Three Song Stories

Brendan Rivers is the lead reporter for ADAPT, which is WJCT’s digital magazine exploring how Northeast Florida is adapting to sea level rise and other effects of climate change. He also hosts the ADAPT podcast. Brendan originally planned to pursue a career as a composer, arranger, music producer and recording engineer, but he got an internship at WGCU and that convinced him he belongs in broadcas...

Kiara Roman is a 17-year-old senior theatre major at Cypress Lake High School’s Center for the Arts in Fort Myers, Florida. In her free time Kiara says she loves to watch Marvel movies and tv shows, hang out with friends, including Mike's 17-year-old daughter Guinevere. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark Danni is the Founding Producing Artistic Director of TheatreZone, a professional Equity theatre company in Naples, Florida and he created and runs the theatre program at The Community School of Naples. He’s been involved with many Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regional productions as a Director, Music Director, Conductor and Drummer/Percussionist including New York City directing credits for Wh...

Camryn Cole is the premier Secretary of Student Organization at FGCU called “Coalition of Collegiate Musicians of Color”, a member of CGO Music International’s Naples-based vocal group “VOYCES”, and is a Voice Major at FGCU. She also studies Music Theatre and Jazz vocal technique and is planning to get her masters in Vocal Pedagogy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jennifer and Amelia Ford are two-thirds of the Fort Myers-based family power trio, The Shytunas. Jennifer has been writing and recording her own songs since she learned how to press Record and Play at the same time. Her daughter, Amelia, will be a 5th grader this year. Amelia’s a member of the National Elementary Honor Society, an award winning cross country star, wants to be an astronomer when sh...

Michaela Berres is a junior at FGCU studying music therapy. She has been studying as a musician since she was 13 years old, originally training in jazz, songwriting, and musical theatre. Earlier this year she came into the studio with a group of musicians studying under the FGCU Bower School of Music’s Director of Jazz Studies Brandon Robertson (Ep 93) to perform live on our radio show Gulf Coast...

Radu Paponiu is the new Artistic and Music Director of the Southwest Florida Symphony Orchestra. He’s also Associate Conductor of the Naples Philharmonic, and Music Director of the Naples Philharmonic Youth Orchestra. Since 2017, Radu has conducted the Naples Philharmonic in more than 100 different classical, education and pops programs. He’s been a guest conductor with orchestras around the world...

Randall Kenneth Jones is an author, podcaster, actor, and public speaker. Over the years he has interviewed more than 100 people of note, both for the Naples Daily News and for his podcast JONES.SHOW, which he produces with Susan C. Bennett (the original voice of Siri), including Erin Brockovich, Pat Benatar, Brian Boitano, Rita Rudner, Shirley Jones, Suze Orman, Vanessa Williams and many more. Hi...

Janine Zeitlin is an investigative and enterprise journalist for the USA TODAY Network-Florida. She has also written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vice and BBC. Her journalism has received more than 50 state and national awards. Her reporting on Florida farmworkers and migrant students during the pandemic was recently honored by the national Association of Health Care Journalists an...

Juliana Morgan Alvarez is an actor, artist, and theatre-maker. Born and raised in Miami, FL, she began performing at a young age with the Miami Ballet and acting in various theatre productions. After graduating college, Juliana moved to Los Angeles and continued acting, performing with her improv group, the Knife Kids, and producing science documentaries.  Juliana has traveled throughout the Unite...

Scott Miller comes from a radio background as his father was a DJ in Toledo when he was growing up. He spent 4 years in the United States Coast Guard, and has worked in radio for the last 29 years in both management and sales roles. For the past 9 years he’s been a resident of Southwest Florida and worked as a Sales Manager for iHeart Media before joining WGCU as Associate General Manager of busin...

Fernando López Flores was one of the people responsible for the international initiative Musica para Respirar, or Music to Breathe 24/7 program, that provided more than 3,000 free virtual concerts for healthcare workers and COVID-19 patients in more than 55 countries. Fernando is also co-founder of the Con Fuoco Bolivian Pianists Society and has been a member of the Bolivian Chamber Music Society...

Stephen Cavitt teaches English and creative writing at FGCU and he’s led groups around the world, from the back trails of the Appalachians to the streets of Shanghai. Stephen has also taught for Duke University, the University of Tennessee, Georgia College, and Chattanooga State Community College. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mike Walcher worked for 42 years as an anchor and reporter in radio and TV News, almost always as a hard and breaking news reporter, covering things like the police beat, courts, politics, and local government. Mike retired from broadcasting at the end of 2016 and immediately started teaching journalism at Florida Gulf Coast University. He’s currently teaching the new Democracy Watch course and fe...

Pat Mitchell is a filmmaker and has made 4 films, including his latest, a feature called “Apples, Oranges, Lemons & Limes” which will be screened Saturday, May 21st, 2022 at the Fort Myers Film Festival in downtown Fort Myers. Other than films, Pat also produces music, mostly these days for his brother Freddie Forward who is a Southwest Florida-based hip hop artist. Pat was born in the Bronx a...

Born in Venezuela, Samantha Romero immigrated to Miami, FL in to 2006, and is now a journalism student at FGCU. She’s also a reporter at WGCU, and produces Noticias de WGCU en Español – a weekly news round up produced at WGCU and aired on Radio Conciencia, a community radio station in Immokalee, FL. Sam also works at WINK News where she edits video, and does photography for FGCU.  Sam also produce...

Apollo Fresh (or Jonathon Appolon) is a local nerdcore rapper who specializes in anime rap. As a second generation Haitian immigrant who grew up consuming hip-hop and anime, Apollo decided to combine his passions and before graduating, produced his first big hit single, Jojo Pose in 2020. Since then, he’s been creating solo and collaborative music and videos for YouTube , Tiktok , Spotify , and In...

Sabrina is the Editor-in-Chief of Eagle News and is one of WGCU’s Democracy Watch Fellows, covering news local to Southwest Florida with a focus on government. She’s also been a Next Generation Radio reporter for NPR .  Sabrina plans to graduate this semester, and will be working on her Masters in Journalism at NYU in the Fall. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

 Dr. Jake von Scherrer is creator and host of The Educational AD Podcast which showcases High School Athletic directors, coaches, and Olympic athletes from across the country and around the world. He’s also the author of The Athletic Director's Toolbox, and has served as President of the FIAAA, and several other state and national athletic associations.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy inf...

Katie Fogarty is a junior Journalism major at FGCU. She's involved in Eagle News, the FGCU Odyssey Magazine, the Journalism department at FGCU, and WGCU as a News Reporting Intern. Over the summer, Katie plans to intern at the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting in Jackson, Mississippi.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bob Morris is an American novelist who writes Caribbean-themed mysteries. He is also the author of several collections of nonfiction, including Gut Check, Short Road to Hell, The Man with the Fish on His Foot, All Over the Map, and The Whole Shebang. He’s also president of Story Farm, which is a custom publishing company that creates books, magazines and other publications for a wide variety of cl...

Patience Cole is the Digital Media editor for Razzle Dazzle, the Pop culture and video games podcast , which has had Mike, Richard, and Tara as guests. Go check it out! She's also a production intern at WINK News, a digital marketing intern at Celsius Marketing interactive a singer-songwriter, and an about-to-graduate English major at FGCU. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Amy Ginsburg is Executive Director of the Southwest Florida Symphony, a fully professional orchestra that’s based at the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall in Fort Myers. She graduated from Ft. Myers High and attended Edison State College and University of South Florida as a fine-arts major. She then attended the Gemological Institute of America. After a career in jewelry design and manufacture,...

Jim Hale graduated from Dartmouth in 1962, and from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1965. He served as a law clerk to Chief Justice Earl Warren at the Supreme Court in 1965-66 where he spent a significant amount of this time helping to draft the Miranda opinion.  After 13 years with the Minneapolis law firm of Faegre & Benson in 1979 Jim joined General Mills as head of its internatio...

Miles Mancini started playing piano at the age of five. He grew up amid musical excellence as his father, George Mancini, worked with the likes of jazz greats Toots Thielemans, Jaco Pastorias, Herbie Hancock, Henry Mancini and many others. As a child, he played piano in front of audiences in Frankfurt, Germany to Paris, France.  Miles was part of the inaugural class at FGCU and graduated in 2001 w...