The Best of Us: Being Human in Sarasota

05/17/2025

For the Love of the Land continues as a two part episode with Chelsea Steinauer Scudder, who will be on tomorrow’s show, (Sunday) at 10am ET.
📻📡 Listen live on 96.5 FM in Sarasota, or live on WSLR 96.5 Community Radio website: www.WSLR.org
We’ll be talking mothering, stewardship, and more.
Her book MOTHER, CREATURE, KIN is out now via
🌿🌿🌿

05/04/2025

Jon Thaxton will be on the show in the morning. He’s one of Sarasota and Manatee’s strongest advocates for land preservation, affordable housing, and trauma-informed practices. Thaxton’s been involved in just about every preservation of park conservation lands or endangered lands over the past 45 years. Spaces you may now enjoy, The Bay Sarasota downtown, the extension of the Legacy Trail, Oscar Scherer State Park, and Red Bug Slough, just to name a few.

This month, we’ll be trying something new with the show. The exploration of this topic will take place over two shows and two Sundays in May. Tomorrow, on May 4, Jon Thaxton will discuss land preservation and stewardship as a practical, spiritual, and vitalizing life-long practice. On May 18, Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder will discuss her new book, ‘Mother, Creature, Kin: What We Learn from Nature's Mothers in a Time of Unraveling.’
https://www.broadleafbooks.com/store/product/9781506495477/Mother-Creature-Kin

Listen in live at wslr.org or 96.5 FM in Sarasota.



WSLR 96.5 Community Radio

04/13/2025

Feeling so much gratitude for everyone who supported WSLR 96.5 Community Radio in this Spring Membership Drive. Thank you to all who noted The Best of Us in your support.✨🙏🏻✨
~ Bethany Ritz

WSLR 96.5+Fogartyville Fan Club

04/11/2025

The goal for The Best of Us: Being Human in Sarasota was to raise $500 toward WSLR’s spring member drive. Being a new show, we’re short by a little more than half.

If you’ve enjoyed the show, been touched by the story of a guest, or see the potential, please consider signing up for membership.

Donations of even $5 could show that The Best of Us has public support.
Donors would click this link,

https://secure.lglforms.com/form_engine/s/VzlXYgLYBxhJOpHLQShW7A?t=1740564773

or go to membership drive link via WSLR.org,
and choose the The Best of Us in the shows they choose to support.

Review the benefits of membership here:
https://wslr.org/membership/

WSLR+Fogartyville is a center for creative expression and community engagement that amplifies the voices of our diverse community and promotes peace, sustainability, democracy, and social and economic justice.

04/05/2025

I might be saying this about each of these shows, but:
This is a truly special one: “Both Sides Now,” will explore both sides of domestic violence—victim and perpetrator—the power of listening, and we’ll consider a new arc for the hero’s journey.

While Tonya DiSapio will discuss her experience working as a victim advocate in Sarasota, Reverend James Encinas will speak from his own experience to reflect on profound listening as a path to reaching the other side of abuse.

The Best of Us: Being Human in Sarasota plays live every first Sunday of the month at 10 AM. WSLR 96.5 Community Radio
Listen Live via www.wslr.org , 96.5 FM in Sarasota, 100.1 FM in Bradenton, or download the app from your phone’s app store (it’s really easy 🙂 ). WSLR 96.5 Community Radio WSLR 96.5+Fogartyville Fan Club

https://www.facebook.com/events/1078750380728622/

03/08/2025

So great to be with these amazing women today
~ Bethany

📻Happy International Women’s Day from your WSLR programmers!

Shows repped here include Songs for Knitting and Mayhem, Broken REEL, Discovery Road, The Healthy Living Hour, The Detail, The Best of Us:, Synthetic Age, Our Changing Environment, Lavender Blue Radio, Wings of the Heart, Latin Explosion, WSLR News, INDIE-licious, Femininomenon, ArtBeat and The Cat’s Meow!

We’re missing Voices Up, Indie Psych, The Progressive Page Turner, High Tide, Just Fusion, Radio Reset, Community Conversations With Mel, Trans-Cis-Her Radio and Velvet Hammer Blues!

02/27/2025

It's that time again....
The next episode of The Best of Us: Being Human in Sarasota will air this Sunday, March 2, at 10 AM.
Listen Live on 96.5 FM in Sarasota and on wslr.org from anywhere.

In this episode, Caring for Brilliant Minds, research scientist Wendy Ingram and Dr. Major General Gregg T. Martin discuss the mental health risks that can arise in the pursuit of excellence.

While Ingram will discuss how the well-being of academics, professionals, and visionaries permeate every aspect of our world, two-star General Major Martin will share how his bipolar disorder was his greatest strength until it became the most dangerous thing in his life.

The show airs monthly featuring surprising stories of Sarasota’s resilience-driven culture with local and topic guests.

//*\\ GUEST BIOS
Local guest, Wendy Ingram, PhD, is the CEO and co-founder of Dragonfly Mental Health, a nonprofit with a mission to cultivate excellent mental health among academics worldwide. She is also a research scientist at Geisinger Health, where she works on biomedical informatics projects aimed at improving healthcare outcomes following surgery and at better understanding patients’ responses to electroconvulsive therapy. She serves as chair of the American Medical Informatics Association’s Mental Health Informatics Working Group and is a consultant to biomedical technology companies that focus on advancing mental health care.

The topic guest of the episode is Dr. Major General Gregg F. Martin, US Army (Retired), a 36-year combat veteran who is a bipolar survivor, thriver, and warrior. An Airborne-Ranger-Engineer qualified soldier and Strategist, he commanded a combat engineer company, battalion, and brigade, and was commanding general of Fort Leonard Wood, commandant of the Army War College, and president of the National Defense University. A graduate of West Point, he holds a PhD and two master’s degrees from MIT, and master’s degrees from both the Army and Naval war colleges. He has lived on the bipolar spectrum his whole life, which mostly helped him, until it went too high, and then it nearly destroyed him. His life’s mission and purpose is sharing his bipolar story to help stop stigma, promote recovery, and save lives. His wife Maggie is an Army brat, Army wife, and Army mom to three sons, two of whom are Army Special Forces veterans, and one an artist. Martin is the author of “BIPOLAR GENERAL: My Forever War with Mental Illness.” For more, see his website at bipolargeneral.com.

02/16/2025

Now on Spotify!
It’s still available on the WSLR 96.5 Community Radio archives but follow and comment on spotify if thats your platform and you feel so inclined.

https://open.spotify.com/show/5s5PtVBTvp8MYMbt6X8l1T?si=KgwFXUKLTLWm3cclfui0fQ

Soon to be on Apple and others ~

01/03/2025

Very excited to announce this!

The Best of Us: Being Human in Sarasota is coming soon to WSLR 96.5 Community Radio. The show features surprising stories and in-depth conversations of strength and resilience in Sarasota and beyond. In each episode, host Bethany Ritz talks with someone leaning into this emerging culture in our region—sometimes on a personal level, other times community-wide—followed by a topical guest offering a wider view of what’s possible. These approaches and systems, some embedded and some emerging, are revolutionizing how we do business and live our best lives.

Something is happening in Sarasota. It’s radical, it’s surprising, and best of all, it’s here and it’s growing.