Us & Them

16/04/2025

🎉 Us & Them Turns 10! 🎉
Hey friends—and especially all of you who’ve tuned in over the years! This May marks a decade of Us & Them digging into the stories that divide and unite us. I’m working on a special anniversary episode and I’d love your help:
🔹 Your Favorites: Which episodes have stuck with you—and why?
🔹 Moments That Moved You: Were there conversations that surprised you, made you think, or brought you to tears?
🔹 Missed the Mark: Any shows you felt didn’t land—what would you have done differently?
🔹 Riled You Up: Which ones infuriated you, and what about them sparked that reaction?
Drop your go‑to episodes, critiques or must‑remember moments in the comments—and tag a friend who’s also been on this ride! Your feedback will shape our celebration and help guide us into the next ten years of honest, curious conversation. 👇💬
Thank you for listening, sharing, and being part of the Us & Them community. Here’s to many more stories together! 🥂🎧

07/04/2025

I am incredibly disturbed to have received this news from the West Virginia West Virginia Humanities Council. This organization, as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities has supported work like mine for decades. I really failed to see how curtailing the work of this great institution serves in anyway to “make America great.” It just doesn’t make sense. 

The West Virginia Humanities Council is sorry to report that, due to federally mandated cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), our statewide grantmaking is suspended immediately.

The West Virginia Humanities Council relies upon federal support from the NEH, our primary partner, to operate our grants program and to pay out the grants we award. Our grantmaking is contingent upon that federal support, which was secured for us in 2025, as it has been since 1974, through regular Congressional appropriations.

In early April, the West Virginia Humanities Council and every other state humanities council received a Notice of Grant Termination from the NEH, which cancelled our federal funds effective immediately, under the direction of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). No further federal funds are expected for the remainder of 2025.

With no further federal funds expected, and no indication whether any federal support for our work will be restored in the future, we must pause our grants program indefinitely, until Congressionally appropriated funding is again made available to us.

We are deeply aware of the immediate negative impact this will have on West Virginia’s cultural life and economy. As the NEH’s official state affiliate since 1974, the West Virginia Humanities Council provides over $1 million every year to the statewide network of cultural organizations, local historical societies, schools, museums, libraries, community centers, and individuals who work to preserve, document, and celebrate the Mountain State’s rich history and cultural heritage.

For 50 years we have worked to support and sustain one of the most vigorous, committed, and cost-effective statewide cultural networks in the nation. We remain committed to our mission, and will do everything possible to continue to be a resource for West Virginia’s cultural institutions, so that our history, culture, and living traditions may be preserved for our state, our nation, and West Virginia’s future generations.

Please visit our website to see how you can make a difference: https://wvhumanities.org/save-the-neh/

13/02/2025

In West Virginia, homeownership is a paradox. While the state boasts the nation’s highest homeownership rate, low incomes mean many homes are aging and in disrepair. In one county, 67% of houses are over 80 years old. Across Appalachia by one measure, there are 500,000 people living in substandard...

27/06/2024

Fifty years ago today, the Kanawha County Board of Education set off a chapter of the nation’s culture wars as it debated whether to purchase a controversial series of new textbooks. The meeting room was packed and emotions were hot. This was the subject of the award-winning documentary that I produced about the textbook controversy that played out in Kanawha County, WV in 1974.

Fifty years ago, June 27, 1974, the Kanawha County Board of Education set off a chapter of the nation’s culture wars as it debated whether to purchase a controversial series of new textbooks. The meeting room was packed and emotions were hot.

22/05/2024

I’m also thrilled to report that the Us & Them team has been honored with regional Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Podcast! This is for our episode “Compassion Fatigue.”

Congratulations to my colleague Mitch Hanley for pushing us to go the extra mile to make this multivoice report. And of course, we have huge amounts of gratitude to our editor Katherine Smith for guiding and inspiring work of a very high quality.

Special thanks to Rev. William Myers of the First Presbyterian Church in Charleston, WV; Taryn Wherry, director of the City of Charleston’s CARE program; Charleston Mayor Amy Goodwin; Summer Short, a peer support worker for Covenant House; Ashley Switzer, a mom and concerned Charleston citizen; and Barbara DiPietro, senior director of policy for the National Health Care for the Homeless Council.

Compassion Fatigue was honored earlier this year by the Virginia Associated Press Broadcasters with a runner up for best podcast.

Homelessness is not just an issue for big cities. Across America, communities large and small are struggling to provide shelter to people without housing. In Charleston, West Virginia, government and community approaches to help the unhoused have created renewed debate on an issue that is already di...

30/04/2024

Hi West Virginia friends, here's a reminder that I will be moderating a panel discussion today, Tuesday, April 30 at 4:30 on the topic of helping the formerly incarcerated move from life behind bars back into the workforce. It's gonna happen in Charleston at the Capitol Theatre located at 123 Summers Street. The panel will include: Betsy Jividen, former U.S. Attorney and former Commissioner of WV's Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation; Deb Harris, Jobs & Hope; Charlotte Webb, Charleston Property Restoration; and Amber Blankenship, REACH Initiative. I hope to see you there! Come and say hello afterwards!

Join state leaders, employers and advocates from across West Virginia for a private screening of “Being Free,” a groundbreaking documentary from Roadtrip Nation that follows three formerly incarcerated Americans as they make the move from life behind bars into the workforce.

WVPB's Trey Kay, host of Us & Them, will moderate the discussion, with audience Q&A to follow.

The event will be held at 4:30 p.m. on April 30, 2024 at the Capitol Theater on 123 Summers Street, Charleston, West Virginia.

👉 Click/tap the link to learn more and RSVP now: https://secondchances-wv.splashthat.com/

25/04/2024

Across the nation, more than 390,000 children rely on foster care. However, a shortage of licensed foster homes is creating a national crisis. While official foster care cases are carefully tracked, many informal examples of kinship care aren’t part of the data. For this Us & Them episode, we hear the experiences of those who’ve been part of the foster care system. Check it out tonight, April 25 at 8 PM on West Virginia Public Broadcasting. There will be an encore broadcast this Saturday, April 27 at 3 PM.

Across the nation, more than 390,000 children rely on foster care. However, a shortage of licensed foster homes is creating a national crisis. While official foster care cases are carefully tracked, many informal examples of kinship care aren’t part of the data. For this Us & Them episode, we hear...

10/01/2024

Check out Trey Kay’s interview with Cassidy Hutchinson.

Our nation’s capital can make and break careers. In a very short period, Cassidy Hutchinson went from being a complete political outsider to traveling on Air Force One with the President of the United States. She tells Us & Them host Trey Kay about life on either side of the political divide.

28/12/2023

Happy holidays everybody! Ed and I got back in the lake today. 45° in the air about 41° in the water. It was gray and cloudy. No sunshine warming the top of the water. A little gloomy, but great to be back in the water after about four days. I’ve needed to work off all of the good food that I’ve been eating!

21/11/2023

The latest Us & Them Dinner Party episode might be helpful listening as you prepare for your Thanksgiving meal. Just sayin'...

For the past four years, Trey Kay has gathered a group of West Virginians — four from the political right and four from the left — for the “Us & Them Dinner Party.” The discussion at this year’s gathering focused on former President Trump’s indictments, abortion laws, diminishing public ...

08/11/2023

We used to trust the news, but now some polls and surveys show that our confidence has eroded. Recently, the Us & Them team partnered with West Virginia University’s Reed College of Media for a conversation on diminished trust in journalism. Host Trey Kay spoke with Raney Aronson-Rath, editor-in-chief and executive producer of PBS Frontline, and June Cross, director of the documentary journalism program at the Columbia Journalism School.

We used to trust the news, but now some polls and surveys show that our confidence has eroded. Recently, the Us & Them team partnered with West Virginia University’s Reed College of Media for a conversation on diminished trust in journalism. Host Trey Kay spoke with Raney Aronson-Rath, editor-in-c...