Tag: Mo Curious

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Mo-Curious

Mo’ Curious: Keeping Time with the BoCoMo Medicine Show

Back in the summer of 1979, Neil Miller got together six bands for a mammoth recording session in Columbia. About 25 of his musician friends performed at the Road Apple Party Palace. The private event space was already known as concert venue and now it was playing host to full house enjoying a who’s who of local musicians. When the night was through, there were enough recordings for an album. You could buy a ticket just for the show. For a few extra dollars you could get to see the show and a copy of the eventual live LP.

I’ve always been interested in Columbia’s alternative history. Settlement history interests me, but so do the stories of the freaks, the protesters, the local expressions of various power and pride movements. When I got to town in 1989, there were still some fumes in the air from the heady and tumultuous 1970s. When I heard the Mid-Summer Night 1979 album I knew this was an audio portal into a long-gone time. Jennifer Wright also saw the album as an opportunity to use this podcast as a way to understand a time that is suddenly starting to get hazy in the rear-view mirror.

This podcast draws on oral histories to tell the story of that 1979 recording session and the forces behind it. In late 1025 and early 2026, Jennifer and I interviewed BoCoMo Medicine Show participants Neil Miller, Daryl Wright and Roberta Weir about what brought them to the Road Apple Party Palace that summer night back in 1979, finding a work-family balance and on making good music.

Thanks to Neil Miller, Daryl Wright and Roberta Weir for sharing their stories.

Thanks to Mark Johnson for production assistance.

Thanks to Jennifer Wright for being an inspired co-producer on this episode.

This episode will have its world broadcast premiere on KOPN radio on June 10, 2026. Listen locally at 89.5fm or at KOPN.org.

More episodes of the Mo’ Curious podcast are available at MoCurious.com and wherever you get your podcasts.

Jennifer Wright interviewing Roberta Weir at KOPN in Columbia.

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Mo-Curious

Mo’ Curious: Building a Modern Homesteader Community

Photo credit Ozark Area Community Congress

Starting back in the 1960s, growing numbers of young people in these United States of America starting dropping out. Turned off by mainstream society, they turned their backs on career advancement, corner offices and getting ahead. Instead, many of these back-to-the-landers opted for buying land, building cabins and growing food. Many set up shop here in Missouri and started homesteading in the heartland.

In this episode of Mo’ Curious, we meet four homesteaders whose lives overlapped around a shared purpose, making music and forest protection. An earlier episode focused on a homesteader family who now have multiple generations living on that land.

Thanks to Denise Vaughn, Hank and Katy Dorst and David Haenke for sharing their stories.
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Mo-Curious

Mo’ Curious: A Fifty-Year Homesteading Journey

Barbara and Tom Johnson have been homesteading the Ozark hills of Dent County for nearly 50 years
Barbara and Tom Johnson have been homesteading the Ozark hills of Dent County for nearly 50 years

In 1976, Barbara and Tom Johnson moved from California to Missouri. In the past nearly 50 years, they built a home and had a family. As the Johnson kids grew up they realized there really was something to this homesteading thing.

This episode of the Mo’ Curious podcast happens in two-parts. This first half of the story explores Missouri’s recent history with those back-to-the-landers who raised kids while making a living off the land. In the second part of this episode, we’ll meet some other Missouri back-to-the-landers who created community with like-minded souls.

Past episodes of the Mo’ Curious podcast are available at www.MoCurious.com and wherever you get your podcasts.

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Mo-Curious

Mo’ Curious: Black Stories Matter

Lucille H. Douglass (at left) and Oralee McKinzy at the Parkville, Missouri Public Library in March 2023

Missouri history happened here. Right here. On this same ground on which we live today. That includes the history of slavery and racial segregation. When we tell the story of our state’s history, often the narrative is that of white and male Missourians. The family and personal stories of women and people of color are too often neglected when the narrative is told about the making of Missouri.

In this episode of Mo’ Curious meet two Kansas City women who are teaching themselves and others about local black history, which is, of course, Missouri history.

This episode’s guests are Oralee McKinzy who traces her family back to enslaved Missourians in Platte County, Missouri, and Lucille Douglass who recalls attending Parkville’s Missouri’s segregated black school as a girl in the 1950s.

As heard in this episode of the podcast:

Agriculture and Slavery in Missouri’s Little Dixie by R. Douglas Hurt

On Slavery’s Border by Diane Mutti Burke

Banneker School Foundation and Historic Site

Life 360 on Facebook

Dr. Jimmy Johnson in ‘History of Kansas City International Airport Land and Its People’ produced by the Kansas City Museum

Thanks for listening to Mo’ Curious. Stay curious, Missouri.

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Field Notes

Field Notes: ‘Look at the stars and you’re looking back through time’

Looking up at the night skies in late fall and winter requires a special devotion. One needs tenacity – plus coat and gloves at the ready – to leave the warmth of inside and go find a dark place outside. It is there that you can best (re)discover the stars and planets that have dotted our skies since before time began.

In this Field Notes segment, astronomy educator Melanie Knocke – pronounced kuh-KNOW-kee – discusses how our winter sky viewing in the United States differs from summer observing. She also shares her simple remedy for preserving the night dark skies that are required for successful stargazing.

For ongoing night sky education, EarthSky news provides “updates on your cosmos and your world.” I find it to be a useful regular e-mail in my inbox.

Thanks to Melanie Knocke for the interview. And until next time, remember, your neighbors are more interesting than you think.

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Mo-Curious

Mo’ Curious: Memories From the Left End of the Dial

Back in 1972, radio station KOPN was founded to serve the Columbia, Missouri area. The station was licensed for broadcast early the next year and now – over 50 years later – the community radio station that wasn’t expected to survive is still going strong.

In 2022, the KOPN Oral History Project captured memories from the station’s founders, former staff and long-time programmers. This podcast episode draws from those oral histories to tell a history of the station.

An history about the life and times of Columbia, Missouri’s community radio station, KOPN.

Radio station KOPN is real and can be streamed here.

Thanks for listening to this podcast about the history of the 24th state. Catch more podcast episodes at MoCurious.com.

Stay curious, Missouri.

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Mo-Curious

Mo’ Curious: Saving the Hidden Stories of a Vanishing Rural Lifestyle

In this episode, we listen to the oral histories of Margot McMillen. We hear from a river boat captain, a train engineer and an independent woman. These and several dozen other Missourians were the subjects of Margot’s late 1970s oral history recordings.

At that time, Margot was a young mother of two, a graduate student in English and a budding author. She was also was a listener.

When the Union Electric utility started buying land from farmers in Southern Callaway County for a nuclear power plant, Margot jumped into action. With her recording kit and an abundance of curiosity, she set out to preserve stories of a rural lifestyle that was rapidly disappearing. The stories illuminate what a different world we live in 45 years after they were preserved.

Here’s some of the oral history work of Missouri author and radio host Margot McMillen.

Hear more episodes of the Mo’ Curious podcast at MoCurious.com and wherever you get your podcasts.

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Mo-Curious

Mo’ Curious: Missouri Rocks!

Missouri is a state with a deep history. Curious to know more about our state’s geologic past, Mo’ Curious host Trevor Harris talked to a pair of geologists and a cave mapper about the layers below Missourians feet.

This episode of Mo’ Curious is generously sponsored by Missouri Life.