How Sergei Krasikov turned his love of nature into a civic purpose
Release Date: 04/16/2025
Kids come alive in a garden, with Land to Learn’s Nicole Porto
Beaconites!
There’s a growing movement to bring more outdoor learning to public schools. This month, we profile Land to Learn, a non-profit organization that provides hands-on, garden-based learning to elementary students and teens throughout the Hudson Valley. Executive Director Nicole Porto previously worked as a farmer and has dedicated her career to building sustainable and just food systems. In our interview, Nicole describes how Land to Learn’s gardener-teachers work with kids of varying ages to instill knowledge of where their food comes from and advance values of caring for the Earth....
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Lastar Gorton wants Beacon to stop caving to developers
Beaconites!
Lastar Gorton, Beacon’s new Ward 1 city council rep, is tired of watching families be forced out of the city because their paychecks can’t cover the rent or a mortgage down payment. Lastar grew up in Beacon, and she has watched waves of lifelong Beaconites leave as the cost of housing rises, while developers have erected dozens of mostly luxury condo buildings. That includes her uncle, who was forced to leave his longtime apartment and move away from Beacon after his wife passed, despite expressing interest in buying the building he lived in. His offer, which would have easily...
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Paula and Justin King, the married couple behind Rexhill Studio
Beaconites!
How do you end up going into business with your life partner? For Paula and Justin King, the couple behind Rexhill Studio, the decision came many years after they first met, as their separate interests and skillsets gradually converged in their adopted home city. Paula grew up in NJ, attended NYU and lived in the East Village in the 90s. Justin grew up in Ohio, took an early interest in art and dreamed of escaping the Midwest. They both ran away to the West Coast, each for their own reasons, and met in Portland where they lived for years before moving back East and putting roots...
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The many facets of Vibeke Saugestad
Beaconites!
Not sure what to do with your one precious existence? Good news from the true-life adventures of Vibeke Saugestad: You don’t have to pick one thing. Best known as a power-pop singer-songwriter, Vibeke is also an accomplished literary translator, multi-instrumentalist, puppet-maker and ventriloquist. “I don’t stand still for long,” she says in our interview. Vibeke’s music career started in the early 90s when she was the teenage frontwoman for Weld and other bands. She kept making music for the next 35 years in various groups ranging from the mellow,...
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Everyone needs help, with disability rights advocate Beth Poague
Beaconites!
Beth Poague’s life changed when she and her then-husband Jim learned that their youngest son Finn had a rare genetic disorder. Their pace of living shifted, they sought community with other families going through the same thing, and as Finn got older, Beth channeled her energy into advocating for changes to Beacon’s schools on her son’s behalf. First at JV Forrestal and later at Rombout Middle School, Beth pushed for — and got — more integrated classrooms and school activities that allowed kids with disabilities to learn alongside typical kids. She believes the work she and other...
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The Zach Rodgers interview
Beaconites!
Repost: Some listeners experienced a truncated version of this interview, so we are deleting and reposting. -ZR The tables have turned! After six years and more than 133 interviews, Beaconites creator and host Zach Rodgers (i.e. me) moves into the guest's chair for a discussion of his life and the evolution of this community project. A few listeners have asked for this episode over the years, and Beacon AV Lab's own Jonny Taylor — my creative and production partner during the full run of this project — was kind enough to be my interlocutor. We talk about my upbringing in Northern...
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Finding magic in a drop of water or a nighttime walk, with Julie Winterbottom
Beaconites!
Julie Winterbottom has written a wide range of books aimed at children, including books on farts, pranks and horror — all designed for maximum humor, spine chills and fun. Her most recent work is a little different: “Magic in a Drop of Water” tells the story of ecologist Ruth Patrick, who did pioneering research connecting biodiversity to river pollution and helped to write the 1972 clean water act. It’s a beautiful book in terms of both the story it tells and the gorgeous illustrations of marsh snails, hugsuckers and, above all, diatoms, the family of phytoplankton that appear in all...
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How food stabilizes community, with Mike Diago
Beaconites!
Mike Diago loves eating, and writing about, food, but his interest is only partly about the cuisine itself. In articles for Eater, Saveur, Chronogram, The Bittman Project and other publications, Mike has created a niche covering the critical role food and eateries play in stabilizing communities. He has written about the surprising Dominican expat tradition of holding spaghetti feasts on the beach; about a BBQ restaurant in the Bronx that has operated continuously since 1954; about a burger place in Jersey City that has anchored its community and overcome sharp racial divides. This...
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The choral-cosmic works of Heather Christian, MacArthur Fellow
Beaconites!
Heather Christian is a singer, playwright, composer and recent winner of a MacArthur "genius grant." Her compositions use spiritual music forms to explore themes as varied as ghosts, grief, the Odyssey and the Big Bang. She describes them as “ choral-based complex music theater works.” They are often presented in the round, in part to obliterate the hierarchy between audience and performers. “I’m interested in existence. I’m interested in unanswerable questions,” she says in our interview. “Our lives have become so much about the in and out business of our civilization....
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Carolyn Glauda is an optimist in dark times
Beaconites!
As the only candidate running for city council representing Ward 4, Carolyn Glauda is pretty much a shoe-in for the seat, but she still wants to earn your vote. In this interview, she shares her vision for a safer, more affordable and more sustainable Beacon. Carolyn has been a member of the traffic safety committee since 2020, an experience that got her hooked on civic engagement. In this interview, she shares her point of view on Beacon’s affordability crisis, sustainability initiatives, transit and other topics. She also indulges her interviewer in a detour on the failures of...
info_outlineOur interview with Sergei Krasikov is a must-listen if you’re into trails, open spaces, water sheds and being outside in any weather.
Originally from Belarus, Sergei has made Beacon his home in every sense. He is a community builder and civic volunteer with a special focus on land conservation. As the chair of the Conservation Advisory Committee and founder of the Fishkill Creek Watershed Alliance, he has advanced a city-wide composting program, trail clearing, a water testing program and more. Right now he’s focused on an inventory of open spaces that could eventually be adopted into the city’s comprehensive plan.
On top of all that, Sergei is running for City Council for the consequential 2026-2028 term.
City business aside, it’ll come as no surprise that Sergei is an active outdoorsman – a trail runner, swimmer and cross-country skier. We spent a chunk of this interview talking about things listeners can do outside in Beacon and surrounding areas.
Links and further reading:
Earth Day cleanup. The CAC is organizing its annual Sat April 26 Earth Day clean up, trail clearing & riparian buffer planting followed by a Green Fair at Hudson Valley Brewery. More info at: https://www.greenbeaconcoalition.org
Water testing. The Fishkill Creek Watershed Alliance, in partnership with Bard College Community Science Lab, Riverkeeper and Beacon Institute, is starting a community water quality testing program throughout the watershed this May. They're currently seeking volunteers to help collect samples that will be tested for metals, chemicals, biological markers and more. More info at https://www.fishkillwatershed.org
Photo by Michael Isabell: https://www.michaelisabell.com/
Beaconites is recorded at Beacon AV Lab: https://www.beaconavlab.com/