St. Louis on the Air

Seventy-year-old Patty Prewitt has been busy making masks lately — like many citizen seamstresses working to help combat COVID-19. Prewitt, though, is sewing them for staff at the women’s prison in Vandalia, Missouri, where she’s serving a life sentence for her husband Bill’s 1984 murder. In the three and a half decades since that stormy and violent night in Holden, Missouri, Prewitt has consistently maintained that she is innocent, and that her husband’s death came at the hands of an intruder who also raped her. Prewitt’s case is getting some fresh attention thanks to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Aisha Sultan. She recently released the film “33 and Counting” via the newspaper’s website. The 38-minute documentary digs into the wildly contrasting accounts of the crime as well as what Prewitt and her children and grandchildren have endured — and been fighting for — since her 1985 conviction. In this segment of the talk show, Sultan joins host Sarah Fenske to discuss Prewitt’s story and its particular urgency during a pandemic.

The union that represents thousands of grocery and other retail workers in the St. Louis area — United Food and Commercial Workers Local 655 — is asking Missouri Gov. Mike Parson to mandate that customers cover their faces while shopping in retail facilities deemed essential businesses. The union also asks that Parson designate all essential retail workers as temporary first responders, which would give them state-provided protective gear and other benefits. In this episode, host Sarah Fenske talks with the president of the UFCW 655, David Cook, as well as Chris Dean, a local grocery store employee who started the 'Who Are We' movement as a resource and organizing point for essential workers during the COVID-19 outbreak.

SLU School of Law's Rob Gatter talked to Sarah Fenske on Tuesday's "St. Louis on the Air" about quarantine procedures and related topics that connect his research on pandemic preparedness. Also in the conversation were questions from callers regarding quarantine procedures.

On Tuesday's "St. Louis on the Air" host Sarah Fenske talked to Carolyn Mueller, author of "Forest Park: A Walk Through History" and zookeper at the Saint Louis Zoo. During the show, Mueller discussed places to visit off the beaten path in Forest Park as well as lesser-known sculptures featured in St. Loius' flagship park.

Host Sarah Fenske talked to St. Louis-baed author Sarah Kendzior Monday about her book “Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America”, which talks about Trump’s rise to power since the 1980s.

On Monday’s “St. Louis on the Air” host Sarah Fenske talked to Sara Baker, policy director for the ACLU, who discussed COVID-19 in jails and prisons and her agency’s attempt at getting the state prison system to take action regarding the safety of inmates during the coronavirus outbreak.

Following the COVID-19 outbreak, St. Louis dancer and musician Christian Frommelt had to look for new ways to teach new dancers while keeping safe distance. With video meetings becoming popular on social media after the coronavirus pandemic, Frommelt took to hosting virtual swing dancing lessons on the St. Louis Swing Dance Facebook page. On Friday’s “St. Louis on the Air” host Sarah Fenske talked to Frommelt about the abrupt change to live-streaming dance courses and what the future holds for the St. Louis dance scene. Also during the show, Fenske talked to Frommelt about the history of dance culture in the early 1900s.

Nursing homes are facing challenges to combat the COVID-19 outbreak. On Friday’s “St. Louis on the Air” host Sarah Fenske talks to science and environment reporter Eli Chen about her recent reporting on the challenges facing nursing homes in our region. And during the show, we eavesdropped on a conversation between 98-year-old nursing home resident Jean Hemphill and her granddaughter, Evie Hemphill.

At the St. Louis hospital where Emma Crocker works as a registered nurse, only employees working in areas with confirmed COVID-19 patients, like the emergency room and ICU, were given N95 masks from the hospital’s collection. N95 masks are in short supply across the country, and the hospital wanted to conserve their supply. Yet, Crocker was concerned that she and her colleagues were being exposed to the virus by unknowingly infected patients coming into their outpatient oncology clinic, which is located within the hospital. In this episode, Sarah Fenske talks with Crocker about her push for all hospital health care workers to have access to N95 masks.

Humane Society of Missouri President Kathy Warnick joined host Sarah Fenske on Thursday’s “Saint Louis on the Air” to talk about the organization's unique effort of partnering pets with families who are currently home-bound while still maintaining social distancing.