Myrlie Evers Williams

Bill Thompson
Photo by John Mathew Smith

Today, June 12, is a somber anniversary. It was 60 years ago tonight that a white supremacist and Ku Klux Klan leader gun down a civil rights leader named Medgar Evers as he arrived home.

His killer remained at large for years to come. And Evers’s death was just the first of three high profile assassinations that decade, including Malcolm x and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

His widow was Myrlie Evers. Years later she remarried and has been known since as Myrlie Evers Williams.

But she was always a strong woman.

I met her in 1999 when she wrote a book about her lifetime of triumph over tragedy, a book called Watch Me Fly.

So here now, from 1999, Myrlie Evers Williams.

Myrlie Evers Williams is 90 now, and still an active civil rights activist andleader.

\

You may also like these episodes:

Coretta Scott King
Andrew Young

Buy Books / Media from Amazon

Frank Buttino

Bill Thompson

Even years after the death of iconic FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, the agency continued to discriminate against gay agents.

It wasn’t all that very long ago that the FBI was almost exclusively the domain of straight white men.

That is, until an agent named Frank Buttino came along. The FBI fired him after discovering his sexual orientation, but Buttino filed a discrimination lawsuit.

And as a result, the FBI’s homophobic hiring discrimination ended.

I met him in the summer of 1993, while his lawsuit was still pending. He had written his autobiography, a book called A Special Agent .

So here now, from 1993, Frank Buttino.

Frank Buttino died in 2018. He was 73.

You may also like these episodes:

Candace Gingrich
Tab Hunter

Buy Books / Media from Amazon

Candace Bushnell

Bill Thompson

25 years ago this week a new series premiered on HBO. It was based on the cloumns written by a journalist named Candace Bushnell. She called it Sex And The City.

Bushnell had a lifelong ambition to be a successful novelist. So when I met her, in 2003, she had actually just written her first novel. The heroine of the book Trading Up was a young woman, not unlike the characters we met in Sex And The City.

And much like Sex And The City, the characters in Trading Up must ask difficult questions.

So here now, from 2003, Candace Bushnell.

Candace Bushnell is now 64, and lives in New York.

You may also like these episodes:

Colleen McCullough
Karen Salmansohn

Buy Books / Media from Amazon

Rafer Johnson

Bill Thompson
AA343184 cucina 310 481 300 3661 5683 RGB

Let’s go back to 1960, and the Olympic games. That was the year a 26-year-old named Rafer Johnson took the gold medal in the decathlon. Four years earlier, Johnson had won the silver.

But his achievements did not end when his athletic career was over. Johnson became a successful actor in the 1960s and ”70s.

Johnson also became politically active in the 1960s, and that’s how he found himself in the kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles the night. Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, 55 years ago this week.

I met him in 1998, when he wrote his autobiography, called The Best that I Can Be:

So here now, from 1998, Rafer Johnson.z

Rafer Johnson died in 2020. He was 86

You may also like these episodes:

Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Carl Lewis

Buy Books / Media from Amazon

Pat Schroeder

Bill Thompson

In 1972, Colorado was a very conservative state that today we would call a “red” state. But in ’72, voters elected their first ever female member of Congress, the young Democrat Pat Schroeder.

She won re-election in each of the next 11 elections, eventually serving 24 years in the US House of Representatives, becoming one of its most influential members.

She even considered joining the 1988 race for president, but ultimately decided against it. And the way she exited the race became a point of controversy in and of itself.

I met her in 1998 when she wrote a memoir which she called 24 Years of Housework and the Place is Still a Mess.

So here now, from 1998, Pat Schroeder.

Pat Schroeder died this past March, she was 82.

You may also like these episodes:

Geraldine Ferraro
Jane Byrne

Buy Books / Media from Amazon

Ron McLarty

Bill Thompson

A funny thing happened on the way to Ron McLarty’s career as a famous novelist.

He became a very successful actor first .

If you’re a fan of TV series such as Law & Order, The Practice, Judging Amy, or Spenser for Hire, you’ll recognize Ron McLarty.9. Often cast as a police detective or a judge, McLarty has had a long and successful career as a character actor.

But when I met him in 2005, it was on the occasion of his first published novel, The Memory of Running. And it turns out that’s what he wanted to do all along.

So here now, from 2005, Ron McLarty

Ron McLarty died in 2022 at the age of 74.

You may also like these episodes:

Fannie Flagg
Stephen Collins

Buy Books / Media from Amazon

Laura Palmer

Bill Thompson

Memorial Day is the one day each year set aside to remember and commemorate and celebrate the sacrifices of thousands of men and women who have died in war over the years.

But of course, their deaths carry a long and wide ripple effect that can affect family members for years and generations to come.

Since opening more than 40 years ago, the Vietnam Veterans memorial in Washington DC has become an informal but significant collection point for memorabilia. Families of the fallen in Vietnam come to the wall to leave behind everything from letters and poems to medals and teddy bears.

In 1988, former Vietnam war correspondent Laura Palmer wrote a book about those items of memorabilia. She tracked down many of the families and interviewed them to get a broader sense of their loss. She ccalled her book Shrapnel in The Heart.

So here now, from 1988, my interview with Laura Palmer.

Aron Ralston

Bill Thompson
Aron Ralston with Bill Thompson and Bill’s daughtter Krystal

Twenty years ago this spring, a young mountaineer and mechanical engineer named Aron Ralston set out on a rike through the mountains and canyons of remote Utah.

He was alone, and had not told anyone where he was going.

On that Saturday in April 2003, a boulder dislodged as Ralston was moving through a difficult canyon, and it pinned his right arm.

All alone, with no food, water, or means of communication, Ralston contemplated his death. Ultimately, however, as you will hear in a few minutes, something miraculous happened, and Ralston was able to save his own life.

At the cost of his arm.

The title of Ralston’s 2005 autobiography practically wrote itself: Between a Rock and A Hard Place.

So here now, from 2005, Aron Ralston.

Aron Ralston is 48 now, and is a popular motivational speaker, and yes, he is still a rock climber too.

You may also like these episodes:

Nando Parrado
Pierette Domenica Simpson

Buy Books / Media from Amazon

Roy Hazelwood

Bill Thompson

Roy Hazelwood is widely regarded as the pioneer of profiling sexual predators.

What he accomplished during his career helped lay the foundation for today[‘s FBI profilers.

Hazelwood wrote a book in 1999, reflecting on many of the cases he had worked on. It was called The Evil That Men Do. And that’s when I had the chance to meet him .

So here now, from 1999, Roy Hazelwood.

Roy Hazelwood died in 2016. He was 78,

You may also like these episodes:

Pat Brown
Polly Nelson

Buy Books / Media from Amazon

Eartha Kitt

Bill Thompson

Orson Welles once called her timeless.

With a sultry and distinctive voice, Eartha Kitt established herself early on as a great singer and actress.

She started performing professionally in the 1940s, and made several hit recordings in the 1950s and ”60s. Her most famous recording is a popular Christmas tune…

Baby Boomers will recall her role as Catwoman on the TV series “Batman.”

Younger audiences will recognize her voice from the voiceover work she did on several Disney productions.

I never got to actually meet Eartha Kitt in person, but we talked on the phone one day in 2001, about her book Rejuvenate! It’s Never Too Llate.

So here now, from 2001, Eartha Kitt.

Eartha Kitt died on Christmas Day 2008, just days before her 82nd birthday.

You may also like these episodes:

Ralph Cooper
Adam West

Buy Books / Media from Amazon