Newschannel 3’s Community Conversations

News Channel 3 anchor Lora Painter spoke with Marshall Kilgore, the director of advocacy for OutFront Kalamazoo, about the unique challenges people in the LGBTQ community experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

News Channel 3 morning anchor Kirk Mason spoke with a doctor working in the ICU at a local hospital treating COVID-19 patients, a funeral home director who has held more than 40 funerals for people who have died from COVID-19, and a Three Rivers woman who lost her husband to the virus and almost lost her own live. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

As temperatures began warming up in Michigan, people began taking advantage of getting outside by hiking the trails that snake through West Michigan. News Channel 3's anchor and reporter Callie Rainey speaks with Sue Burkhard and Danielle Buhrfiend, admins of a popular West Michigan hiking Facebook group, on their favorite hiking trails and hidden gems across the western mitten. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

David Anderson's first year as the mayor of Kalamazoo was nothing like he expected. Racial unrest, a global pandemic and an economic tsunami combined to form the perfect storm. Mayor Anderson had a frank conversation with News Channel 3 anchor Andy Dominianni on the challenges faced in 2020 and opportunities on the horizon for 2021. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

The News Channel 3 weather team sits down to talk about the abnormally mild winter season and implications for the 2021 spring season. Chief meteorologist Keith Thompson, meteorologist Jeff Porter, meteorologist Christina Anthony and meteorologist Will Haenni met virtually to discuss. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

News Channel 3's sports director Andy Pepper chatted about this years 68-team field with three men who absolutely love the game of basketball: Former WMU Head Coach and current ESPN analyst Steve Hawkins, who led the Broncos to the 2004 and 2014 NCAA Tournaments; Ed Kengerski of Michigan Sports TV, who covers the Wolverines on a daily basis; and former News Channel 3 sports reporter Mike McCann who is — to put it bluntly — a bit of a college basketball junkie. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

News Channel 3 morning anchor Kirk Mason talked to the Superintendent Rita Raichoudhuri about why the district chose to remain fully virtual, and to parents frustrated by this decision. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

News Channel 3 anchor Lora Painter spoke with Deborah Evans, a longtime educator in Kalamazoo County. Evans shared her experiences with remote learning, including how her relationships with her students and their families became stronger, how students overcame the initial challenge of learning how to learn online, and the unique ways students have matured through rising to the challenges. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

News Channel 3's Meteorologist Will Haenni sits down with two Michigan disc golf professionals to talk about the history of the sport and where they see it going into the future. Andrew Marwede is the 2020 Michigan state champion and the highest rated disc golfer in the state. Larry LaBond has been involved in disc golf locally for 30 years, designing 12 courses to date and running a few of the largest disc golf tournaments our area has ever seen. Andrew and Larry reflect of what got them into the sport and the rapid growth we've seen in recent years. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

Marking Black history month, the News Channel 3 team organized two town hall conversations as part of our Black Voices coverage. Listen in to the first town hall, when the conversation focuses on systemic racism: What is it, and how can we change it? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

Just days from the start of a new school term, parents across West Michigan are facing choices: Send their children to the classroom for a couple days a week, all five days or not at all due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic. Newschannel 3 anchor Andy Dominianni, a parent himself, talks to others making those decisions in this debut "Parent to Parent" podcast. Dominianni talks with two parents of Kalamazoo public school students who have very different views when it comes to the district's back to school plans. Carrie Linter is a local dentist and mother of a Loy Norrix High School student. James Liggins is a local attorney and father of a Maple Street Middle School student and two Winchell Elementary School students. Dominianni also speaks with Rita Raichoudhuri, the new superintendent of schools for Kalamazoo. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

Ron Kramer, a professor of sociology at Western Michigan University, studies the intersections of corporate crime, state crime, environmental racism and climate change. Dr. Kramer holds a doctorate degree in sociology from Ohio State University, and served for 25 years as the directer of the criminal justice program at Western Michigan. He has written a number of books on the subject now termed green criminology. Among those volumes is the recently published, "Carbon Criminals, Climate Crimes," Rutgers University Press, 2020. Recently, Kramer sat down with Newschannel 3 Chief Meteorologist Keith Thompson to discuss how weather and government response to climate extremes such as heat waves plays a role in green criminology. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

Newschannel 3 meteorologists Jeff Porter and Will Haenni are working from home, as so many are due to restrictions designed to curb the infection rate for COVID-19. Forecasting, and broadcasting live, from home has presented its challenges. Listen in as Jeff and Will talk about how they made it work. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

Newschannel 3's anchor Kate Siefert sits down with Margaret Strzelecki of the Irish America Club of Kalamazoo as the city approaches its 20th annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade! The parade steps off at 11 a.m. Saturday March 14, 2020, on the Burdick Street Mall at Michigan Avenue and will march south down Burdick Street, turning right on to Cedar Street and ending at Rose Street. This year’s grand marshal is Julie Rogers. She is a board chair for the Irish American Club of Kalamazoo. Following the parade is the 9th annual Hooley for Healing, which will be held at Bell’s Brewery in downtown Kalamazoo. The event will include Irish Step Dancers, music and, a silent auction. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

Sinclair Broadcast Group's Political Reporter Mikenzie Frost stalks with House Speaker Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, about the new effort he's backing in the House to fund repairs for Michigan's crumbling infrastructure. Last year, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer unveiled her 45-cent gas tax increase, poised to generate at least $2 billion in new revenue to fix potholes and bridges falling apart. That plan didn't go anywhere, with little support on either side. Now, Chatfield is putting forward a similar plan to his caucus' last year. Plus, Mikenzie asks about the latest development in Michigan's Medicaid work requirements that got struck down by a federal judge Wednesday. There's a lot happening in Lansing and the two briefly talk about it all. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

During the fall of 2019, the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts welcomed nearly 9,000 visitors, a 151 percent increase over the previous year. Museum leaders point to a focus on diversity, including the "Black Refractions" exhibit and an upcoming focus on women artists, as one of the reasons for that growth. In this week's Community Conversation, Newschannel 3 anchor Lora Painter talks with KIA Executive Director Belinda Tate and the museum's chief curator, Rehema Barber, about the exhibits, women artists and the future of art in the region. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

Join Newschannel 3 Chief Meteorologist Kieth Thompson in a conversation with the conductor of the Kalamazoo Concert Band in advance of its winter concert. Dr. Thomas Evans has been leading the concert band for 18 years. For 12 of those years, Keith Thompson has emceed the concert band events. Listen in as they discuss the band's history, and its future. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

In the wake of projection reports on spring rain and flooding, Newschannel 3 meteorologists Jeff Porter, Will Haenni and Randi Burns discuss the forecast, the numbers and what you need to know as the waters rise. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

As an unusual winter leaves West Michigan's lakeshore battered by high water and wind-driven waves, Newschannel 3 Chief Meteorologist Keith Thompson talks to a water policy expert from Western Michigan University. Dr. Daniel Macfarlane is an associate professor at the university's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

Newschannel 3 meteorologists Randi Burns, Will Haenni, Jeff Porter and Keith Thompson celebrate National Weatherperson's Day with a conversation about forecasting the weather and why they do it - as well how their jobs have changed over the years. Yes, Keith has more than three decades on the job. Listen in, and then message the Newschannel 3 weather team on any topics you'd like them to talk about in upcoming conversations. National Weatherperson's Day is Feb. 5 each year, marking the birth date of one America's first weather observers, John Jeffries, in 1744. Jeffries was born in Boston, and did much of his weather observation there, but he also made notes of the weather from a balloon over London in 1784. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

Newschannel 3 anchor Kirk Mason, I-Team reporter Andrew Feather and I-Team producer Matt Loughrin discuss bus safety issues from a dad's perspective. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

So, you're dropping off your son or daughter at college for the first time. What advice should you give them before you head home? Newschannel 3 Chief Meteorologist Keith Thompson, who will dropping his oldest son off at college for the first time next year, talks with Michelle Davis, who is the family liaison in the student services office at Western Michigan University, and Scott Merlo, the Chief of Western Michigan University's police department. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message

We’re kicking off our Community Conversations podcast with some real talk about Dads and those first days of school. With us today are Katie MacDonnell, from Schoolcraft High School, and Courtney Shorter from Northwestern Middle School. Our host is Newschannel 3 Sports Director Andy Pepper, whose oldest child is headed to kindergarten in a few days. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wwmt/message