This election season, KHOL has aired 12 conversations between people running for local office and those who live and work in Teton County. One Small Step conversations aren’t about politics, but aim to get at what makes us who we are. Lauren Grossman produced those episodes for KHOL and she sat down with Managing Editor Sophia Boyd-Fliegel before Election Day to share what those conversations have to offer. Find the playlist here.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. – Ed.
Sophia Boyd-Fliegel: Let’s start with one conversation that stands out to you.
Lauren Grossman: The first one that comes to mind is the conversation between Chris Glenn and Krista Nethercott.
SBF: This is the sheriff’s candidate who’s running as an independent and Krista Nethercott lost her primary bid for coroner as a Republican.
LG: Yes. And the first question asks participants where their political ideas come from. Krista began the conversation by talking about how and why she is opposed to abortion because she was adopted. I was so blown away that she felt so comfortable so early on in the conversation and was really grateful that she was able to share that.
Krista Nethercott (Archive): In 1977, it would have been very easy for my mom to go into an abortion clinic. And she was 14. She didn’t have any support of her parents. So I feel like, for me, being conservative, it goes along the lines of giving other children who were like me the opportunity to have parents that wanted to adopt.
LG: It laid the foundation for a very open, respectful, and warm conversation between Krista and Chris about their very different beliefs. And they did a wonderful job of really hearing each other.
SBF: How does that relate to the point of these conversations?
LG: Listening to these conversations enabled me to form a more open and different perspective on the candidates, especially the candidates who have different political opinions than I do. And that’s the goal of the whole program is to enable the listeners to see who these candidates are as human beings.
SBF: The newsroom was not involved in this project at all, but I do know just from you guys coming in here that it wasn’t always easy to get people together or to convince people to come in here. So talk to me about some of the uphill battles you faced, some of the hesitancy around people coming in.
LG: That was very interesting. I had reached out at the beginning of the process to different organizations in Jackson about establishing partnerships with them. And every organization I reached out to said, ‘No, thank you, because this is too political.’ And I would explain to them that, no, this isn’t political. This is just about getting to know each other as human beings. There were so many people who said ‘no’ to me, even people who I know personally, because they were concerned that they would need to come in and debate their beliefs with the candidates. And I would tell them, ‘You’re not going to need to do that.’ But I think the hesitancy, both from the individuals and the organizations, is reflective of the times that we’re living in and that it is such a divisive time. There’s such a lack of trust. It shows how essential a program like One Small Step is.
SBF: Tell me about some of the questions that you added and what you were trying to elicit from those.
LG: We ask people to tell us about an experience they had being an outsider. I think we all have an experience being an outsider at some point. I think, if as adults, we haven’t had that experience, then we should. I think it’s easy to look at people who we see as different from ourselves as maybe having things easier or maybe feeling connected in a way that we don’t. Especially people who are taking on leadership roles in our community. And when we realize, oh, they’ve had an experience where they felt like they didn’t fit in, they felt just as uncomfortable as I have, it definitely humanizes people.
SBF: Was there one of those conversations about outsider status that stood out to you?
LG: Well, the most recent conversation was between Alex Muromcew and Roxana Wortman.
SBF: Alex being an independent candidate for county commission and Roxana being a community school Spanish teacher.
LG: Roxana talked about how she, as a Peruvian immigrant, feels like an outsider.
Roxana Wortman (Archive): I feel as an outsider many times here, but I think I just like to embrace that as well. I feel like the opportunity to be different just gives you a little more of a feeling that you’re a unique human being and just love yourself and appreciate who you are. For a decade, I just wasted my life trying to improve my accent or just don’t have mistakes in my English. And it was just a waste of time and energy because [after] 20 years here in the U.S. I feel like I haven’t improved. I mean, I have improved, but I’m never going to be perfect.
LG: And then Alex talked about his experience living in Japan.
Alex Muromcew (Archive): The word that they use for foreigner, the proper word is gaikokujin, but that gets shortened to gaijin, which basically means outsider. And you know, it’s a homogeneous society. And here I am, this tall blonde guy, wandering around and you know that you never have any illusion that, oh, yeah, I’m gonna go local and I’m going to blend in. You are different. You are the outsider.
SBF: As I would see these stories pop up and hear them on the radio, a lot of people talked about the role that faith played in their lives.
LG: I think people’s experience with faith gets at the root of their families, how they were raised, the value systems that they grew up in, their cultures, and their own choice and independence. Because many people, when talking about faith, they talk about their experiences moving away from the faith that they grew up in, going out on their own and pulling away from the value systems that they were raised in, or staying very committed to them. And it enables them to talk about their families, their parents, their siblings, in some cases their marriages and how they’re raising their children. So it really spirals in a good way into an even deeper conversation about their own identity.
SBF: It just strikes me that faith and religion are taboo topics for the dinner table at Thanksgiving, but if there’s a different setting, or maybe if we open up a little bit more to our differences or to having these conversations, we can flip that script.
LG: Absolutely. One of the rules with One Small Step is that you are not here to change anyone’s mind; you’re just here to listen and to understand. And I think if we approach conversations that way in our day-to-day life, whether that be with family or friends, I think that script would get flipped.
