Jackson Free Press

Gene Edwards has a deep, comforting voice. Edwards, 56, is the deputy director of content operations for Mississippi Public Broadcasting. When Hurricane Katrina struck Mississippi, Edwards and his colleagues took to the air, providing information and solace to those who were cut off from the world by the storm.

"Getting information was really hard, but also really important. In Hattiesburg—people don't realize how hard Hattiesburg was hit—we were the only source of information they had for two days. No newspapers, no television, just us," Edwards says.

Staying on the air was no easy task, as MPB lost power along with everyone else. The phones worked only intermittently. Diesel-powered generators kept the radio transmitters working, but the computers and AP wire went down along with the lights and the air conditioning. "It was terribly hot. It was like the old days, when I did college radio," Edwards remembers.

Edwards enjoyed the camaraderie of those days, and he takes just pride in the contribution he and the MPB staff made during the worst days. It is not only a matter of providing information, he insists. "I think you have to be as calm as you can be. You have to let people know, through your voice, that there are people on the other side, that information is flowing, and that they're going to be all right," he says.

Edwards was born in Indianapolis, and before coming to Mississippi in 1989, he worked for public broadcasting in Wichita, Kan., and Minneapolis. Like so many transplants to the Magnolia state, he had some doubts before the move.

"My wife's from Minnesota, and she didn't know if she could be happy here," Edwards explains.

Now he says they both love Mississippi and wouldn't want to live anywhere else. "Every time I turn around, there's some bright idea or new person that's just interesting. I began a series of interviews with authors, and you just couldn't do that anywhere else."

For the future, Edwards looks forward to developing more local, original programming, along with expanded news coverage.

"There are so many stories, like the disaster in Hattiesburg, where there's just been a huge loss of property … Small towns that are going to be tremendously impacted by this for a very long time. We need to be able to tell that story for an extended period of time."

Previous Comments

ID

82409

Comment

A bizarre letter today to the Clarion-Ledger bashing Mississippi Public Broadcasting's coverage of Katrina. Was this guy listening to the same MPB??? Why do I have the feeling that this is an attempt to publicly bash, er, "liberal" media? This is truly absurd. I'm surprised the Ledge would run something that so clearly is not fact-based. Oh, wait, I'm not. They don't actually factcheck letters as we well know.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2005-10-22T10:25:47-06:00