Wenatchee is known as apple capital of the world and, not surprisingly, we have already heard many stories about orchards. From the MobileBooth we look across the wide expanse of the Columbia River to the sprawling cherry and apple orchards of East Wenatchee.

Pictured above are the festivities just outside the MobileBooth, at the Wenatchee Performing Arts Center, which Northwest Public Radio organized to greet StoryCorps to the city. The opening day shindig was complete with baskets of apples on every table. NWPR has also put together a slide-show with an audio clip from the first interview with Harriet Bullitt and Wilfred Woods. The Woods family shares a three-generation legacy of running the Wenatchee World, one of the few remaining family-owned newspapers in the country. Wilfred Woods’ father played an instrumental role in making Wenatchee the apple capital by advocating for the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam and the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project, which irrigates much of the region, as well as providing hydroelectric power.

Today Facilitator Carl Scott and I talked about StoryCorps with two other local radio stations, La Super Z, , and Apple FM. We are looking forward to hearing more stories from the folks that live and work in the Wenatchee Valley.