It starts here

One of the duties of my job that stretches me the most is my monthly appearance on KNTR radio's talk show "Speak Out." Though I worked in print media for four years and have blogged here and elsewhere, I've never experienced the peculiarly vulnerable feeling of speaking live over the air waves. It's a new world.
The good thing is, the shows are never about me. I'm just there to plug campus happenings and provide a pleasant segue to the real guest, one of our own MCC personalities.
Today it was Chemical Dependency Studies faculty Lori Howell who went on-air to promote the National Depression Screening Day event the college will host Oct. 8 from 3-7 p.m. Lori's famous around campus for being a dynamic speaker and I was pretty sure she'd represent the college well - and take the pressure off me to fill dead air.
Lori was really articulate when talking about mental illness and its relationship to substance abuse and dependency. I imagine she reached a lot of people when she talked about how the screening day is a "grand opportunity" for people who are struggling with even low-level depression and other disorders to make their first hopeful step toward diagnosis and treatment.
You can hear the Sept. 15 Speak Out at www.kntram.com/kntr-am-speak-out. Click on the files marked "hour 1, part 2" and "hour 1, part 3" to hear Lori.