Born into slavery around 1846, Celia was sold in 1850 to Robert Newsom, a widowed Callaway County farmer. Celia bore Newsom two children. After five years of sexual assault from Newsom, Celia defended herself. Newsom died in the interaction. Celia was tried, found guilty and hung for murder.
Credit: Celia Newsom Legacy Foundation
Since last year, the Celia Newsom Legacy Foundation has been working towards recognition and justice for Celia. On a recent episode of ‘The Current’ on KOPN, Trevor Harris and Heather O’Connor aired an interview with the Foundation’s founding president Pamela Westbrooks Hodge and Fulton Human Rights Commissioner Tom Clapp. They talked about Celia’s legacy and an upcoming event commemorating her life and celebrating her recent pardon.
This interview originally aired on Columbia, Missouri community radio station KOPN 89.5fm on December 17, 2025.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems to taking over our world. The myriad benefits of AI are often touted, but there are growing ethical and environmental concerns.
One face of the future of AI is that of Sai Nuguri. She is pursuing a PhD at the University of Missouri in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Her work uses virtual reality (VR) and AI in learning environments that benefit neuro-diverse students.
Trevor Harris and Heather O’Connor talked to Nuguri recently about her research and the future of VR and AI. This is an excerpt of that interview.
This interview originally aired on December 3, 2025 on KOPN 89.5fm.
Colin Bowles was a guest on KOPN recently. The Columbia, Missouri actor talked about the improv acting classes he is teaching at Columbia Entertainment Company. Colin demonstrated the improv method to great success with Heather O’Connor.
According to the Prison Policy Initiative, there were 24,000 people incarcerated in Missouri state prisons in 2024 with another 12,000 people housed in local jails. These prisoners are paying for their crime with their time.
Whether they return to prison after release depends on a handful of factors. One of those factors for repeat violent crime is their presence of mind in the heat of the moment. How well-prepared are these (mostly) men to deal with the frustrations and challenges so ubiquitous on the outside? Once released, will these once-incarcerated fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers have the presence to turn to a non-violent solution when conflict arises?
Credit: Facebook / AVP-USA
The Alternatives to Violence Project concerns itself with preparing prisoners for life on the outside. In mid-Missouri Stephanie Brooks is the coordinator for the series of three-day workshops that happen regularly at the Boonville Correctional Center (BCC). Earlier this year, Steph was a guest on my radio show. After the show, I felt like the real impactful audio to gather and share with the listener would be the stories of the men who were participating in her local AVP workshops. To that end, I accompanied Steph Brooks to the Boonville Correctional Center in September 2025.
We recorded six of the camp’s residents that day. I asked them to tell me their life story in 15 or so minutes. Steph asked a few general questions for the group. Those answers are sometimes included in the final edit that I came up with.
These life stories were important for the men to tell. They are an audio letter home to their families and friends and a statement to the world about the work they are doing to transform themselves. The change they are creating is thanks to their participation in AVP and other prison programs that help to prepare them for life after incarceration at Boonville.
In 2025, Cameron is incarcerated in the Boonville Correctional Center. Here is his life story.…and here is Charles’ life story……and this is Dayqwaun’s life story.
When we met, I never asked what specifically put them in prison. I did not take their pictures nor do I know their last names as per DOC policy. I am e-mailing the final edits of each man’s story to his stated next-of-kin. The BCC staff plan on airing the recordings to the rest of the population.
While we must condemn the crimes that put these men in prison, we also need to spend time hearing their stories. Once they are free, they will come home to communities all across Missouri. How ready we are to receive them depends on their choices and how willing we are to listen to and try to understand each man’s unique path as he works toward a successful re-entry.
These life stories originally aired on community radio in Columbia, KOPN 89.5fm.
Thanks to the men of the Boonville Correctional Center for sharing their stories, to Alternatives to Violence Program mid-Missouri coordinator Stephanie Brooks for taking me there and to my radio co-host Heather O’Connor for embracing it all.
Back in 1972, radio station KOPN was founded to serve the Columbia, Missouri area. The station was licensed for broadcast early the next year and now – over 50 years later – the community radio station that wasn’t expected to survive is still going strong.
In 2022, the KOPN Oral History Project captured memories from the station’s founders, former staff and long-time programmers. This podcast episode draws from those oral histories to tell a history of the station.
An history about the life and times of Columbia, Missouri’s community radio station, KOPN.
Radio station KOPN is real and can be streamed here.
Thanks for listening to this podcast about the history of the 24th state. Catch more podcast episodes at MoCurious.com.
In 1973, the Doobie, Allman and Isley Brothers all had popular records. Richard Nixon started his second term as America’s president. Also that year, a community radio station in Columbia, Missouri got a license to broadcast at 89.5fm.
In 2022 and 2023 – in the run-up to the 50th anniversary of KOPN, I organized current station volunteers to conduct oral histories with former and long-time station staff and programmers. These full oral histories live here.
For 13 weeks in early 2023, I hosted a live radio show on KOPN that drew from these oral histories, mined the station’s deep and wide archives and queried a live, in-studio guest about the week’s theme. I called the show KOPN: The First 50 Years. That’s a lot of work to put in to a one-hour show, so the shows live on as a predictably title podcast KOPN: The First 50 Years.
My goal with this podcast (and the KOPN Oral History Project broadly) is to preserve the story of our community radio station and give the listener (that’s you!) an idea of what it was like in the early, heady years after KOPN’s 1973 founding.
Episode 9 features excerpts from a 2022 oral history with long-time KOPN programmer Carol Goodnick. Also, featured on the podcast is an in-studio interview with current KOPN programmer and University of Missouri Journalism School student Tadeo Ruiz and music from the KOPN archives. It sounds like the former Columbia band, Swoop…
Episode 8 explores how women have created their own space on KOPN over the past 50 years. The 59 minute episode includes an oral history excerpt from Vic Day’s April 2022 interview with Margie Sable, archival excerpts of Margie’s show, The Brazen Hussy and 1979 Women’s Weekend, and a live interview with station programmers Corri Flaker Fraser and Luna Hawk. Music on the episode is 1976 archival jazz from former St. Louis jazzers Jasmine and madrigrals from Lyn Wolz.
Episode 7 features KOPN archival selections from longtime KOPN volunteer and Columbia community activist Wynna Faye Elbert talking about Columbia’s Black history. Bringing things into the present, the episode also includes a selection from Trevor Harris’ March 2023 interview with Worley Street Roundtable team members Verna Laboy and David Aguayo. The podcast concludes with a second excerpt from the KOPN archives: a selection from Lynn Harris’ 1976 interview with Maya Angelou.
Episode 6 features an oral history with former KOPN program director, Butch Burrell and his son and former children’s programmer, Eli Burrell. The episode also features an interview with former KOPN children’s radio producer, Christine Gardener and music from KOPN-adjacent artists Rhonda Vincent and Taj Mahal.
Episode 5 features oral history form lee Ruth plus poetry from the Chez Coffeehouse and archival recordings from Lee Ruth and Cathy Barton.
Episode 4 is about the ways the folk music found a radio home at KOPN.
Episode 3 features an interview with area fiddler and author Howard Marshall and KOPN programmer Margot McMillan, archival material from the Boone County Fair Fiddle Contest, Dear KOPN letters and more.
Episode 2 features an oral history with former KOPN children’s programmer Christine Gardener and current programmer Jackie Casteel, archival material from Inside Radio featuring Eli Burrell and Brother Blue plus live in-studio guests, including Ann Mehr, Sarah Catlin and Dante Dupuy.
Episode 1 looks at KOPN’s history with prison issues and features oral histories with James Robnett and Jim Austin, an archival feature about Renz Women’s Prison and guests Peggy Placier and December Harmon.
The Recollection Agency 