Bee Keepers - Be the Media

At our core, our mission and values are to invest and reinvest in the communities we serve. This means an investment of our schedule, our skills and our stewardship. Communication through journalism, advertising and music is key to our articles and reports, publishing, broadcasts and creative production — sharing that work with readers, listeners and viewers. These are the essential elements in our toolbox for communicating through media and the arts.

As President and CEO of community organizations including the Leadon Family Foundation, Valley Parks and Recreation, Sound Century Academy of Recording Arts and Broadcasting, Break-Thru News and CORE, I take responsibility for the economy, education, environment and entrepreneurship. Each of these organizations is part of a Think and Action Group that addresses the challenges we face, empowering us to "Be Keepers" through mentorship — in our soul work, at home, through our jobs and in community.

Sound Century: Preserving and Protecting

Sound Century preserves and protects while curating recordings, broadcasts and media, and by working with historic architecture. Our Studio Alliance is opening doors — building studios and performing-arts spaces alongside visual and fine-arts centers throughout Colorado and other areas where we empower charters to serve. There is a need to fuse culture and every medium together: telling the stories, singing the songs, showing the pictures and sculptures, savoring the aromas and cuisine, and touching the fabric of the quilts, the farm and the theater — experiencing the art within us all. Be Keepers of local arts and media, and everybody benefits.

Touch and Feel

Traveling together or alone with a portable instrument, writing stories and songs, is part of that quintessential experience. I am a journalist, and I am also a singer-songwriter and guitarist. Looking back, the great American road trip reflects our common objectives and reinforces the need for communities of stories and songs shared on front porches, at house concerts, and in living rooms and community gatherings — a practice that connected home, work and community. The U.S. highway system was officially formed and numbered on November 11, 1926. In my own work, I am documenting and interviewing along a stretch of Highway 50 through Colorado, where historic mixed-use buildings are once again becoming Mom-and-Pop stores, home offices and studios for professionals, and gathering places for community life. When our work is done in our communities and at home, we are fully invested where we live, work and gather. As a journalist, singer-songwriter and guitarist, I've seen how the recent house-concert movement has bolstered Main Street economics — connecting home, work and community economics. Be Keepers of the local economy.

Be Keepers of Education

When we are keepers of the economy, we are also keepers of continuing education. Technology now allows a student to study and practice their craft online while their community becomes their campus — through local businesses, products and services. When we grow where we are planted, we can cultivate an orchard of good works that produces good fruit: a healthy orchard of learning, launching and landing well. The three stages of life are gifts to one another, and we can all participate no matter which stage we're in. Be Keepers of continuing education through launching, learning and landing. Be Keepers of Education.

Be Keepers of the Environment

At a time when wildfires have ravaged the western states and extreme weather batters the eastern states, CORE is taking responsibility for the environment through Think and Action Groups and by mobilizing CORE Respondents wherever people live, work and gather. Partnering with resource centers in Boulder and Pueblo, CORE — and specifically Valley Parks and Recreation — is working with local towns, 4-H and others on lawn replacement using indigenous plants and buffalo grass for residents and businesses along Main Street in Silver Cliff and Westcliffe. Be Keepers of the environment and ecology.

Be Keepers of Responsible Entrepreneurship

The present and future generations of the communities we serve are key to ensuring healthy homes, workplaces and neighborhoods. Whether rural, urban or suburban, communities endure only through a system that provides value, love and care. We've reached a juncture in American life where corporate culture is fleeting, and with artificial intelligence, we risk losing historic accuracy and truth, depending on what has been aggregated from the web. While the stories, songs, folklore and history of our traditions deserve to be examined and re-examined, we risk losing the heart and soul of the matter. We've seen history recounted through AI-generated studies that, while containing a grain of truth, are often at least an inch or two off course. When it's a matter of life or death, being off by even a centimeter is a fatal error. At the core of it, fact-checking, source-checking and editing must come from human editors — and businesses, products and services must come from responsible entrepreneurs. Be Keepers of Entrepreneurship.

Leadon University and Sound Century Academy, in cooperation with Emergent Campus and others, are taking responsibility for education — keeping costs down, academic rigor up, and making local communities the campus for launching, learning and landing well.

To join our mailing list, email soundcenturyoriginals@gmail.com. To start the conversation, please comment on the Break-Thru Media column.

— Richard