Yonder Radio episode: solar project fallout, Indigenous buffalo restoration, and small-town theaters

Yonder Radio packages a diverse hour that centers rural experiences. This episode groups investigative reporting, cultural conversations, and on-the-ground reporting about rural life and livelihoods.

Opening segment: solar project and AI slop

The episode opens with environmental reporter Delaney Nolan explaining how what she calls "AI slop" undermined a massive solar project in Iberia Parish, Louisiana. The conversation treats the failure as a concrete example of how technical processes and planning can derail large infrastructure projects in rural places.

Indigenous buffalo restoration in Wyoming

Small-town movie theaters: a documentary conversation

Daily Yonder culture reporter Susannah Broun interviews filmmaker Rustin Thompson about his documentary The Last Picture Shows. The film examines independent movie theaters across the West and their roles in small towns — venues for entertainment, social connection, and local identity.

Mi'Jan Celie Tho-Biaz, an oral historian, invites listeners to a story feast. The segment foregrounds oral history as a form of cultural exchange and community memory, highlighting methods for gathering and sharing local stories.

Philanthropy, wisdom, and rural arts

Erin Borla, executive director of the Roundhouse Foundation, discusses philanthropy aimed at rural arts and community initiatives. Borla shares practical insights and personal family wisdom that inform her approach to supporting rural cultural projects.

Produced by the Center for Rural Strategies and hosted by Jared Ewy, Yonder Radio is designed to fill programming gaps for broadcasters serving rural audiences. The show includes a news round-up interpreted through a rural lens, interviews with reporters, human-interest features, regional music, and trivia. It aims to be flexible for partner stations with internal breaks already formatted into the hour.

The episode connects local cultural practices and media to broader structural issues: how infrastructure projects fail, how communities rebuild ecological relationships, and how cultural institutions like small theaters matter to rural life. It packages these stories as an accessible hour for stations facing reduced resources in public media.

Yonder Radio is available across digital platforms and via partner radio stations. The Center for Rural Strategies produces the show and invites stations to sign up to broadcast it.