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Troy Oppie
Host/ReporterExpertise: radio hosting, reporting, All Things Considered, jazz music
Education: Pacific Lutheran University
Highlights
- I started at BSPR as a volunteer
- I embrace goofy ideas, like broadcasting live from a hammock by the Boise River
- Public Radio and I go back to middle school – but not as a 'back seat listener'
Experience
I was excited for the chance to volunteer as a local music host back in 2014 after I left local TV (and thus was allowed to appear on-air somewhere else). I hosted "Jazz Conversations" for many years before slowly working into rotation with the news team and joining full-time just as the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
I enjoy stretching the limits of radio when I can, like trying remote broadcasts from places around Idaho, and introducing listeners to the different characters who make our communities unique. My decade-long career in television included stints in live sports production and I can still occasionally be found behind a camera or in a TV truck, or even calling play-by-play for high school sports.
I also spent nearly six years working in personal finance, which I enjoyed but found highly stressful.
My first exposure to public radio was listening to jazz as a middle schooler on KPLU-FM (now KNKX) in Tacoma-Seattle. Our jazz band even volunteered to answer phones during the station's pledge drives (which used to be 12-14 days long!). Eventually I worked at that station while attending college and it drove my appreciation for public radio – and the people of public radio – to new heights.
Email: Drop me a note or story tip at troyoppie@boisestate.edu
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Struggles with the new FAFSA have been blamed for falling completion rates: 35.7% in Idaho as of July 5, and 46.6% nationwide. That's down 11% year-over-year.
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The summer heat as arrived and in the Treasure Valley, Our Path Home has implemented its summer cooling plan. Our Path Home has expanded the number of emergency cooling locations across Boise.
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Idahoans for Open Primaries will deliver its petition with more verified signatures than needed to the Idaho Secretary of State Tuesday, paving the way to the November ballot for the citizen-led initiative.
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The Ada County Sheriff’s office settled a lawsuit brought by a Kuna man who says he was illegally detained last year. The settlement did not include an apology.
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The U.S. Census Bureau estimates Canyon County grew 11.5% between April of 2020 and July 2023, and is now home to more than 257,000 people. The county's Chief Paramedic said new funding is needed just to maintain the department’s status quo.
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Commissioners Rod Beck and Tom Dayley voted 2-0 Monday to approve a new contract to redraft the jail expansion plans so that a new kitchen can be added using funding the county already has, and save other phases of expansion for later.
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“A lot of these water systems were put in many, many years ago,” explained Shelley Roberts, CEO of the Idaho Rural Water Association. “There isn't always a record of what exactly is in the ground."
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The Boise City Council delayed a decision on a proposed 3,500-unit housing development called Murio Farms in southwest Boise. At a hearing on Tuesday, landowners pushed back against a denial recommendation made this spring by the city Planning and Zoning Commission.
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The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality Board of Environmental Quality Wednesday pulled back a permit granted last year to Perpetua Resources for its planned gold and antimony mine at Stibnite in Valley County.
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The original part of the current school building dates to the 1950s and sits on ground associated with high levels of cancer within the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes.