponsor: @tangosquared ✨ A huge thank you to our season sponsor Tangosquared — you make Truthfully, Tracy possible every single week! Truthfully, Tracy is a CNY podcast dedicated to real conversations with real people. New episodes every week.

Jeff Knauss was adopted from South Korea at three months old, raised by two loving parents in a small farming town in Upstate New York, and built from that foundation a life that most people would never have predicted from the outside. In this episode of Truthfully, Tracy, Jeff opens up about growing up in near-total solitude and what that did for his imagination and entrepreneurial thinking, getting into television sales entirely by accident, and the discovery that changed everything — that if you unlock massive value for other people and capture a small portion of it, your life will be full. He talks about the painful years of early management where he learned the hardest possible way that self-awareness is the most important leadership skill there is, and about the identity crisis that hit almost immediately after selling Digital Hyve at 35 — the exact age he had always planned to retire. He talks about pragmatic optimism, why failure is less scary than most people think, what it means to live in the future while trying to be present, and why finding the right partner in business and in life is the single most important decision you will ever make. He said he has never talked about 90% of this on a podcast before. Now he has. 🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: [INSERT YOUTUBE LINK] 📱 @jeffknauss | 🌐 arcovo.ai 📸 @lovingmycompany | 🛋️ @kayleenspicer | Season sponsor: @tangosquared ✨ A huge thank you to our season sponsor Tangosquared — you make Truthfully, Tracy possible every single week! Truthfully, Tracy is a CNY podcast dedicated to real conversations with real people. New episodes every week.

Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson — astrophysicist, director of the Hayden Planetarium, host of StarTalk, and one of the most beloved science communicators alive stopped by Truthfully, Tracy on his way to the Landmark Theatre in Syracuse for his show Cosmic Collisions on October 21st. In this episode, Neil talks about why looking at the universe doesn’t make him feel small , it makes him feel large. Because the carbon in our cells, the iron in our blood, the nitrogen in our bodies, all of it was forged in the centers of stars billions of years ago, scattered across the galaxy, and eventually made us. That’s not metaphor. That’s astrophysics. He takes us into his new book Take Me to Your Leader, the psychology behind why alien stories in pop culture are almost always evil, and what the actual scientific evidence around UFOs and alien sightings does and does not tell us. He talks about the things science genuinely cannot yet explain — dark matter, dark energy, the origin of life and why being on the bleeding edge of discovery means holding your conclusions loosely and following the data wherever it leads. He shares the story of Carl Sagan writing him a personal letter as a 17-year-old high school kid from the Bronx, inviting him to Cornell for a day, and the promise he made to himself in that moment. And he explains why the only way to know where the safety boundary is - in science, in policy, in life — is to first understand the nature of the danger. We are stardust. And for about an hour, we got to sit with the man who can prove it. 🎭 Catch Neil LIVE at the Landmark Theatre, Syracuse — October 21st: Cosmic Collisions🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: [INSERT YOUTUBE LINK] 📱 @neildegrassetyson | 🎙️ startalkradio.net📖 Take Me to Your Leader — available now Season sponsor: @tangosquared ✨ A huge thank you to our season sponsor Tangosquared — you make Truthfully, Tracy possible every single week! Truthfully, Tracy is a CNY podcast dedicated to real conversations with real people. New episodes every week.

Dr. Emad Rahim was born in a concentration camp in Cambodia. His father was killed there. His brother died of starvation. His mother escaped with him to a refugee camp, then to Brooklyn — into Sunset Park in the 1980s at the height of the crack epidemic — where Emad was shot in the leg as a child while playing with friends. Strangers from the neighborhood pooled money from their pockets and saved his life. His stepfather was abusive. He ran at 12 or 13 with $40 and was homeless in Syracuse. He stole cars to help his mother keep the lights on after she finally got the abuser out. A school counselor told him in 10th grade she couldn't see a path for him to graduate. And then a vice principal named Mr. Darnell pulled him into a hallway and said: meet me halfway. I will too. In this episode of Truthfully, Tracy, Emad shares his full story — the survival, the grief, the homeless nights behind the bushes of a church on James Street, the healing that came decades later through therapy after panic attacks finally forced him to stop and look in the mirror. He talks about the judge who caught him stealing a car and sent him to volunteer instead of juvenile detention. The comic book store owner on Salina Street who let a cold, bullied kid stay warm without ever asking for anything. The community that gave him second chances he had no reason to expect. And why he came back to Syracuse — because this city saved his life, and he intends to return the favor. This is what it looks like when someone refuses to let their beginning be their ending. 🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: [INSERT YOUTUBE LINK]🌐 EmadRahim.com | 📱 @dremadrahim 📸 @lovingmycompany | 🛋️ @kayleenspicer | Season sponsor: @tangosquared ✨ A huge thank you to our season sponsor Tangosquared — you make Truthfully, Tracy possible every single week! Truthfully, Tracy is a CNY podcast dedicated to real conversations with real people. New episodes every week.

Bob Searing moved to Syracuse in 2006 for graduate school. He never left. And nine years into his role as Curator of History at the Onondaga Historical Association, his love for this city and its stories is still completely uncontrollable. In this episode of Truthfully, Tracy, Bob pulls on one of the most remarkable threads in CNY history — the story of Reverend Jermain Loguen, who escaped enslavement as a teenager from Tennessee and made his way to Syracuse, where he and his wife Caroline helped over 1,500 enslaved people reach freedom in Canada. Together with his compatriots, Loguen helped turn Syracuse into what became known as the Grand Central Depot of the Underground Railroad. We talk about the Jerry Rescue of 1851 — a major event in antebellum American history celebrating its 175th anniversary on October 1st — and the ways the parallels between that era and today are impossible to ignore. We also talk about the Onondaga Nation and the sacred history of this land, what it means to do public history in a way that actually reaches people, and Bob's own journey from would-be history professor to the city's most beloved storyteller. Plus Syracuse football, rock and roll, Buddhism, the universe, and why you absolutely cannot fake the funk. This one is a pure joy. 🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: [INSERT YOUTUBE LINK] 🌐 cnyhistry.org📱 @robertsearingsghost on Instagram📻 Repeating History podcast on WCNY 📸 Branding photos: @lovingmycompany🛋️ Set design & furniture: @kayleenspicer — everything on set is FOR SALE! Season sponsor — marketing: @tangosquared ✨ A huge thank you to our season sponsor Tangosquared — you make Truthfully, Tracy possible every single week! Truthfully, Tracy is a CNY podcast dedicated to real conversations with real people. New episodes every week.

Barb Shepard spent 16 years as a pediatric mental health counselor in Central New York — treating OCD and anxiety in hospitals, schools, foster care, and her own private practice. She thought she knew what she was walking into. And then PANS showed up in her own home. In this episode of Truthfully, Tracy, Barb breaks down exactly what PANS and PANDAS are — why a child can seem completely fine and then change overnight, why the medical community remains divided on the diagnosis, and what it costs families when the system doesn't have answers. She shares what she has built in response: a training for mental health counselors across New York State, legislative advocacy for insurance coverage and disability services for children with PANS, the first-ever parent-led PANS support group in CNY, and her work with the MIND Global Council. She also gets honest about her own OCD diagnosis — discovered in adulthood — and why so many helpers end up walking the same path as the people they set out to serve. PANS/PANDAS Awareness Day is October 9th at the National Grid Building and Salt City Collective in Syracuse. Come out and show up for these families. If you are a parent who has been told to wait and see — don't wait. 🧡 🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: [INSERT YOUTUBE LINK] 🌐 barbshepardcounseling.com | 📱 @anxietyOCDfamily🧡 CARE Loudly merch (100% to ASPIRE): etsy.com/shop/CareLoudlyUSResources: aspire.care | pandasnetwork.org | mindglobalcouncil.com 📸 Branding photos: @lovingmycompany🛋️ Set design & furniture: @kayleenspicer — everything on set is FOR SALE!Season sponsor — marketing: @tangosquared ✨ A huge thank you to our season sponsor Tangosquared — you make Truthfully, Tracy possible every single week! Truthfully, Tracy is a CNY podcast dedicated to real conversations with real people. New episodes every week.

Leah Stiles served 20 years in the Navy with an eating disorder she had carried since she was 11 years old. She watched a gap in care exist, tried to ignore it, nearly lost her life trying to find help within it, and then decided if not her, then who. In this episode of Truthfully, Tracy, Leah — retired Navy Senior Chief, Syracuse University alum, and founder of SEA WAVES — opens up about what it means to carry something invisible through a culture that demands strength above all else. We talk about the military's weight standards and the perfect storm they create, the devastating overlap between eating disorders and military suicide, the 2023 law requiring eating disorder education for military leadership that still isn't being implemented, and her book Battle Scars and Body Wars — with a foreword by the legendary Carolyn Costin — which is already being used by therapists and treatment centers across the country. We also talk about the hallway at Syracuse University's IVMF where Leah and I met for the very first time, and the moment that changed everything. SEA WAVES stands for Support, Education, Awareness, Wellness, Advocacy, Validation, and Suicide Prevention. Every letter is a gap Leah is personally closing. Need a light? Be a light. 🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: [INSERT YOUTUBE LINK] 🌐 sea-waves.org📱 @seawavesinc📖 Battle Scars & Body Wars: a.co/d/08Fpx25o Also follow: @carolyncostin | @syracuseuniversity 📸 Branding photos: @lovingmycompany🛋️ Set design & furniture: @kayleenspicer — everything on set is FOR SALE!Season sponsor — marketing: @tangosquared ✨ A huge thank you to our season sponsor Tangosquared — you make Truthfully, Tracy possible every single week! Truthfully, Tracy is a CNY podcast dedicated to real conversations with real people. New episodes every week. ⚠️ This episode contains discussions of eating disorders, suicide, and trauma. Please listen with care.

Tommy Lincoln didn't leave Syracuse when he could have. And everything about Stay Fresh is the reason why. Tommy is the founder and creative director of Stay Fresh — a design studio and art gallery on Syracuse's Near West Side that has quietly become one of the most important creative anchors in Central New York. He grew up here, skated these streets, snuck into swing nights at the Phantom Club, and absorbed the city's creative energy long before he started shaping it. From the branding and packaging for Beak & Skiff and 1911 Hard Cider to the visual identity for Ayrloom, Glazed & Confused, and Mayor Ben Walsh's campaign — Tommy has helped define what this city looks like. He's also built a gallery that hosts monthly shows, created the annual Chalk Jam, the Nickelodeon Tribute Show, and a December artist portrait exchange that brings the creative community together every year and regularly moves people to tears. But this conversation goes well beyond the portfolio. Tommy gets honest about imposter syndrome — the door that opens for every creative whether they admit it or not — and about the creative burnout he's been quietly navigating, what it took to finally admit it, and how therapy, rest, and a road trip across the country have all been part of finding his way through. He talks about why he stayed in Syracuse when leaving felt like the easier call, what the Near West Side arts corridor means for the future of the city, and what's coming next — an expanded gallery space that will bring workshops, local artists, and community energy under one roof. This one is for every creative who has ever wondered whether the work is worth it. It is. 🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: [INSERT YOUTUBE LINK] 📲 @stayfresh.design | @stayfresh.gallery | @designpackets | @saturdaydetentionradio🌐 stayfresh.design | stayfresh.gallery 📸 Branding photos: @lovingmycompany🛋️ Set design & furniture: @kayleenspicer — everything on set is FOR SALE!Season sponsor — marketing: @tangosquared ✨ A huge thank you to our season sponsor Tangosquared — you make Truthfully, Tracy possible every single week! Truthfully, Tracy is a CNY podcast dedicated to real conversations with real people. New episodes every week.

Matt Reed joins Truthfully, Tracy for a conversation about building a media brand from scratch, staying authentic on camera, and why "boring" content never wins. Matt is co-founder of Spatchcock Funk, a food and culture show airing on PBS Syracuse (now in Season 3, with Season 4 in the works), created alongside his creative partner Alex. We get into how the show's name came together, why every episode starts with a theme and a social justice message before the food ever gets picked, and how they've built a brand that's edgy, inclusive, and unapologetically itself. Matt and Tracy talk about the vulnerability behind creative work, learning from bad decisions instead of hiding from them, and why authenticity is the thing audiences actually stick around for. Matt opens up about his own growth, his marriage to Stephanie Crockett (CEO of MOA), and how having a genuinely supportive partner changes what you're able to build. We also get into the business side: what it's really like pitching sponsors, chasing viral moments that never go the way you expect, working with brands like Heirloom, and the mindset shift from Fans First by the founder of the Savannah Bananas. If you're into behind-the-scenes stories on content creation, podcasting, building a media company, marriage and partnership in business, personal growth, and staying real in a world of polished branding, this episode is for you. Topics covered: Spatchcock Funk origin story, PBS television production, building a media company, branding and authenticity, social justice in content creation, podcast growth and going viral, marriage and creative partnership, Stephanie Crockett and MOA, personal growth from past mistakes, Fans First and the Savannah Bananas, sponsorship and advertising in content, Central New York media.

Emily Gozy has spent her career helping people stop fighting their food — and start trusting themselves around it. As a Registered Dietitian, Founder and CEO of Nourished with Emily, and 2022 Recognized Young Dietitian of the Year, Emily's approach lives entirely in the gray area. No rigid rules. No guilt. No impossible standards of perfection. In this episode she walks us through her PCC framework — Protein, Carbohydrates, and Color — a simple, practical tool for building balanced meals that works in real life. She talks about why consistency will always beat perfection, why convenience foods are nothing to be ashamed of, and why her ultimate goal is to make herself unnecessary — giving every client the tools to become their own dietitian for life. She also gets honest about disordered eating, something she says touches the vast majority of people, often rooted in societal pressure, family conditioning, or trauma, and what it really takes to slow down and reconnect with your body's own hunger and fullness cues. Plus a look at her growing corporate wellness work and why workplaces are finally paying attention to nutrition. Practical, freeing, and full of permission to just eat the food. 🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: 📲 @nourishedwithemily 📸 Branding photos: @lovingmycompany🛋️ Set design & furniture: @kayleenspicer — everything on set is FOR SALE!🎨 Marketing & logo: @tangosquared ✨ A huge thank you to our official sponsor Tangosquared — you make Truthfully, Tracy possible every single week! Truthfully, Tracy is a CNY podcast dedicated to real conversations with real people. New episodes every week.

Andrew Lunetta wasn't a developer or a housing expert when he started A Tiny Home for Good in 2014. He was a 24-year-old who had spent years working in Syracuse homeless shelters and couldn't stop thinking about a better way. The answer he landed on was simple and radical at the same time: build real homes, on permanent foundations, with no roommates, no time limits, and a landlord who actually cares. Then stay. Keep showing up. Do the case management. Navigate the crises. Celebrate the small wins. In this episode, Andrew walks us through what that model looks like in practice — 47 occupied units, a 92% year-over-year tenant retention rate, 22 more fully funded units on the way, and a weekly Tuesday morning neighborhood walk open to anyone who wants to be part of the community. He talks about why getting someone housed is just the beginning, and why the slow, careful, consistent work that comes after is where the real change happens. Andrew was recently named a CNN Hero — and after hearing this conversation, you'll understand exactly why. 🌐 atinyhomeforgood.org🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: [INSERT YOUTUBE LINK] 📲 [INSERT ANDREW'S HANDLE] 📸 Branding photos: @lovingmycompany🛋️ Set design & furniture: @kayleenspicer — everything on set is FOR SALE!🎨 Marketing & logo: @tangosquared ✨ A huge thank you to our official sponsor Tangosquared — you make Truthfully, Tracy possible every single week! Truthfully, Tracy is a CNY podcast dedicated to real conversations with real people. New episodes every week.

Melissa Murphy didn't come from healthcare. She came from a sense of purpose — and that turned out to be more powerful than any credential. As CEO and founder of Aging Advocates CNY, Melissa built a nonprofit called Living with Dementia from a community conference, grew her team from 12 to over 100 through a company acquisition, and built a mission around moving families from crisis management to proactive planning around aging, powers of attorney, and end-of-life decisions. In this episode she gets honest about the myth of work-life balance for women juggling careers and family, what turning 40 unlocked in her, and why outgrowing relationships is one of the most painful and necessary parts of real personal growth. She and Tracy also share their own personal experiences of SA at massage establishments, and why speaking up publicly is the only way to break cycles of shame and silence. 🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: 📲 @Melissa_TheAgingAdvocate, @TheAgingAdvocate 📸 Branding photos: @lovingmycompany🛋️ Set design & furniture: @kayleenspicer — everything on set is FOR SALE!🎨 Marketing & logo: @tangosquared ✨ A huge thank you to our official sponsor Tangosquared — you make Truthfully, Tracy possible every single week! Truthfully, Tracy is a CNY podcast dedicated to real conversations with real people. New episodes every week.

Latavius Murray spent 10 years in the NFL. But the work he was always meant to do was waiting for him back home. In this episode of Truthfully, Tracy, Latavius opens up about the mother who relocated her family to give her kids something better, and how watching her work became the foundation for everything he's built since. He talks about his decade-long NFL career across six teams, the MBA he pursued while still playing, and the intentional effort he made to prepare for the life that came after football. And he talks about John — his lifelong friend, taken by gun violence — and how that grief, carried quietly while playing at the highest level, became the driving force behind the JD Community Center in Nedrow, New York. The center will serve as a resource hub for the South Side of Syracuse, the Onondaga Nation, Lafayette, and the surrounding communities. $8.5 million has been raised. The goal is to break ground in spring 2027. This is a conversation about grief, purpose, and what it looks like to turn love into legacy. 🌐 jdcenter.org🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/a2cG_gMBMOI 📲 @lataviusmurray 📸 Branding photos: @lovingmycompany🛋️ Set design & furniture: @kayleenspicer — everything on set is FOR SALE!🎨 Marketing & logo: @tangosquared ✨ A huge thank you to our official sponsor Tangosquared — you make Truthfully, Tracy possible every single week! Truthfully, Tracy is a CNY podcast dedicated to real conversations with real people. New episodes every week.

"Like a girl." For too long those words have been used as an insult. Tahirah Abdul-Qadir decided that ends now. Tahirah is a social justice advocate, second-degree black belt, Team USA kickboxer, Presidential Gold Service Award recipient, United Nations contributor, and Rare Beauty mental health ambassador , all from Syracuse, NY. She's also the founder of FLAG Empowerment LLC — Fight Like a Girl — a platform dedicated to reclaiming that phrase and using it to uplift women and girls physically, mentally, and emotionally. In this episode, we talk about what a lifetime of martial arts and competition taught her about discipline, confidence, and resilience and how she built a five-week leadership academy to put those same lessons in the hands of girls ages 13 to 17. We also get into the mental health crisis quietly unfolding for young women in the digital age, the documentary she helped create on social media's impact on youth, and why the most powerful thing any of us can do is block out the noise and bet on ourselves completely. This one is fierce, warm, and full of fire. 🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/q8bakoy3BGo 📲 FOLLOW TAHIRAH:➡️ Instagram: @tahirahaq04 & @flag.fightlikeagirl💼 linkedin.com/in/tahirah-abdul-qadir-57a164234🎵 TikTok: @tahirahaq04 📸 Branding photos: @lovingmycompany🛋️ Set design & furniture: @kayleenspicer — everything on set is FOR SALE!🎨 Marketing & logo: @tangosquared ✨ A huge thank you to our official sponsor Tangosquared — you make Truthfully, Tracy possible every single week! Truthfully, Tracy is a CNY podcast dedicated to real conversations with real people. New episodes every week.