This week we’re talking about a project called My Life My Town, which documents the lives of young people living in rural Missouri. It started back in 2011, when Columbia Missourian photo desk and KBIA staff decided to work together to help students tell stories through images and sound. This past school year new teams of photographers and radio reporters went out to follow up with some of the people who participated in that project and to document the lives of more young people living in small towns.
We'll hear excerpts from some of those new stories and then talk with Brian Kratzer of the Columbia Missourian, student editor Ashley Reese and returning documentary participant Trinity Rainey. When My Life My Town first shared Trinity's story, she was one of a handful of openly gay students at her high school in Macon, Missouri. She told us how her life has changed, what it was like participating in two documentaries and how she keeps one foot in rural Missouri.