Tales from the South, a multi award-winning weekly live radio show featuring Southerners reading their own true stories, will be taped for broadcast at Starbucks in Legacy Park on Thursday, April 24.
Dr. Jack Shock, chairman of the communication department, invited the show’s creator and director Paula Martin Morrell because he believes in her mission to share stories. He and other Harding professors have been featured on the show.
“Paula is trying to keep the arts and the art of storytelling alive in communities around Arkansas,” Shock said. “I submitted my story a few years ago, and since then, Paula and I have become friends. When I saw she was doing this in Conway and Fayetteville, I thought we would be a great fit since we’re an hour down the road. I think it will be a great way to celebrate storytelling for Searcy and Harding.”
The show, a cross between a house concert and a reading, is taped live on Tuesday nights at Starving Artist Cafe in North Little Rock.
“It will be an entertaining evening with reading, music and art,” Shock said. “Music and art will serve as the background to the storytelling. It’s sort of an immersive experience with a 30 minute pre-show with music as well as an art display behind the reader.”
Tales from the South’s home station is the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s KUAR, but it is also heard on multiple public radio stations across the country and satellite radio around the world.
Junior Natalie Heyen attended the show for the first time last summer with Honors Symposium.
“It will be one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences,” Heyen said. “How often does a radio show listened to around the world come to campus? Also, since it originates right here in Arkansas, we can take pride in it.”
The 7 p.m. show is free and open for anyone to attend.
