River Town

A Magical Disneyland Log Ride Down the Missouri River

A podcast collaboration of KBIA, The New Territory, and the Missouri School of Journalism, with PRX

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Episodes         Events         The Team         More Missouri River Stories

River Town is a magical Disneyland log ride down the Missouri River.

Join host Tina Casagrand Foss, the founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief of The New Territory magazine, on a magical Disneyland log ride down the Missouri River. Along the way, we’ll get to see how this mighty waterway shapes the people and places it flows through.

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Episodes

KBIA releases a new episode every Monday at 5 a.m.

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Episode One: A Flood Monster, Music and a Pretzel Boat 

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Episode Two: Pedal, or Paddle?

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Episode Three: Protecting Our Waters

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Episode Four: Sacred Waters

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Episode Five: Take Me to the River 

Events

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River Town Celebration Party

May 18, 2024, 12-3 p.m.
Peers Store, Marthasville, MO

Learn More

Big Muddy Speakers Series

February 11, 2025, 6-8 p.m.
Riechmann Pavilion in Stephen’s Lake Park, Columbia, MO

Learn More

Producers

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portrait of Jessica Vaughn Martin, smiling. Jessica is white with long, dark hair and a playful personality.
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Janet Saidi

Podcaster, professor, genius

Janet Saidi is KBIA’s long-form audio producer and serves on the Missouri School of Journalism’s faculty and graduate faculty. Janet’s many and varied media projects are about building community through audio. She has written and produced pieces for NPR, PBS, the BBC, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Los Angeles Times, and she spent seven years leading KBIA’s award-winning news team. Her most recent projects include KBIA’s podcast Cover Story with Stephanie Shonekan; she hosted KBIA’s live, national-award-winning talk show The Check-In; and she has co-created two award-winning, collaboratively-produced series combining oral history with audio journalism, You Don’t Say and Missouri on Mic. In 2014 and 2016, Janet co-produced two journalism-on-the-stage theater productions with playwright Michelle Tyrene Johnson: Justice in the Embers, with Kansas City’s Living Room Theatre, and The Green Duck Lounge with MU Theatre. Janet began her public-media work at KPBS in San Diego, on a live, nightly talk show called The Lounge. While in California, Janet helped produce the national PBS series “Remaking American Medicine” about healthcare in America, and worked as an editor at the Gay & Lesbian Times and Uptown Newsmagazine. As vice president for news at Kansas City Public Television, Janet led a team of multiplatform journalists to launch KCPT’s digital magazine FlatlandKC, and co-produced the Beyond Belief interfaith journalism project for AIR’s Localore “Finding America” series. Janet lived for several years in England, where she earned her master’s in Literature from University College, London. Her Substack newsletter and podcast is the Austen Connection. Ask her anything you want about Jane!

 

Tina Casagrand Foss

Publisher and The New Territory Magazine executive director
Tina Casagrand Foss is the founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief of The New Territory. Raised in the Gasconade River Valley of the northern Ozark border, her love for mossy woods knows no bounds. She graduated from the University of Missouri with degrees in magazine journalism and anthropology and worked as a freelance environmental journalist before starting The New Territory. As executive director of The New Territory Magazine’s newly formed nonprofit, she looks forward to a long future of reaching more readers, fostering Midwestern writers and editors, and nurturing connections among New Territory readers both on and off the page. Tina lives in Jefferson City, Missouri, just a mile away from the Missouri River.

Jessica Vaughn Martin

Writer, Project Manager, genius

Jessica Vaughn Martin is a food journalist and gastronomic enthusiast. Her work centers around the people involved in food and agriculture, and the idea of food as memory, tradition, and cultural roadmap. She is a co-founder of Leftovers Community, an emerging food media platform that celebrates and sees potential in the scraps of life: leftover food, overlooked places and unheard voices. Jessica is an alumna of the Missouri School of Journalism and a former contributing editor for Feast magazine; she has also contributed to Food Network, Farm Journal,  and COMO magazine, among other publications. Most recently, she’s taken a dive into audio, managing the Canned Peaches and River Town podcasts for mid-Missouri’s local NPR affiliate, KBIA. She lives in Jefferson City, Missouri, with her young family in an old bungalow, where she’s running out of space for her growing collection of vintage Missouri cookbooks.

 

Abigail Keel

Editor, genius

Abigail is a freelance audio producer and reporter working with clients like At Will Media, The University of Missouri, The Sporkful podcast, and on personal projects. She spent seven years at Stitcher, most recently as a senior producer for Witness Docs. She has been the force behind the scenes making shows like Rubirosa, Toxic: The Britney Spears Story, Unfinished: Short Creek, (named one of the best podcasts of the year by the New Yorker) and All-American: Tiger Woods. Before making serialized documentaries, Abigail produced Unladylike, named one of Spotify’s top podcasts of 2018.

Team Credits

River Town was reported by Tadeo Ruiz , Ailing Li, Ellie Lin, Kaylin Hellyer, Olivia Mizelle and Kiana Ferandes. 

Special thanks to the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk. Music for River Town comes from The Burney Sisters, Gloria Attoun and Jason Shaw. 

Our audience teams and our photo teams are led by Professor Kara Edgerson and Professor Brian Kratzer at the Missouri News Network. 

River Town is a collaborative project from KBIA, the Missouri School of Journalism’s Missouri News Network, The New Territory magazine, in partnership with PRX.

More Missouri River Stories

Learn more about The New Territory magazine →

Issue 10

“The Control of the Missouri”

Feature by Robert Langellier on a court case that shifted the future of America’s longest river away from ecological restoration

Buy a Copy

Issue 05

“Muddy Logic”

Feature by Ellie Prentice on the Missouri River’s Lessons in control, wildness and the blurred lines between the two

Issue 05 is sold out — look for a link to the feature soon!

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The New Territory Community

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In time when our region could use a little more love and action, New Territory events gather people who care. Our readers believe The Lower Midwest is full of problems to solve, stories to tell, and possibilities for making our part of the world even better.