Public radio producer (and history major) Rick Brewer ‘16 has launched a new, independent, narrative-driven podcast about preserving family history, “Let’s Reminisce.”
The first season of Let’s Reminisce launched on Monday November 23, 2020. Let’s Reminisce tells true family narratives as a means to show listeners the value of recording and preserving their own family’s history for future generations. This podcast is hosted and produced by Brewer, a public radio producer, and former archivist.
Season 1 of the podcast will feature stories from Brewer’s family history. Many of the interviews were never intended to be put on a podcast. They were just family oral histories.
Episode 1 unpacks the family secret of how Brewer’s parents met using a pre-internet dating service. Another episode will feature Brewer’s late grandfather, Lowell Polley. With dozens of hours of recordings with Polley, Brewer reaches out to distant family members to tell the story of what he was able to learn about his grandfather. Also to come, the story of Matt Alvarez’s relationship with his grandmother and how they were able to communicate without speaking the same language.
Currently, Brewer’s full-time job is at Iowa Public Radio as a talk show producer. Before his life in audio, Brewer was an archivist and librarian. Soon after graduate school at Indiana University in Bloomington, Brewer began producing feature stories for WFIU Public Radio, WIUX’s American Student Radio and created the podcast GPSG Radio. He also hosted a morning music show on community radio station WFHB and his work has been featured on WFYI’s Curious Mix, WAMC’s 51 Percent, and PRX Remix.
