Margee and BVD; thoughts on the WMRA community . . .

As we are all WMRA listeners, we're all aware that WMRA will be in full-bore fundraising mode for three days and three hours next week, beginning with Tuesday's Morning Edition. We're all aware, as well, that this year's 3 & 3  Fall Drive is a grand experiment in squished fund-raising, as fall fundraisers usually last for 10 days.

I do confess I have close, personal friends who greet the biannual (or, sometimes, triannual) news that a fundraiser is about to start by hugging their own middles and moaning "Oh no! Not again!" I, however, am filled with glee. Even though in this particular fund-raising format, I'll be on the air live for 4 or 5 hours a day, establishing a personal-best for the number of times in one day I say "1-800-NPR-WMRA; that's 1-800-677-9672."

So why am I gleeful? Because I love what I do. It's the first time in my life I've felt squarely at home in a community, the WMRA community, which includes everyone attached by ear or deed to WMRA. And at no time does our community come together as vigorously as we do doing on-air fundraisers. Together, we face and meet the challenge of keeping this public radio station part of our community conversation! Go us!

And then there's the fact that during the fundraiser, I know I'll get to see Margee Greenfield, who, for as long as I've been at WMRA (which is about to be a decade, by far the longest I've been anywhere), has been coming in to answer the phones during Morning Edition. And not just one Morning Edition, per fundraiser, but many per fundraiser.

Margee Greenfield's not the only regular phone answerer (blessings on you all!), but I'm blogging about her today because Margee also participates in the on-air WMRA community conversation. She's been a teacher/administrator in the public schools for 25 years, and today, from atop the WMRA Civic Soapbox, she lets us know what she thinks about the latest "appalling" mandate from the Virginia Department of Eduction. Here's a transcript, if you'd rather read than listen. Thanks to Margee, I've been made aware of something I didn't know about. And that, to me, is what the WMRA community is all about.

And then there's B.V.D. . .

Bill Van Doren is an artist and writer. I met him  years ago when he hired me to write a column for Albemarle Magazine. If you haven't discovered Bill's blog, Daily Sun Times, I suggest that you do so. On it, he posts a painting a day. And today, he writes about WMRA, because he listens to WMRA.

Ah yes! We really are a community, you know. Of talkers, listeners, painters, thinkers, doers. And, in my opinion, collectively we rock!