KNAU FEATURES

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Recent in-depth features from KNAU's newsroom:

  • Northern Arizona archaeological finds: In a report from mid-March, KNAU’s Mitch Teich reports on some Northern Arizona archaeological finds which might otherwise be trapped under a ribbon of asphalt. Listen with RealAudio

  • Archeology interview: In commemoration of National Archeology Month KNAU is airing a variety of stories on archeology in Northern Arizona. Today a conversation with Francis Smiley about the status of Archeology in Arizona and the Southwest. Listen with RealAudio

  • Musicians Jay Ungar and Molly Mason: In interview with folk musicians Jay Ungar and Molly Mason. They are perhaps best known for writing "Ashokan Farewell" and other music for Ken Burns' Civil War series, and as frequent guests on "A Prairie Home Companion." Listen with Real Audio
  • Marty Crump Interview: Celeste Headlee's interview with Marty Crump, an adjunct professor at NAU, and a field biologist who specializes in frogs. Her new book is called In Search of the Golden Frog. Listen with RealAudio

  • Earth Day 2001: On Earth Day 2001, KNAU's Mitch Teich sat down with Dr. Gary Nabhan, Director of the NAU's Center for Sustainable Environments, to discuss the history of Earth Day and the environmental movement. Listen with RealAudio

  • Commentator Mary Sojourner: The 4th annual Northern Arizona Book Festival is featuring writers like Rick Bass, Dagoberto Gilb, and Denise Chavez. Two NPR personalities are also on the list - Weekend Edition Saturday's Scott Simon and Morning Edition commentator Mary Sojourner. Listen with RealAudio.
  • Cactus League 2001: Mitch Teich prepared two reports for NPR's Only A Game on Major League Baseball Arizona Spring Training. Listen with RealAudio.
  • Therapeutic Music: This year, Northern Arizona University became the only school in the country to offer a program for music practitioners. KNAU's Celeste Headlee spoke with harpist and teacher Laurie Riley about the new program and the healing power of music. Listen with RealAudio.
  • NAU’s Ardrey Auditorium organ: The organ in NAU’S Ardrey Auditorium is turning 25 this year. It may be the largest organ in the world at this elevation, and special accommodations were made for that. KNAU’S Celeste Headlee has this tribute to a truly unique instrument. Listen with RealAudio.
  • Reverence interview: The film "In The Light of Reverence" documents the struggle of Native Americans in the West to protect what they see as sacred land from development and desecration. Producer Toby Mcleod talks about the pressures placed on land-managers to accommodate. Listen with RealAudio
  • Paul Ehrlich and Gretchen Daily interview: Two of the world’s foremost conservation biologists were in Flagstaff in March. Paul Ehrlich and Gretchen Daily met with environmental science students at Northern Arizona University. Listen with RealAudio

  • Zoo interview: Randy Ferry is the sole owner of the exotic zoo in Payson. For over two decades he has cared for the 50 or so animals in the Zoo and given a personal tour to each visitor. Now he says it’s time to move on and either retire or find another occupation. Listen with RealAudio

  • Flagstaff author Maureen Adras: Author Maureen Adras was diagnosed with endometriosis, a disease that affects one in four women, often causing infertility. So, she decided to write a book about her battle with the disease, her attempts at in vitro fertilization, and eventual adoption. Listen with RealAudio
  • Brad Dimock interview: In 1928, Idaho farmer Glen Hyde and his bride Bessie began their honeymoon trip down the Colorado River in a homemade boat. About a month later, they disappeared without a trace. Author and boatman Brad Dimock spent two years tracking down the Hydes. Listen with RealAudio
  • In part one of "Track Record," Mitch Teich gives us an overview of the region’s complex railroad history. Listen with RealAudio
  • Today we look at the safety of rail, a major carrier for tons of hazardous material through our state. Tristan Clum has this report. Listen with RealAudio
  • Arizona has been without a state signal inspector for over three years. Is anyone inspecting the lights and gates that save lives? In part three of KNAU'S series "Track Record," Celeste Headlee examines the safety of railroad crossings in northern Arizona. Listen with RealAudio
  • Today, reporter Susanne Severeid takes us for a ride --- on the Grand Canyon Railway, which began 100 years ago. This tourist train departs everyday from Williams and makes one scheduled stop -- at the Grand Canyon. Listen with RealAudio
  • NPR's Susan Stamberg came to Northern Arizona recently to profile architect Mary Colter. At Hermit's Rest on the edge of the Grand Canyon, there's a building that looks like an old-time prospector's shelter. But Colter meticulously planned it down to the cobwebs. See Pictures.
  • Verde River: A year ago, the Department of Water Resources declared that Prescott cannot pump ground water. So, city officials now want to run a pipeline to an underground aquifer outside city limits. But critics say that will have adverse affects on the Verde River. Listen with RealAudio
  • Arizona Universities: Recently, the National Center for Public Policy gave an overall grade of C- to Arizona's university system. KNAU'S Celeste Headlee spoke with educators and students about the problems at Arizona's three universities. Listen with RealAudio
  • Grace Paley interview: Celeste Headlee talks with one of America's greatest short story writers and activists, Grace Paley. Paley made stops in five Arizona cities and gave a reading in Flagstaff. Listen with RealAudio
  • Chinese Skaters: The ice skating bar has forever been raised in Flagstaff, thanks to a week-long visit by a group of world-class skaters from China. Listen with RealAudio

  • Commentary by KNAU's Celeste Headlee: KNAU's Celeste Headlee is the granddaughter of the American composer William Grant Still. Still is known as the Dean of Afro-American Composers. Listen with RealAudio
  • Joseph Alston 2-way: Joe Alston is the new Superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park, he spoke with KNAU’s Tristan Clum. Listen with RealAudio

  • Community Supported Agriculture: Eulogies for the small American farm have been written for years. Threatened by urbanization, pushed out of business by more competitive corporate farms, small farms on the edges of American cities are rapidly disappearing. Mitch Teich reports. Listen with RealAudio.
  • Winslow Airport: Renovations have begun at the airport in Winslow, built in 1929 as a stop along the country’s first cross-country passenger route. Famed aviator Charles Lindbergh chose Winslow as a spot for planes to refuel en route to Los Angeles. Listen with RealAudio.
  • Cowboy Christmas: Tom Weathers is a carpenter, a father and a cowboy poet. Here’s his holiday gift to us, a poem by Wadi Mitchell called "Nothing Like Nothing." Details
  • Mary Sojourner's latest commentary broadcast on NPR about aging. Listen with RealAudio.
  • Flagstaff Writers Project : A new book was released called "The View from Here." The book is a collection of essays from Flagstaff authors. Celeste Headlee spoke with the editors of the book, and heard readings from several authors. Details
  • Teacher Pay: In 1993, outgoing Northern Arizona University President Eugene Hughes, using a mathematic formula, distributed about 200,000 dollars in pay raises to some NAU employees.George Rudebusch explained what he feels was wrong with the 1993 raises. Details

  • KNAU brings NPR Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg to Flagstaff. Nationally renowned NPR broadcast journalist Susan Stamberg talked in NAU’s Prochnow Auditorium on Sunday, October 29th. Details
  • Citizens Growth Management Initiative: The presence of the Citizens Growth Management Initiative, CGMI, on the ballot this year is a direct response to the growth management legislation passed recently in Arizona. Details

  • Japanese Kilns: Pottery from around the country is being fired at the wood-burning kilns of NAU. The kilns were the first of their kind in the US and were designed by Yukio Yamamoto – a master from the Tozan pottery region in Japan. Kelly McEvers reports. Details
  • Canyon Forest Village: Gateway to Controversy. KNAU / Arizona Daily Sun joint series. October 2 - 8. In November Coconino County voters will be asked to consider the Canyon Forest Village proposal. CFV is a proposed new community on the doorstep of Grand Canyon National Park. Details
  • Celeste Headlee's interview with international opera/gospel star Jubilant Sykes. He gave a concert with guitarist Christopher Parkening on Sept. 22nd, in the first event of the 2001 Spectrum Series. Details

  • Sweat Lodges : Arizona has one of the largest Native American populations in the country. Native Rights advocates are asking the US Justice Department to require states to include sweat lodges in all prisons that have a large number of Native American inmates. Details
  • KNAU's Mitch Teich reports that many Olympic athletes prepared for competition at Northern Arizona University's High Altitude Sports Training Complex. Listen with RealAudio
  • Officials from Northern Arizona University, the Gates Foundation, and Starband were in the village of Supai -- at the bottom of the Grand Canyon -- in early September to oversee the installation of high-speed internet access to the community. Mitch Teich's reports for Weekend All Things Considered, September 10, 2000. Listen with RealAudio
  • KNAU's Mitch Teich comments for NPR's Only A Game on September 2nd on the fragile existence of a pitching arm. Listen with RealAudio
  • Hopi Teachers: With a chronic shortage of native teachers on the Hopi reservation, NAU and the tribe have teamed up to start training new Hopi elementary teachers. Details
  • Starting in the late 1800's, sheepherders, many from the Basque region of Northern Spain, carved basic messages or elaborate images into the bark of aspen trees in northern Arizona. Now the trees are dying, and historians are trying to compile information before it's too late. KNAU's Tristan Clum reports for NPR's Morning Edition. Listen with RealAudio.
  • Williams water: The town of Williams has taken its share of hits over the years. Now there’s a new challenge, finding enough water to accommodate the town’s three thousand residents and the busloads of tourists that visit each year. Details
  • Well Keepers: The southwest is among the fastest growing regions of the country. It used to be that easy access to water dictated where a town would grow.People are building houses in parts of Arizona where little rain falls over the course of a year. Details
  • Verde Valley Watershed: Northern Arizona is officially in a drought. Despite recent rains the first seven months of the year have been the driest on record. There’s not yet any talk of water shortages, but residents are eyeing the Verde River with concern. Details
  • KNAU's Celeste Headlee reports for NPR on "Guardians of the Grand Canyon", by Native American composer Brent Michael Davids, honoring the Havasupai tribe which owns a large part of the Canyon. Listen with RealAudio.
  • White Vulcan Mine: Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt is seeking the closure of a controversial pumice mine in the San Francisco Peaks. Babbitt spoke yesterday at a rally near the White Vulcan Mine, northeast of Flagstaff. Details
  • Flagstaff's Economic Future: With the booming national economy the news is full of stories about the great lengths companies will go to attract and keep qualified help. Flagstaff is a little different. Unemployment is above the national average. Details
  • Flagstaff and Apollo 11: Thirty years ago today, astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong were preparing to leave after spending a little over 20 hours on the lunar surface, getting humanity’s first up-close look at the moon, and collecting samples to bring back to earth. Details

  • A runaway wildfire continues to scorch Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park, home to important Native American archaelogical sites. Listen with RealAudio.
  • Tristan Clum of KNAU reporting for NPR's Morning Edition reports that fear of forest fires has caused millions of acres of national parks to be closed to the public. Lack of rain is a key factor in the closures. Listen with RealAudio.
  • Amidst the extremely hot and dry Northern Arizona spring, US Forest Service officials have announced the most comprehensive forest closures since 1996. In a story for NPR's Weekend Edition on June 3rd, KNAU's Mitch Teich reports on the multi-tiered impact the closures will have on the region. Listen with RealAudio
  • Mitch Teich of KNAU reports nationally on NPR's Morning Edition that a new method of preventing forest fires - by clearing out the underbrush -addresses the problems that preventing fires created. Traditional methods allowed unnatural levels of undergrowth to reach the point where there are now ten times the number of trees per acre than there were 150 years ago, and this undergrowth serves as tinder in major forest fires. Listen with RealAudio
  • NPR's Morning Edition captures KNAU Producer Cindy Carpien watching with her 1967 classmates, as their time capsule was opened after 33 years underground. Most of the contents survived the minor water damage... things like a bobby pin, a TV Guide, a blue pencil sharpener and a reel-to-reel tape of speeches and songs by children now in middle age. Details Listen with RealAudio
  • KNAU's Mitch Teich reports for NPR's Weekend All Things Considered on the techniques used to improve forest health in the American Southwest including controversial prescribed burns and forest thinning projects. Listen with Real Audio
  • US Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt is seeking the closure of a controversial pumice mine in the San Francisco Peaks. Babbitt spoke April 25th at a rally near the White Vulcan Mine. KNAU's Mitch Teich was at the rally, and he filed this report for Morning Edition on April 26th. Listen with RealAudio
  • KNAU's Mitch Teich reports for NPR's Morning Edition on President Clinton's visit to the Navajo reservation in New Mexico April 18th. In an address before a crowd of Navajo Indians the president announced more than 100-million dollars in pledges from the computer industry to help erase the digital divide. LIsten with RealAudio.

  • When 13-year-old Myra Jodie was selected as the winner of a new iMac computer, it took 3 days for the teen web site giving out the prize to track her down. Myra lives on a Navajo reservation in northern Arizona and like most other Navajos, has no home phone line. KNAU's Mitch Teich reports for NPR's All Things Considered on the digital divide on the reservation. Listen with RealAudio.
  • Does Las Vegas exploit its proximity to the Grand Canyon? Does Arizona receive the full benefit of Canyon tourism? Construction of a two story fiberglass and cement Grand Canyon in Las Vegas prompted examination of these issues by KNAU and sister station KNPR in Las Vegas. The reports aired nationally on NPR's Morning Edition. Listen with RealAudio
  • NPR's National Political Correspondent, Elizabeth Arnold, filed her story on the final day of Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign from KNAU. Hear Elizabeth Arnold's report. Listen with RealAudio
  • Hear KNAU All Things Considered Host Tristan Clum's interview with Elizabeth Arnold on her experiences on the campaign trail. Listen with RealAudio
  • KNAU's Mitch Teich reports for NPR's Morning Edition on a proposed National Monument located in Northern Arizona. The Monument would include more than a million acres of land north of the Grand Canyon. January 11, 2000 Listen with RealAudio.
  • Chemical Sensitivity. Arizona's sunshine and wide open spaces have long been a lure for people with health problems, from tuberculosis, to asthma and allergies. Now, some others are seeking relief from a problem that makes them sensitive to everyday chemicals and even electricity. They call it multiple chemical sensitivity, or "M.C.S." many doctors say the condition doesn't even exist. But for handful of people who live near the white mountain town of snowflake, the suffering is real. They went there to get away from the things that make them sick. KNAU's Mike Lamp reports:Listen with RealAudio.