American Heritage

Guest: Orson Scott Card, Best-selling Author  A few weeks ago, best-selling author Orson Scott Card was in town for a conference on issues of creativity, license and ownership hosted by the BYU Copyright Office. He stopped by our studio for a chat. But he had one condition – he wouldn’t talk about the 2013 movie adaptation of his most famous book, “Ender’s Game.”  Orson Scott Card is a prolific writer, with 70 novels ranging from fantasy and science fiction to historical non-fiction.

Guest: Mark Harmon, PhD, professor and Richardson Chair of Forest Science at Oregon State University  What’s a dead tree good for, other than for firewood or pulp to make paper? Dead is dead, right?  From forest scientist Mark Harmon’s perspective, a dead tree might actually be more lively than a living one. Harmon is a professor at Oregon State University who studies the thriving ecosystems in fallen logs. His work makes the case for not clearing out dead trees and log debris from forests.

Guest: Greg Whiteley, Documentary Filmmaker  Filmmaker Greg Whiteley brought an insider’s perspective to the family life of Mitt Romney in the documentary film Mitt.  He created a similarly intimate portrait of former 70s glam rocker Arthur Killer Kane in the film New York Doll. This year, he’s premiering a new documentary in which he turns his lens to an issue that affects all of us, public education. The film is called Most Likely to Succeed and it may shake up anyone who’s feeling complacent about public education today.