ON THE AIR @ NPR

Growing up, NPR was the symbol of truth, realness, big deals...
I would have never thought I would have ever been interviewed and be put on NPR air.

Photo from 94.3 website

This time the interview would be over the phone with our local NPR station, also known as BYU-Idaho Radio 94.3. I was home with all three of my children while my husband was at school. The baby was asleep but Dallin and his sister were awake, entertained watching a movie in our living room. I found a quiet place in my bedroom. This was so much less nerve-racking than my Classy 97 interview. No driving, no sitter-finding, no face-to-face with radio personalities, no giant microphone. Piece of cake, right?

It was to be prerecorded, so my stress level was definitely much lower. I did have the challenging task of giving clean audio while in a house full of usually loud children and two small dogs. They tested for sound and I found myself struggling to be loud enough for them to record me well, while being quiet enough so that my little ones would remain unaware of the interesting thing I was doing and not come investigate.... something a normal phone conversation would usually do. So, as I tired to find the balance with the volume of my voice, I also had to try to answer coherently. Towards the end of the interview, this was proving more difficult with Dallin realizing I was up to something and trying to figure out what exactly. Luckily, I think the audio was recorded cleanly and the interview went very well.

Handy little app called Super Note

The interview was to be played two days later (today) on the NPR news breaks throughout the day, one segment every 2 hours or so. I called to see if they could give me a copy of the completed interview but this proved to be difficult so I tried my hand at recording it myself. Armed with the news schedule and a handy recording app called Super Note and got ready to press record. My children and dogs once again made this task a little stressful. How do I keep 5 little noisemakers quiet during the 1 to 2 minute newscast to get a clear recording? I think I managed to get a pretty good recording of each segment though there is a bit of static and popping once in a while.


Hearing it played back sounds so strange to me. It's NPR. They cover serious stuff. I still can't believe I was on there. Thank you 94.3! I am in awe that you find BE THE GOLD NPR-worthy! It warms my heart to find others taking this as seriously as I do.