AIRS: Aug 31-Sept 3, 2015 at 6:35 p.m.
It started, as many good things do, with a road trip.
Phyllis Silver, an independent producer and storyteller, rode with a friend through the back roads of the Inland Northwest on a day trip. Everyplace she went, she says, small towns dotted the landscape, seeming to sleep among the open pastoral landscape.
As a city dweller, Phyllis says she marveled at these communities. How do people make a living here? What encourages people to live here? Those questions inspired Take the Old Road, a program she produced for Spokane Public Radio in 2007.
Along with photographer Beth Carsrud, Silver visited several communities in Eastern Washington that were dealing with the financial hardship brought on by the slowing of traditional industries like agriculture and logging. Through interviews with local residents, Silver celebrated aspects of rural life that are blossoming.
The project engaged community members and turned up surprises, like the fact that the formerly agricultural Dayton, Washington had reinvented itself as a chic tourist destination, complete with farm-to-table restaurants and small shops for visitors.
Episode 1 focuses on the Palouse, with Fairfield, Latah, and Tekoa.
Episode 2 is Republic and Curlew.
Episode 3 explores Soap Lake
Episode 4 features Dayton.
Silver said that a great benefit of doing the program was meeting open and generous people throughout the area. "The people we met were very receptive, the communities were wonderful in referring us to different people and places."
Support from Humanities Washington helped to make the research for the program possible, as well as providing funds for an exhibit of the photos that Carsrud took over the course of the project.
The reairing is look back at SPR programming is part of the station's 35th anniversary,