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KAREN BARTA: Good morning. I'm Karen Barta with news from Minnesota Public Radio. Brooklyn Center and Minneapolis will be the sites today of the first two of three debates between Senator Paul Wellstone and GOP challenger Rudy Boschwitz. The third debate will be September 29 in Eden Prairie. What is now the longest runway at the Twin Cities International Airport officially opens later this hour. Minnesota Public Radio's Mark Zdechlik reports.

MARK ZDECHLIK: Twin Cities International's crosswind runway has been expanded to 11,000 feet, at a cost of $15 million. The longer runway will allow for the easier takeoff of fully loaded and fully fueled long-haul international flights. Airports Commissioner Steve Cramer says the newly expanded runway will not, however, greatly reduce traffic on the two parallel runways, thereby cutting down on aircraft noise over South Minneapolis.

STEVE CRAMER: For a better distribution of traffic, it's a disappointment. On the other hand, the runway extension project has been controversial for well over a decade. The fact that the pavement is there and can potentially be used to help distribute traffic over the next coming years, between now and when the north-south runway is built, at least is a step in the right direction.

MARK ZDECHLIK: Cramer says, for the newly expanded runway to be used heavily, new taxiways would need to be constructed. This is Mark Zdechlik, Minnesota Public Radio.

KAREN BARTA: The state forecast today, partly cloudy in the west and mostly cloudy in the east, with highs from near 60 in the northeast to the lower 70s in the southwest. For the Twin Cities, mostly cloudy, high in the middle to upper 60s. For Tuesday, partly cloudy, high around 65. Around the region, it's mostly cloudy. In Duluth, the current temperature is 51 degrees. It's 57 in Rochester. St. Cloud reporting 53. And it's 56 in the Twin Cities. That's news from Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Karen Barta.

PAULA SCHROEDER: It's 6 minutes past 10 o'clock. This is Midmorning on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Paula Schroeder. Today's programming is made possible in part by the advocates of Minnesota Public Radio. Contributors include ADC Telecommunications and the Minnesota Mutual Foundation for Minnesota Mutual Life and its affiliates.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

You may recall all the media attention a few years ago around saving the black-footed ferret. Very few remain in the wild. And biologists said the ferret's survival is a bellwether for the health of the environment. Well, the ferret was saved from extinction by captive breeding. Today on our Voices of Minnesota interview, we hear from Ulysses Seal. Seal is one of the people who helped save the ferret and many other endangered species.

The 67-year-old Seal is a world-renowned conservationist. He still leads an organization called the Captive Breeding Specialist Group. Seal is also a founding board member of the Minnesota Zoo. He lives in Bloomington, but he's not there very often. Seal spends most of his time traveling, working with people in other countries to save wildlife habitat. Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson talked recently with Seal at his Minnesota Zoo office about the rate of extinction of animals.

DAN OLSON: How are we doing on that count? I mean, we see from time to time a kind of a measurement x number of species lost or endangered. What's the scorecard that you think is important to keep track of?

ULYSSES SEAL: The scorecard on species actually lost, I think, in a sense, it became a diversion. For me, the most fundamental fact of what's happening is the enormous fragmentation of habitat on the planet and the fact that literally thousands of vertebrate species are being reduced to smaller and isolated populations.

So in this sense, we have a potential time catastrophe in the making. And we are really at the cusp of this. That is, these small populations that exist are gradually losing diversity. If something is not done in terms of their management within the next 100 years, we may see a much more explosive loss of species.

DAN OLSON: We should be clear that you personally, in your hands-on preservation efforts, maybe you would take a moment to describe that, the founding of the organization, the one that you currently work for, and what takes you around the world. I mean, in a hands-on way, what do you do?

ULYSSES SEAL: When we started, our emphasis was on the conservation value of captive populations. And in fact, the group was organized with the specific mission of bringing together the zoos and aquariums of the world to utilize their resources and their captive resources for populations that were in extremis. Much of that work has been done. Of course, it'll continue indefinitely as we bring more and more of the zoos of the world online.

But during that time, we developed a lot of tools and expertise in working with small populations. This applies directly to wild populations. Now more than half of our work is actually with wildlife agencies and organizations dealing with populations in the wild without any captive component. In some cases, we're integrating or merging the two. And in all cases, we're trying to bring together these quite separate and isolated communities-- the wildlife managers, the ecologists, the academics, and the zoo managers-- recognizing we have a common mission.

DAN OLSON: Let's talk about some species. Give a few examples, if you will, starting with a couple of examples of species which you think represent what you talked about, being on the cusp of populations that are so marginal, so small in number that we now risk losing them.

ULYSSES SEAL: Over the past six years, when we committed ourselves to this full time, we've worked on more than 100 species in more than 50 countries. But much of this work took its origins with the black-footed ferret and the problem in Wyoming, then followed with the panther, the Florida panther, and then the red wolf. All three species in the United States.

The ferret was a catastrophe that is in the making. At the time, a single small population under tremendous threat. But action was moving, not slowly but too slowly, at least for the threats that the species faced. Then catastrophe struck in the form of disease, and it was necessary to bring all of the remaining animals into captivity. This was a tremendously emotional experience. Wildlife managers in general do not care for that. And so it required a tremendous amount of careful work between the groups.

And with the ferret, we were additionally faced with the fact that there had never been a black-footed ferret bred successfully and survived in captivity. So making the recommendation to bring them all into captivity was a tremendous risk. And if it had failed, we probably wouldn't be in this business now with this first species. But in fact, they did breed in captivity. There are release programs underway. And the program eventually, I think, will be successful with the establishment of new wild populations.

DAN OLSON: I don't want to stop you in recitation of a couple of other examples. But the question on my mind now is, so what has been saved? With the saving of the black-footed ferret, what's the extension of that? How does it play out? What's the gain?

ULYSSES SEAL: There are a series of extensions. The focus on single species has been, again, distracting. Many of our ecologist colleagues feel that we have to focus on ecosystems. I think the black-footed ferret is an excellent example of a species whose conservation is leading to an effort to save and manage some ecosystems.

Essentially, the ferret declined because of massive poisoning of prairie dogs to remove the prairie dog towns. Those actions were still in place in all of the states at the time this program was started. As a result of the program, a number of states which were adamantly against the black-footed ferret and its restoration have now changed course, have set aside areas for it. And eventually, it will see, I believe, colonies restored in many of the prairie states. This carries with it the restoration of the native prairie ecology. And that, I think, has an enormous long term, broader benefit than just the black-footed ferret.

DAN OLSON: You mentioned the Florida panther. Is that what it is?

ULYSSES SEAL: Florida panther. This is a case of a subspecies. The ferret was a full species in its loss. The Florida panther is a part of a species that's distributed from British Columbia to Patagonia, enormously widely distributed. But it was shown to be a fairly unique genetic pool or population. But it had an enormous interest. It was on the Endangered Species list. The state of Florida regarded it as an image crusher to lose it.

It was discovered, or rediscovered really, not accidentally, but it wasn't known that there was a population there. And that population, though, is a classic case of a very small population, in the 30s, that was suffering from inbreeding depression. So this has required the development of some new kinds of ideas about reintroductions and measures that are needed to manage that population.

DAN OLSON: I know you say it's a diversion when we focus on just the ferret or just the Florida panther. But for public relations purposes, for folks like me, the lay public, isn't that how you get results? Isn't that how you get our attention?

ULYSSES SEAL: I personally don't regard it as a diversion. I think it's key and fundamental, both as flagship species, bringing public attention. And the fact is that managers, when they manage ecosystems, do not erect a fence and walk away. They have to take actions that are directed at components of that community. Those communities are changing in composition through time. So there are choices that we'll have to continue to make with all of the managed areas on the planet.

DAN OLSON: We've been losing species, what, in an evolutionary sense, in a so-called natural sense for forever, have we not? So if we lose some more species, what is the risk?

ULYSSES SEAL: The question of losing species and the risks, I think, again, can be asked a different way. First, estimates of rate of species loss, depending on the groups of species and how one does the counting, say one a year under natural circumstances through geologic time, but now perhaps one a day. The order of magnitude, two orders of magnitude, or three orders of magnitude increase. It depends upon how many insects you include, how large that rate is.

Most, if not all, of the insect estimates are speculation. We do know over the last 300-odd years that we've lost, documented-wise, over 465 species of vertebrates and invertebrates that we know about. There's certainly more. But what we're faced with now is the loss of diversity within species and the loss of evolutionary potential, the loss of the ability to respond to the changing environments that we know will occur in time.

DAN OLSON: So is this our barometer, if you will, of how healthy the planet is, the loss of species?

ULYSSES SEAL: I think it's a major indicator of the health of the biological systems on the planet is the loss of this genetic diversity. We're reducing the resilience to respond to new challenge through time.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Conservationist Ulysses Seal talking with Dan Olson. You're listening to our Voices of Minnesota interview, part of Midmorning nearly every Monday at this time. In our environment today, it's going to be partly cloudy in the west, mainly cloudy in the East, with highs from around 60 in Duluth to the low 70s in the southwest. In the Twin Cities, look for a high today near 67 degrees. It's 16 minutes past 10 o'clock. We're going to continue now with our interview with Ulysses Seal. He says saving the world's biodiversity begins at home, literally in our backyard. He told Dan Olson about saving the Houston toad.

DAN OLSON: Did you encounter that, "Dr. Seal, what are you worried about a toad for? We want to put up 150 homes over here." Did it come down to preserving certain amounts of land that would not be developed?

ULYSSES SEAL: It turned out to be making such choices as where do you put a golf course or to build a swimming pool or how, when you build a house, do you protect or manage a pond and this sort of thing. Very practical things which, when we started this kind of process, wasn't obvious to us. You think in terms of plans.

You make management recommendations for managers to take. But they were almost entirely in public lands. Here, we're dealing with the commitments that private landholders have to make. I'm finding and I believe that "the public" so-called, these other stakeholders, are very interested in conservation and finding ways to accomplish it.

DAN OLSON: What about overseas? You're talking about an example, the Houston toad, a group of people who may see things your way. May even identify with your Georgia accent for all I know. Now I'm thinking of taking you over to, where, Indonesia or--

ULYSSES SEAL: Indonesia.

DAN OLSON: I gather one of the reasons you're interested in Indonesia is because there's intense resource pressure, interest in Indonesia's resources-- timber, minerals, oil, other things.

ULYSSES SEAL: It sounds like you're describing every place on the planet.

[LAUGHS]

The other reason for being interested in Indonesia is it's the fourth most populous country on the planet after the United States, which is third. It has a very large fraction of the world's biological diversity, partly because of the island complexes. There's over 10,000 islands and enormous numbers of endemic species, as well as the semi-tropical and tropical environment. But people were interested in doing the work.

DAN OLSON: And you've been able to do what? You've been able to-- working with others, not on your own, of course-- set aside pieces of ground, so-called "parks," or what else?

ULYSSES SEAL: The setting aside of parks and ground has been accomplished actually over a number of years by other IUCN and other organizations. But of, say, 10,000 of these protected areas, 5,000 of them are gazetted on paper. They don't exist as managed locations. Of the remaining 5,000, a substantial fraction may have people assigned to them, but again, without the skills necessary to do what needs to be done.

Think about Indonesia, for example. Think about your history a bit. As an independent country, separate from certain colonials, the Dutch and the Brits and others, it's been a separate country for, what, 40-odd years. And it's had to build its entire infrastructure in that time because they were not provided-- that training wasn't provided them. An infrastructure wasn't built by any of the colonial occupiers. So they've literally had to bootstrap in a relatively short period of time. They're doing it.

DAN OLSON: Are you trying any economic persuasion with the government of, in this case specifically, Indonesia by saying, look, some of these species and the environment they live in could be potentially economically useful to you? I guess the same argument that some people have been using for the tropical forests, telling people, look, this is a biodiverse warehouse you have here, things that you could possibly market commercially. Does that work?

ULYSSES SEAL: From my perspective, economics is probably the least persuasive tool we have to encourage conservation. These debates are going on endlessly. Their overall contribution is going to be interesting in some places. But in fact, if we do not have the commitment for other, more subtle, and intangible reasons by people, the game is not going to be solved by economic logic.

DAN OLSON: Is the big threat to preservation of various species the human population explosion?

ULYSSES SEAL: [LAUGHS]

Well, the human population explosion, of course, can be looked at in the broadest terms, in terms of sheer energy utilization on the planet, space occupied, biologically available resources utilized. And in a very real sense, that plays a major role in what's happening. We estimate with, what, 5 and 1/2 billion humans now, by the year, say, 2025, 8 and 1/2 billion humans, we're going to be absorbing 40% or more of the biologically available resources.

That means less space and resources for everything else. So no matter how we adjust ourselves-- and we can in many ways that are far more accommodating and efficient-- the fact is, we're the first experience of such massive numbers of a large species on the planet in all of its history. And our impacts I don't think we have more than a hint of.

DAN OLSON: Some of the highest rates of population and economic growth are taking place. And is that essentially overwhelming? Give us a bit of a picture. Is that essentially overwhelming their interest in preserving environment? Or is there a real consciousness of the environment?

ULYSSES SEAL: It's my impression that our ability to go through this process is much better in countries that are on the upswing economically. I recognize there's a very deep debate going on now about economic development and impact on conservation. But from our perspective, where management is needed and threatened species have been identified, countries with an upswinging economy are much readier to undertake the process themselves. And they are going to have to do it. The notion that the World Bank or IMF or any Western or Northern country and agency can take the responsibility for managing the survival of a species in another country is misplaced. It won't happen.

DAN OLSON: I suppose you face the argument pretty often that, look, if it's people over animals, we're going to choose people every time, if it's the case of a village that needs a better, more stable economy, way of life, and if that might involve more intense agricultural production, tilling more fields that might destroy some ecology. Is that the argument that you deal with most frequently? Or is it something else?

ULYSSES SEAL: The conflict is very real. In any of these countries, the need to produce food is very real. And the impact of that and the gradual erosion of protected areas or habitat is very real. But the involvement of these stakeholders has not happened very often. And again, our experience is that if you involve these stakeholders, then it becomes a way of accommodating the various needs and satisfactorily projecting into the future. Realize we're looking into the future, what the changes in the human population and its use of resources might be through time. And this is an activity we're deeply engaged in trying to develop now.

DAN OLSON: Where did you get this abiding interest in animals, in species, in the environment, in the outdoors, if you will?

ULYSSES SEAL: [CHUCKLES]

I suspect in some ways, it's an inborn bit. We're hardwired for the way we look at the world. But certainly, I was encouraged in it all the way back to my parents, and then was very fortunate in having teachers along the way who were interested and really encouraged, particularly in high school. But--

DAN OLSON: Were you born and raised in the country? The city?

ULYSSES SEAL: Well, the city. But there was enough country nearby that I had a chance to spend a lot of time as a scout and on my own.

DAN OLSON: And so were you an early-day-- oh, I hate to use this expression-- "environmental activist?" Or was that not an apt description?

ULYSSES SEAL: No, I think it's too-- what can I say? It implies far more thinking than I was doing at the time. It's more that I simply enjoyed being out. And I've enjoye that not only as a scout myself and as a scoutmaster-- we did Boundary Waters trips and all that sort of thing-- I just plain like it.

DAN OLSON: What do you think we're doing that's useful, that's helping young people these days-- you have grandchildren, I think you pointed out-- as we teach young people about the environment? What have you seen, either the classroom level or the community level or the scouting level, that seems to be working in terms of kids understanding the relationship between the human population and the environment?

ULYSSES SEAL: I think we've probably underestimated the pervasive changes that have occurred in our culture in North America. One indicator of that is that all the polls indicate that 80% or more of the public, with regards to any other affiliation, support somehow conservation and environmental activity.

And remembering myself as a child, looking at my own children, and now looking at my grandchildren-- they're just starting school or in school-- the materials available to them are dramatically different and encompass much more about nature and the conservation activities than we ever experienced. So I think it's becoming a pervasive part of our culture. And any newspaper that-- well, any newspaper that one opens now, there's something about them every day. It's a part of our life now.

DAN OLSON: Still, though, even though it's a part of our life, most of us live in places that are really isolated big time from natural areas, the kinds of areas that you probably visit somewhat routinely. And what we have instead are the Minnesota Zoos of the world or other zoos around. And I'm just wondering how quickly zoos are catching on to the educational component of giving people the kind of story you want to spread.

ULYSSES SEAL: First, I would suggest you undervalue the natural areas that are a matter of a few minutes from here, whether you go to the Marsh Lake Park here in Bloomington, in the Hennepin park system. The whole state park system where I took my scouts or we take our kids and everything else, I think there's an enormous array of natural areas. And in a way, they're vignettes of what we are going to see over the entire planet. Each of those is being maintained because of a public choice. And each of them represents, at least in cameo, a system that we can work with or that we can enjoy and participate in.

Zoos, I believe and obviously have believed for a long time, are a critical role player in conservation. At first, it was simply a matter of looking at how their direct resources, their collections could be used and directly managed for conservation purposes. But then it became clear very rapidly that a major role for them is in relation to their publics and how they contact them. And that's partly the experience in the zoo itself. No one has ever been able to persuade any of us that television, radio, or newspaper, any of these indirect experiences are a substitute for the real experience. And I think there's tremendous validity to that.

But now beyond that, the zoo by here, for example, with the school on the grounds, with its programs here in education, essentially able over the course of a few years, contacting all the school kids in the state, has an enormous impact, I believe, on the public from a conservation natural resources education or understanding, or at least contact.

And this is happening all over this country. It's happening more gradually in Europe. It's happening in India. It's certainly beginning to happen now in Indonesia and in Thailand. And it's going to happen in China. They've set that as one of their goals. So this kind of a movement to share that experience with the broader public, I think, is the biggest impact the zoos can have.

DAN OLSON: What are you working on right now?

ULYSSES SEAL: [CHUCKLES]

In a matter of a couple of weeks, I go to Indonesia with a team working on the babirusa, which is a species of wild pig, and anoa, which is a species of wild cattle, both found on Sulawesi and endemic to that island. Then we go from Indonesia to Australia for two additional workshops, one on a frog and one on a legless lizard. And then we've got a whole series of these. In any one year, we'll do probably 20 or 25 different workshops around the world. And for example, this year, I've been to Cuba and Venezuela, Costa Rica, just a whole series. And in the past year, India, China. Going to China this year again.

DAN OLSON: What's the issue in China?

ULYSSES SEAL: We've been to China for two species already and are going for a third. The first one was the baiji dolphin, the freshwater dolphin in the Yangtze River, which is critically endangered. Its numbers are probably less than 50. It may be gone. The second species was the South China tiger, also critically endangered in the wild. Numbers perhaps 20 in the wild, but a small captive population.

And the Chinese asked us to assist them in the process of managing and developing that captive population to serve as a backup, almost certainly, for the loss of the species in the wild. The third, same thing for the giant panda. In December, we're, again at the invitation of the Chinese government, to assist them in further developing their captive program with the idea of a fully viable captive managed population.

DAN OLSON: Does ecotourism hold any kind of big role, play any kind of big role in the preservation of the environments that the endangered species live in?

ULYSSES SEAL: Ecotourism, of course, has been brought forward as a tremendous potential resource for conservation by providing local economic support. Like all human activities, there's a lot of learning and bumps in the road, ranging from the coral reef diving and damage and this sort of thing to simple damage in parks and areas, the question of the resources getting back to people, and so on. But given the clear increase in recreation time and resources for everyone on the planet, I think that we have to get through those bumps on the road and recognize that there's a management adjustment and take advantage of it, use it.

DAN OLSON: Is it happening fast enough, preservation, conservation, attention to the environment, so that long after you and I are gone, there will be an environment for your grandchildren to say, hey, grandpa did some work there that really saved some species?

ULYSSES SEAL: One of the interesting things that's happening is the notion of change. 20 years ago, when we started, big companies were immortal. Now nothing in business or organization-wise is immortal. And with it, there is the enormous pressure and stress of looking at and accepting rapid change. We're changing very rapidly. Just what I said about the futures, we can only project three to five years in terms of what we're doing. So the answer is 20, 30, 40 years, we've got 100 years to catch up with.

We're changing, I think, very rapidly. We won't know whether we were fast enough, I think, for another 50 years. But we're going to lose parts of the game along the way. There's just no question about it. We're losing species that we're working with right now. So we're not fast enough to have avoided some significant losses. But I think change is underway very rapidly. And we at least have the potential and the capability, I believe, of responding, accommodating, and carrying us through the next 100 years.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Conservationist Ulysses Seal talking with Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson. Our Voices of Minnesota interviews are heard nearly every Monday as part of Midmorning. It's 28 minutes before 11 o'clock. Temperatures in the low to mid 50s-- or excuse me, mid to upper 50s all across the region right now. Heading into the 60s and 70s today.

SPEAKER 1: The following is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System.

[LONG BEEP]

This station is testing its Emergency Broadcast System equipment. The EBS will soon be replaced with the Emergency Alert System. The EAS will provide timely emergency warnings. This station serves the Minnesota operational area. This concludes this test of the Emergency Broadcast System.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Today's programming is sponsored in part by TK Associates of Minneapolis, celebrating their 12th anniversary.

EZRA CUNNINGHAM: My name is Ezra Cunningham. I was born May the 4th, 1917, at 4:00 PM. How many of you made history yesterday? You made history yesterday? Sure enough? Now, wait a minute. Somebody was holding their hand up saying they did. And somebody's shaking their head and say they didn't make no history yesterday. Everybody in here made history yesterday because yesterday passed, and it is gone. And whatever happened and is in the past, that's history.

But when we come to school, we generally think about history is what we see in the book. But you see, you can't put all history in the book. So you got a lot of history that is not in the book that is valuable. And sometimes it's more valuable than the history that is in the book. Now, didn't anybody write about what you did yesterday. So that's not written history. It's what we call "oral history."

PAULA SCHROEDER: Well, Ezra Cunningham is not a teacher in the formal sense of the word. But for a time in a rural school in Alabama, he held the attention of a classroom of children, telling them his life story. It was part of a project developed by the PACERS Small Schools Cooperative in Alabama called Better Schools Building Better Communities. Senior citizens, called "elders" in the context of this project, are invited into the schools to share their wisdom with the children. And the children, in turn, create artwork and songs out of their stories.

Giving them creative guidance is native Minnesotan Larry Long, who spent his adult life traveling the country doing community organizing through song, following in the footsteps of his hero, Woody Guthrie. Studs Terkel calls him a "true American troubadour." Larry Long says this work in Alabama has been the highlight of his career. A CD has been produced by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies. And Larry continues to travel to Alabama to work with the schools there. He says it's more than an oral history project.

LARRY LONG: What it's about is really bringing community back into the schools and inviting the community back into the education of the children, and also to broaden the definition of family and community. So it reaches out to a larger portion of the town or the community in which the children live. But the reason I think it's important for children to hear the stories directly from their elders who live next door to them is that it gives them a sense of place of who they are, and it helps them build a foundation of where they want to go. And I think that's the very important components of this.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Well, you listen to somebody like Ezra Cunningham and what he was saying about what history is, you can't find that in a textbook. And it's so wise what he was saying, that we all make history every day. How did the kids respond to the older people when they came into their classroom?

LARRY LONG: Children listen. What I find is even the few students who are kind of restless and not attentive, they really focus in on the elder talking. In the classrooms, you can hear a pin drop. And that's one reason why, when you listen to these tapes, they're very clear. These are all recorded in a classroom, with all the noises of an institution and all the children with chairs that are rustling and paper. And it's very quiet.

And you also can hear laughter in some of the stories. When some of the elders tell very funny stories, the children really respond. And their questions are remarkable. That's the part that's not on this compact disc is all the wonderful questions the children will ask after the elders talk.

PAULA SCHROEDER: How did you end up going to Alabama to do this? I mean, here you are, a guy from Minnesota. And you have traveled all over the country performing. But how did you end up doing this project?

LARRY LONG: In the late 1970s, I was in the Tractorcade with farmers. And I rode on tractors to Washington, DC, when farmers were going to the nation's capital to get better pricing, get a parity wage for the crops. And I was there for three months, and I was very broke and very frustrated. And I decided to go to Nashville to try to pedal music.

And when I got to Nashville, I didn't enjoy the world very much, the publishing world and the music world. It was too far removed from the people, such as the farmers I was with. And I ended up meeting people at Vanderbilt University, who hired me as a food fair organizer in Columbia, Tennessee. And a woman named Lindsay Jones, who was the director of this project, took me to Alabama.

And when I went to Alabama, I met Dr. Jack Shelton. And this was in the late 1970s. Well, since that period of time, I started to work in schools all over the country. And I released the compact disc for Woody Guthrie called It Takes a Lot of People, where I used the same method to bring Woody Guthrie home to Okemah. And through a series of events, I ended up with a group in a think tank in Colorado, in Estes Park--

[LAUGHTER]

--with about 20 other people involved in education, people very wise with many degrees. And I was brought in to bring calamity to the circle of people to write music. And lo and behold, there was Dr. Jack Shelton that was brought in. And he saw this project that I did in Oklahoma, It Takes a Lot of People.

And he said, we can do that, but even better in Alabama. So I want you to come down and to work with us for a period of years to bring the process to celebrate and honor our local people of rural Alabama. And if it works out good, we'll do a compact disc. And I'm still going down there. I have two more years left. And we're going to do a volume 2. And that's how it happened, just through a chain of these wonderful events in my life that brought me back to the South.

PAULA SCHROEDER: So have you gone down there to live with the people in these rural parts of Alabama?

LARRY LONG: Yeah, but I'm not there for long periods of time. These songs were all written in one week.

PAULA SCHROEDER: So you're like an artist-in-residence at a school?

LARRY LONG: Yes, but no. Actually, I have a problem with that word. And I also have a problem with how institutions structure artists inside of schools. It's not like an artist-in-residency. It's different. It's different than the work I would do in Minnesota as an artist-in-residence. And this is a very delicate subject. But what's different about it is that I have long-term relationships with these communities in the South.

I'm still in communication with all of these schools that are on this compact disc. We've developed a curriculum guideline book that's going to be published this year. We also have a publisher that's going to publish a book from all these interviews with a photographer. But it's an ongoing relationship. They're a part of my extended family now.

So it's not like, what I would say as a musician, a "one-night stand," where you're in town and you're gone and you never see these people again. And so much of the artist-in-residency work is like that. You come in for a short period of time, and you don't have long-term relationships that you really nurture. And I think that's significant. And it's very important to look at this kind of work as long term and not very short term, to build commitments and relationships between artists and communities and people.

The other thing is that I have a three- to four-day workshop with the teachers I'm going to work with in the summertime. And they develop pre- and post-curriculum ideas built around this work that we're doing. So it's not so much where somebody from the outside is coming in and everything's built around me. I come in as part of a larger vision and a larger process. And what this compact disc is, is really just a glimpse into the process of what we've done. The real exciting part of this work is the part of doing it. It transforms these schools, and it transforms me.

PAULA SCHROEDER: I want to take a listen to one of the songs that you wrote with the kids that puts that educational process together with song, with the arts. And it's about the Depression. And it's called "My Little Town." And it's just a beautiful song. But it also has a lot of educational value.

[LARRY LONG, "MY LITTLE TOWN"]

(SINGING) Back in '29, when the stock market crashed

People back then had little cash

When the stock market tumbled to the ground

What will become of my little town?

My little town, my little town

What will become of my little town?

The only stock I knew was horses, pigs, and cows

What will become of my little town?

PAULA SCHROEDER: So "My Little Town," was that a story that an older person told the kids?

LARRY LONG: Yeah, it actually came from Frederick Walter Browder, who actually concludes this compact disc.

PAULA SCHROEDER: And we're going to hear him at the end of our conversation here too.

LARRY LONG: And he since has passed on. And so the song was directly inspired from a talk that he gave on a reflection of his community.

PAULA SCHROEDER: I want to listen to actually a song that was sung to the class by an elder. And this is one that-- now, why did you include this? This is Lily Mae Stewart singing a song called "The Charming Black Mustache."

[LAUGHTER]

Why did you include that on the CD?

LARRY LONG: Well, Lily Mae Stewart, she's still with us. And she's such a remarkable woman. Her mother raised her with Shakespeare. And her father is the one who taught her the folk ballads and songs. He would sing to her at night. And he worked in the post office. But another part of this process is that we write these songs from the stories of elders, of which she was one. And we have a song we wrote for her that is not on the CD.

But within her story, she began to sing these songs to the students. And at the end of each of these weeks with the students, we have large community celebrations. And these songs with the elders are brought to the whole community, and they're sung. And, I mean, it's wall to wall people that come out to hear these songs, and also to honor the elders who are being sung about.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Well, let's listen to Lily Mae. And then we can talk about the meaning to a whole community of this kind of work too. OK, here's Lily Mae Stewart with "The Charming Black Mustache."

LILY MAE STEWART: Well, my name is Lily Mae Stewart. I was born in 1904. That's quite a while. Yeah. I guess you know how old it makes me. I'm 90 years old.

(SINGING) Once I had a charming boy, I loved him dear as life

I thought the time would surely come when I would be his wife

His pockets, they were filled with gold

And, oh, he cut a dash

With a diamond ring or watch and a chain and his charming black mustache

He came to see me one Sunday, he stayed till almost 3:00

He said he never loved a girl as well as he loved me

He said we live in grandest style, for he had plenty of cash

And then upon my lips, he pressed his charming black mustache

There came [INAUDIBLE] on me, she wore her weight in gold

She had false teeth, she wore false hair, she is 45 years old

He cruelly deserted me just for that old maid's cash

And that's the way I lost my beau with his charming black mustache

And now they live just over the street in a mansion, grand and old

She married him for his black mustache, he married her for her gold

So, girls, remember my sad fate and never be too rash

And leave alone those stylish chaps who wear the black mustache

PAULA SCHROEDER: She was having fun doing that, wasn't she?

LARRY LONG: She just loves children, and children just love her.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yeah, you can tell. You can hear it in her voice. You mentioned there's a community celebration at the end of the week that you work in a school. And certainly, that's a very important event in the community itself. But then when you leave, is there something that continues on in that community as a result of this project in the schools?

LARRY LONG: Yeah. From the 11 communities that are represented on this compact disc, eight have continued the celebrations, free from me. And they've included now elders into the curriculum throughout the year, where they keep coming in and the stories are being transferred. And their stories have helped inspire poetry and song and larger community celebrations.

And one in Camp Hill, for example, which had a very vital Black economy before the days of desegregation. And Joe Louis used to go there, the boxer, and hang his hat. It's a very poor community, Camp Hill is, right now. It's very poor. In the school, they don't have a phy ed instructor. They don't have a music instructor. I think the only athletic event that they have, I think, is a baseball team. There's no football or basketball.

And so what's significant about bringing in the faith community is the only way that these children know music is through their churches. And so we've been trying to set up a community choir in the school, where we actually utilize the choir directors from all of these faith communities for them to come in to volunteer and to set up a community choir within the school. And that is happening right now in Camp Hill. And they have an a cappella tradition there. Everybody sings a cappella. And I think the reason why is that they couldn't afford instruments.

PAULA SCHROEDER: We have on the CD is included the Center View Youth Choir from Camp Hill. And we'll take a listen to them here.

[CENTER VIEW YOUTH CHOIR, "I WILL SING HALLELUJAH"] Lord, I pray You will lift me higher

I will sing hallelujah, oh Lord

I will sing hallelujah, I will sing, oh Lord

I will sing hallelujah, oh Lord

You are the source of [INAUDIBLE]

Lord, I pray you will lift me higher

I will sing hallelujah, oh Lord

He's given us, He has given us hills and mountains

He's given us, He has given us leveled plains

He's given us, He has given us food and clothing

He's given us shelter from the storm and the rain

PAULA SCHROEDER: In Alabama in particular, there were both Black people and white people involved in this project. Was there ever any problem with that?

LARRY LONG: I've never experienced it in the South. I mean, you hear people speaking, as you do in the North, conflicts between different people. But what emerged in all the classrooms is there's something that happens. When an elder comes into a class, it is very much a sacred space. And they realize that their story is being transferred between the generations. So the best of what they are always comes out.

And the stories they tell are stories that are really filled with incredible compassion and hard work. And they may talk about adversity, but they'll talk about how they made it through that adversity so they can help guide the children through their lives. And that's why the children listen, because the children know that this is important. Because they know that these stories that are being told are truthful stories, they're honest stories, and that they know there's something in there like a diamond in the rough that they can hold onto through their life. And it's very important to the elders.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Before we go, I really want to hear what Walter Frederick Browder had to say to the kids because this is a message that could be broadcast all across the United States, I think.

WALTER FREDERICK BROWDER: What I would say to you is, do as well as you can on your schooling. You may need it some day, not necessarily to make a living but to make a life. That's about it.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Words of wisdom from Walter Frederick Browder, contained on a CD called Here I Stand-- Elders' Wisdom, Children's Song, produced by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. It's seven minutes before 11 o'clock.

GARY EICHTEN: When Pat Schroeder first went to Washington 24 years ago, it was pretty unusual for a woman to serve in the Congress. That fact alone gave Pat Schroeder a national forum. But she's been making news ever since. Hi, Gary Eichten here, inviting you to join us for Midday. Pat Schroeder is leaving Congress this year. She'll be looking back on her career in a speech at the National Press Club. You can hear live coverage of Colorado Congresswoman Pat Schroeder at the National Press Club coming up on Midday. Midday begins each weekday morning at 11:00 on Minnesota Public Radio, KNOW FM 91.1 in the Twin Cities.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Perry Finelli is in for Gary Eichten today. And he'll be talking to State Representative Wes Skoglund during the 11 o'clock hour of Midday about a legislative hearing looking into reports that judges aren't imposing fines and sending repeat offenders back to prison. That and more coming up on Midday. Now it's time for Garrison Keillor in the Writer's Almanac.

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GARRISON KEILLOR: And here is the Writer's Almanac for Monday. It's the 16th of September, 1996. It's the birthday in Keyser, West Virginia, 1950, of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., scholar of Black literature, now professor at Harvard, who traveled across Africa in his early 20s. He covered 15 countries hitchhiking and by boat. It's the birthday of James Alan McPherson in Savannah, Georgia, 1943, author of short stories, and of novelist John Knowles in Fairmont, West Virginia, 1926, author of A Separate Peace.

1925 in Itta Bena, Mississippi, BB King was born. BB comes from his radio name. When he was a disk jockey in Memphis, he was the Beale Street Blues Boy. It's the birthday of the Empire Builder, James J. Hill, near Guelph, Ontario, 1838. He came to the frontier trading post of St. Paul, Minnesota, as a boy, learned the transportation business, and eventually built the Great Northern Railway.

It's the birthday of historian Francis Parkman in Boston, 1823, who walked West in 1845 talking to old settlers so he could write his Oregon Trail. And it was on this day in 1620, the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, England, bound for the New World. They arrived November 21. Here's a poem for today by Louis Jenkins entitled "Motorcycle."

"He climbs on, switches on the ignition, kicks the starter once, twice, three, four, five times. Nothing. He tries a dozen more times. It won't go. He checks the gas tank. Got gas. He switches the key off and on, tries again. Still won't go. He climbs off the bike and squats down to look at the engine, check the carburetor, check the wires. Seems OK. He takes a wrench from his jacket pocket and removes the spark plug. He examines it, blows on it, wipes it on his jeans. Replaces the plug, climbs back on the bike, and tries again. Nothing.

Now he's getting really angry. There's absolutely no reason why this thing shouldn't start. He gets off the bike and stands and stares at it. He gets back on and kicks the starter really hard half a dozen times. Now he's furious. He gets off and throws the wrench he is still holding as far as he can. It bounces on the gravel down the road and skids into the weeds in the ditch. Then he turns and kicks the son of a bitch motorcycle over on its side and walks away.

After a short distance, he thinks better of it and returns to the motorcycle. It isn't sobbing quietly. It doesn't say, 'I don't want to play with you anymore,' or 'I don't love you anymore,' or 'I have my own life to live,' or 'I have the children to think of.' It only lies there, leaking oil and gas. He rights the motorcycle and carefully wipes off the dust, carefully mounts, and once more tries the starter. Even now, it won't go. He gets down and sits in the dirt beside the broken motorcycle."

A poem by Louis Jenkins, "Motorcycle," from his collection Nice Fish, published by Holy Cow Press. Used by permission here on the Writer's Almanac for Monday, September the 16th. Made possible by Cowles History Group, publishers of Wild West and other magazines. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Well, that's Midmorning for today. Thanks so much for joining us. Tomorrow on Midmorning, our guest will be Bill Moyers. Need I say more? He's involved in a new project called Genesis. And it's a new translation of the first books of the Bible. We'll find out more about that project and some of the other things that Bill Moyers is up to in the 10 o'clock hour of Midmorning tomorrow. Stay tuned for Midday, which is coming up next. And you'll get an update on all the latest news and weather. I'm Paula Schroeder. Thanks for joining us today.

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PERRY FINELLI: I'm Perry Finelli. On the next All Things Considered, excerpts from the first debate between Republican Rudy Boschwitz and Democrat Paul Wellstone, candidates for the US Senate seat in Minnesota. All Things Considered, every day at 3:00 on KNOW FM 91.1.

PAULA SCHROEDER: You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio. This is KNOW FM 91.1, Minneapolis-St. Paul. In the Twin Cities today, we're expecting mostly cloudy skies with a high around 67 degrees. Mostly cloudy tonight with a low in the low 50s. And tomorrow, partly cloudy with a high near 65 degrees. It's 11 o'clock.

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ANNOUNCER: Good morning.

ANNOUNCER: Midday on Minnesota Public Radio with monitor radio host David Brown--