In this edition of WYSO Weekend: Among the stories we bring you today, you’ll hear the wonderful sounds of the Ugandan Kids Choir – they performed Saturday, August 30th, at the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center, but also stopped by the WYSO studios on Friday to sing a couple of their songs.
- Hollywood Gaming at Dayton Raceway opened Thursday to great fanfare. The gaming facility features more than a thousand lottery terminals, five restaurants and lounges, and a 1930s-style décor. Operator, Penn National Gaming says 90% of the 500 employees working at the racino have been hired from the Miami Valley, and that more indirect jobs are expected to come. After the opening ceremonies Thursday, I grabbed a few minutes to talk with Mayor Nan Whaley who took part in the ribbon cutting. She said the North Dayton gaming facility is a welcome addition to the city.
Here’s the deal. Take a bucket of ice water, dump it over your head and donate $10.00 to ALS. Then challenge others to do the same. They can either accept your challenge and pay the $10, or skip the challenge and donate $100. Some people think it’s corny, others have lashed out against the waste of water—as if they’ve never run through a sprinkler or swam in a pool for the simple joy of it. But, no matter what your thoughts are—it can’t be denied that The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge continues to be a social media phenomenon around the world. It’s help raise millions and millions of dollars for a disease that, until recently, not many people understood, or knew about. Marlin Seymour, executive director of ALS Central and Southwest Ohio says all that’s changed. I spoke to her by phone this week.
Americans are grappling again with issues of social justice and racial equality, in light of the shooting of an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. And here in the Miami Valley the same issues are in the headlines, since John Crawford the Third was shot by police in a Beavercreek Walmart store on August 5. Today on Rediscovered Radio we have a story about a white Kentucky woman named Ann McCarty Braden who fought racism in this country for more than sixty years. In the early 1980s, Braden visited Ohio and the WYSO Audio Archives contains an interview with the civil rights advocate. Rediscovered Radio producer Jocelyn Robinson has the story.
There are many religious groups around the United States that practice shunning – they turn away from congregants who leave the group – even those from their immediate families. Experts call shunning a form of psychological bullying. Community Voices producer Brad Price learned about groups in the Miami Valley that practice shunning and has this story about a young man who was shunned – and how he survived.
