For the past couple of weeks, “Listen to the Land,” a new podcast with stories produced by 10 ABAC students has been releasing stories every Friday about homes and the land in the rural Southeast. The first episode was released on April 7 at an exhibit hosted by the Georgia Museum of Agriculture (GMA).
Dr. Russell Pryor, a History and Government professor at ABAC, started the exhibit by introducing everyone who attended the event. He talked about how he and Journalism professor Dr. Tom Grant came up with the idea early last year.
ABAC student Anfernee McDonald followed with his experiences and the differences as both a worker on the podcast, and as a subject for one of the episodes. Having the viewpoint from both perspectives allowed McDonald to tell the audience stories from both sides of the microphone. McDonald joined the podcast at the beginning of this semester.
I spoke about the process which goes into making a podcast episode. I told the audience how inspiration for a story can come from anyone or anywhere, and how that inspiration can turn into a story by going through the process of interviewing the subject, writing the script, and editing the interview to form a story people can listen to .
The first episode of the podcast was then played for the people in attendance. The story was produced by ABAC student Sydney Doss, as he follows Dr. Vanessa Lane and Ms. Heather Brasell on a frog release located in Irwin County Georgia. Afterward, Doss hosted a Q&A session about the episode. Some of the questions focused on the process of making an episode and the thought process Sydney went through while he was putting the story together.
Inside the exhibit, people could see life-sized photographs of all the podcast subjects, as well as a story map, artifacts and a smell gallery associated with each episode. People can still view the exhibit at the GMA until July 28.
There is currently three episodes of the podcast. The second episode follows Scott Hudson of Hudson Pecans in Ocilla Ga., and Professor Lenny Wells of the University of Georgia Tifton Campus as they navigate the pecan market during the aftermath of Hurricane Michael.
The third episode focuses on McDonalds’s journey to discovering the love he had for farming in Cairo GA after he served in the military.
A new episode of the Listen to the Land podcast will be released every Friday on Apple Music, Spotify, and other podcast networks.
