Gospel’s story begins with The Great Migration, when millions of African Americans from the rural Southern United States moved to urban areas in the North, Midwest, and West beginning in the early 20th century. But as this new style arrived on the scene, it wasn’t immediately accepted, because until this new fusion of music and message came along, most preachers and church leaders believed you didn’t SING gospel — you PREACHED it. We learn a bit about Gospel’s story from Stacey L. Holman, Series Producer and Director of the new 4-part series on PBS called Gospel.

A day-long event, created by and for LGBTQ youth, is coming up Saturday. Students in grades 6 through 12, from anywhere, are invited to attend. The event will include a concert, food, and activities, and is entirely free.

We listen back to last week’s forum with City of Naples Mayoral candidates ahead of the March 19 election. The forum included all three candidates: incumbent Mayor Teresa Heitmann, current Naples City Councilman Ted Blankenship, and former councilman Gary Price. The forum was moderated by WGCU’s John Davis and Naples Daily News Executive Editor Wendy Fullerton Powell, and organized by the League of Women Voters of Collier County and the Collier Forum Coalition.

Founded in 2003 as an independent nonprofit, the StoryCorps team has now helped nearly 700,000 people across the country have meaningful conversations about their lives, most of which are collected in the U.S. Library of Congress and in their own online archive. StoryCorps has been a beloved segment heard weekly on NPR stations on Friday mornings during Morning Edition for about 20 years. The StoryCorps Mobile Tour will be setting up shop in Fort Myers from Feb. 15 through Mar. 15, and registration opens on Feb. 1. Participants can choose to record in-person in the mobile airstream travel trailer, or remotely in a “virtual recording booth.” To learn more about the process, we talk with the Director of the StoryCorps Mobile Tour, Lea Zikmund.

Collier County is a wealthy county. According to data from the financial technology company SmartAsset, Collier County is the second wealthiest county in Florida. But, alongside that wealth many country residents are struggling. According to the Collier County Community and Human Services Division nearly 53,000 people commute to work every day from outside the county, and 35% of jobs in the county pay less than $35k a year. We talk with the Collier Community Foundation’s President & CEO to go over the highlights of a new community assessment that identifies the challenges county residents are facing, and the challenges the community foundation faces in trying to support them.

The new book, “La Florida: Catholics, Conquistadores, and Other American Origin Stories” opens with the story that takes place in what’s now Florida in the fall of 1565 when Spanish explorer Pedro Menéndez de Avilés celebrated a ‘feast day of commemoration’ with his men after their successful landing at the future site of the town of St. Augustine. This celebration had many of the same trappings as what we think of when we recount the story of the first Thanksgiving, celebrated 56 years later in the fall of 1621, by Pilgrims in Plymouth Plantation. But, it’s not considered the “first Thanksgiving.” Why is that?

Florida Gulf Coast University is set to release its next Five Year Strategic Plan that will outline the institution's updated goals and priorities, and identify ways to achieve them. It includes updated Mission and Vision statements, and five main goals, which are to “Innovate in Academic Excellence,” “Enhance Student Success and Well-being,” “Elevate Partnerships for Regional Impact,” “Strengthen Organizational Culture and Commitment to Employees” and “Champion Sustainable Practices and Resiliency.” We talk with the three members of the Strategic Plan Steering Committee to get a sense of what the new plan contains, how it differs from the previous plan, and how the process of finalizing it worked.

David Rahahę·tih Webb was born in Southwest Florida and grew up on Sanibel Island, which puts him in a relatively small group of people compared to this area’s current population. But, his family roots go back for generations and their connections to life on Sanibel are both broad and deep. His ‘pioneer’ side goes back eight generations on Sanibel and his Seminole side goes back past recorded history. His direct ancestors were Spanish Seminole members of the Sanibel Island Rancho. Ranchos were small, tight-knit communities settled by Europeans centuries ago. They were essentially fishing camps with as many as 600 residents, most of which were Seminole. And, David is a 4th generation Ding Darling employee — his great grandfather was the first refuge employee; the admin building was dedicated to his grandmother, who worked there for 33 years; his mother worked there when she was pregnant with him and he worked there while serving in AmeriCorps in the mid 1990s.

We meet southwest Florida resident Marina Berkovich. She’s a native of Kiev, Ukraine, who fled the Soviet Union and Communism with her mother at the age of 18. Trained as a CPA, Ms. Berkovich was chief financial officer of a New York City-based hotel and property management company before she began teaming up with her husband Alex Goldstein, a renowned Russian-American cinematic composer, to make documentary films -- many of which help tell the story of Jewish people who made, and make, a positive impact on life in Southwest Florida. Ms. Berkovich is an oral visual history interviewer for the Holocaust Museum of Southwest Florida. She and her husband moved here from New York in 2004, and in 2010 helped found the nonprofit Jewish Historical Society of Southwest Florida, where she remains president. We sit down with her to hear her thoughts on the world today — including Russia's war against Ukraine, and the Hamas attack on Israel and what has unfolded since — as well as the work they do at the Jewish Historical Society of Southwest Florida.

Two decades ago two young men disappeared in Naples under mysterious circumstances. Terrance Williams and Felipe Santos were both last seen with the same Collier County Sheriff’s deputy, Steven Calkins. They were both men of color in their 20s. And they were both last seen in Deputy Calkins’ patrol car. Deputy Calkins was fired after his story changed when questioned. He denied wrongdoing. He’s the only person of interest in the cases, but law enforcement never found evidence against him. This week, on Friday, Jan. 12, it will be 20 years since Terrance went missing.