Last week, Heidi and I briefly chatted on-air about all things phenology and Season Watch! The conversation ranged from what brought me to KAXE, my whippersnapper days as a Long Lake student, and my excitement about the Season Watch newsletter (already in the second month!). Enjoy!
Heidi Holtan is Director of Content and Public Affairs. She manages producers/hosts and is the host of the KAXE Morning Show, including a variety of local content like Phenology, What We're Reading, Area Voices, Sports Page and much more, alongside Morning Edition from NPR.
Charlie Mitchell (she/they) joined KAXE in February of 2022. Charlie creates the Season Watch Newsletter, produces the Phenology Talkbacks show, coordinates the Phenology in the Classroom program, and writes nature-related stories for KAXE's website. Essentailly, Charlie is John Latimer's faithful sidekick and makes sure all of KAXE's nature/phenology programs find a second life online and in podcast form.
With a background in ecology and evolutionary biology, Charlie enjoys learning a little bit about everything, whether it's plants, mushrooms, or the star-nosed mole. (Fun fact: Moles store fat in their tails, so they don't outgrow their tunnels every time conditions are good.)
As a mail carrier in rural Grand Rapids, Minn., for 35 years, John Latimer put his own stamp on a career that delivered more than letters. Indeed, while driving the hundred-mile round-trip daily route, he passed the time by observing and recording seasonal changes in nature, learning everything he could about the area’s weather, plants and animals, and becoming the go-to guy who could answer customers’ questions about what they were seeing in the environment.