This week on West Texas Talk, we dig deeper into the ways our community is confronting the many challenges brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. We begin with the final episode Our Show, a podcast mini-series that tells the story of this unprecedented time through audio recorded and submitted by people in social isolation around the world. Then returning to the stories of our region, reporter Mitch Borden talks to Christian Wallace, the host of the Texas Monthly podcast 'Boomtown', about how his hometown of Andrews, Texas is experiencing COVID 19.
Next, we'll hear a conversation between Borden and Lee Anna Good, who works for Safe Place of the Permian Basin, a shelter serving victims of domestic violence and abuse. They talk about what is being done to help people who have to shelter-in-place in unsafe environments. In our final interview, host Elise Pepple talks to Guy McCrary, president of the Permian Basin Area Foundation, about their emergency relief fund for nonprofits. McCrary shares how he's seen nonprofits adapt to deal with the immediate needs of West Texans and what people in the region can do to help.
This episode of West Texas Talk concludes with another installment of our 'Tiny Porch' concert series. This week, JP Schwartz sings us out with "When I Get to Heaven" by John Prine, recorded from his porch in Ft. Davis. If you play music and live in far West Texas, send a video of yourself playing a cover on your porch during social isolation. Please email your video to music@marfapublicradio.org. It should be a song that speaks to you at this moment, or a song that can lift spirits, or a song people know and can sing along to from their porches.
