Home 2008 shows 2007 shows 2006 shows 2005 shows About Contact KOOP 91.7 FM	• Simply click on the date of the show you'd like to hear • August 2008 August 6 Lashonda Lester For a 32-year-old, Lashonda has been through the wringer: a heart attack, a stroke, and a premature baby. It turns out that high blood pressure is at the root of it all, a trait she found out runs in her family. Despite it all, Lashonda is upbeat and is even performing stand-up comedy around Austin. August 13 Karen Gonzalez Karen has spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic disease causing the muscles to deteriorate. At age, 37, she has already beat the life-expectancy odds, and is accomplished in her studies and volunteer activities. The one thing that hasn't gone her way, however, is getting a full-time job, which she believes is due to discrimination. July 2008 July 2 Stephanie Klein The author of the newly released book Moose: A Memoir of Fat Camp, Stephanie talks about growing up fat and being shunned at school. Her parents, who had their own issues surrounding her weight, sent her to fat camp, where she spent several summers. The good news is, she actually successfully lost weight. July 9 Debbie Richardson & Ginsie Stauss The Texas Water Safari is billed as the world's toughest canoe race. Debbie and Ginsie decided to take it on in a 2-person canoe, completing the grueling race in 3 days. A month later, they are still recovering from the physical challenge, but have incredible, funny and crazy stories to tell. Dangers abound, things go wrong, and people hallucinate. July 16 Julie Julie has Crohn's Disease, an auto-immune illness that is an inflammation of the intestine. Crohn's is incredibly debilitating as it ends up affecting many other parts of her body, to the point where Julie has been hospitalized many times. Julie believes Crohn's is incurable, but she has not had a flare-up in quite some time and is doing much better now. In fact, she is now a belly-dancing teacher, of all things! July 23 Jacquelyn Ann Covington The author of Who? An Addict Like Me, Jackie was a drug and alcohol addict for 30 years. She describes her years of substance abuse and ultimately how she recovered by attending the Magdalene Program in Nashville, TN. June 2008 June 4 Michelle & Katy Austen Michelle & Katy are a lesbian couple with twin daughters, created through artificial insemination. They talk about how they decided who would be the biological mother (Michelle), picking a donor, the artificial insemination process, and issues surrounding being gay parents. June 11 Adrienne Roy Adrienne spent 19 years as the the color artist for the Batman comic books. She absolutely loved her job, which she performed in the pre-computer era when pencilling, inking and coloring were done by hand. June 18 Mindy Freeman, Part 1 At age 13, a close friend of Mindy's committed suicide. Devastated by the event, Mindy began to cut herself as a way to cope, which she cotinues to do to this day (though much less often). This is a fascinating look inside the mind of someone with an extreme coping mechanism, but be warned: Mindy describes the cutting in detail and without any apologies. June 25 Mindy Freeman, Part 2 I brought Mindy back in to talk about another aspect her life. She says she is bisexual but clearly prefers women. That said, at age 20 she will not pursue a lesbian relationship because she lives with her parents and they strongly disapprove. (When you listen to the interview, you may decide Mindy is really just a lesbian.) May 2008 May 7 Amanda & Marcus Wiggins Marcus used to be in the Air Force—until they kicked him out. He loved being a part of the Air Force, but everything changed when he had a routine examination where it was discovered he had a rare eye disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa. Since it's considered to be genetic, the Air Force decided he had a pre-existing condition—not only did they no longer want him in the Air Force, but he was essentially dishonorably discharged. This has led to severe financial hardship for him and his family. May 14 Richard Garriott Richard, who makes his home in Austin, is one of the most successful video game creators ever. Since he was a kid, though, watching his astronaut father go into space with NASA, Richard has wanted to go into space himself. This October, he will get the chance as a space tourist, a $30 million venture on a Russian rocket. Richard tells of the extensive preparation involved and shares some great stories from his training. April 2008 April 2 Gina Zayes At 86 pounds, Gina started seeing a therapist for anorexia. She was exercising several hours per day as an escape from her daily life, and skipping meals. With the help of therapy, she has gained 10 pounds and is learning to approach her problems instead of avoiding them. April 9 Deborah Keahl From 7 to 10 years old, Deborah was raped repeatedly by her uncle. In her teen years, she turned to drugs, eventually selling coke in her twenties. A check-writing spree (to pay for her coke habit) led to her to prison. A few years later, she ended up in prison again, this time for selling meth-amphetamines. Deborah served her time and completed a program for women in prison called Truth Be Told, which helped her turn her life around. April 16 Seven Seven is the inventor of an instrument called the Planck. It looks similar to the neck of a guitar without the body, and is played by tapping ones fingers on the instrument's 7 strings. You can see what it looks like here. April 23 Helen Buchanan Helen says her mother never treated her well growing up but says she did nothing wrong and can't explain her mother's behavior. After Helen had a son, her mother came by under the guise of a visit. In fact, she took Helen's son and immediately filed for permanent custody. Many years and court battles later, Helen's mother succeeded in getting custody of Helen's son. That was over 20 years ago and Helen still has no idea why this happened and does not believe there was any justification for it. April 30 Richard Villanueva Richard holds the patent to a disposable baby bottle; his goal is to provide safe, healthy formula to babies in third-world countries where there's no access to clean drinking water. And, yet, despite his good intentions, every step of the way towards getting those bottles there has been thwarted by greedy people, says Richard. He has bizarre stories to tell about partnerships gone sour, thieving attorneys, and more. March 2008 March 5 James Clayton James was on the show two weeks ago (see February 20 above) talking about a heart attack he had at age 35. He came back on the show to discuss two aspects in greater detail: his near-death experience (where his grandfather foretold things that would happen in James' life) and the series of hallucinations he had while in a coma for a month. March 12 Jarrett Crippen a.k.a. The Defuser Jarrett is Austin's very own superhero! He went on the Sci Fi Channel TV show "Who Wants to Be a Superhero?" as The Defuser, and beat out 9 other contestants to win the title. The Defuser is a supercop who catches criminals without using deadly force, and successfully defuses explosive situations with his clever gadgetry. February 2008 February 6 Diane Benjamin On June 29, 2007, Diane's son Lance committed suicide. Diane shares the details of how he died, why he did it, and what she's doing about it. Diane created the Lance Benjamin Memorial Scholarship Fund, which will provide scholarships to gay youth. You can check it out here. February 13 Jared Dunten In 2000, Jared took a dive into the Rio Grande. The next thing he knew, he was in a hospital, paralyzed from the neck down. Jared now paints, which he accomplishes by holding a brush in his mouth. To see his work, click here. Jared talks about his painting, along with how he handles the tasks of daily living. February 20 James Clayton At the age of 35, professional mountain bike racer James Clayton had a heart attack. After being resuscitated, he was medically induced into a coma to prevent shock. One month later, he awoke and basically had to start learning how to move all over again. Now 41, James is a very active cyclist and the owner of a cycling coaching business. January 2008 January 2 Adam Pitluk Author of Damned to Eternity, a book about James Scott, the only person to be convicted for intentionally causing a catastrophe. Scott is spending life in prison for causing a levee to break in Missouri during the Great Midwestern Floods of 1993. Adam portrays an unsavory portrait of Scott, yet effectively sheds doubt that Scott is actually guilty of the crime. KOOP is off the air for 3 weeks due to a fire (intentionally set) to our studios. See January 30 below for an interview about it. January 30 KOOP Fire—Austin Fire Dept. Chief Greg Nye, Andrew Dickens, Leah Manners On the night of Saturday, January 5th, a fire was intentionally set to KOOP Radio's studios. On Monday, January 28th, Paul Feinstein was arrested for the crime, which he confessed to. Paul Feinstein was a former DJ at KOOP and a well-liked volunteer. In this show, we talk about what happened, possible motives, and how the investigation led to Paul.
Copyright © 2008 Abigail Mahnke