Carroll County High School Graduate Hosts Archive for Local Histories

Staff

22 Jan 2026 — 2 min read

Ethan Edwards. Photo provided by The Ridge Podcast.

Three years ago, two Carroll County High School students decided to start their own podcast. Ethan Edwards and Jeffrey "Luke" Watson called their podcast The Ridge Podcast and began interviewing folks across the Blue Ridge Mountains.

As their program grew, celebrities and political leaders jumped on board. Beth Macy, author of Papergirl and Dopesick, visited with The Ridge hosts and talked about her life as a first generation college student, her writing process, and her work as a reporter for the Roanoke Times (link below for her interview on The Ridge Podcast).

Another guest on The Ridge was VA 9th District Representative Morgan Griffith. Griffith talked with Edwards and Watson about his committee work in the US House of Representatives and his career in law (link below for his interview on The Ridge Podcast).

When they first launched The Ridge Podcast, Edwards and Watson made an agreement to conduct one interview each week. Anyone who works in media and journalism knows the amount of work that goes into producing a single piece of reporting. Despite the production workload for their podcast, these Carroll County students successfully kept up with their rigorous high school schedules, sometimes working through the night to meet their production & their school work deadlines.

When Watson left for college in 2024, Edwards kept The Ridge Podcast going. Then, last Fall when Edwards went off to Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he decided to stay committed to the podcast and continued producing a monthly interview for the region.

This year, he's even made time to add something new to The Ridge. Aware that many local historians have recordings of elders 'remembering the old days', Edwards has added an online platform that will act as an archive to house recordings of oral histories.

Called "Stories From The Ridge", this initiative will offer local historians an online place to preserve their recordings in one central location. It means that these oral histories will also be available to the public for future generations.

If you have recordings of elders talking about 'days gone by', learn more about Edwards' archive on The Ridge podcast site here: https://theridgepodcast.com/sftr

Edwards and Watson volunteered their skills, time, and resources to deliver a free podcast program for people in The Blue Ridge Mountains. Now Edwards is offering a way to preserve our stories too.

All of the work delivered through The Ridge Podcast is available for free: https://theridgepodcast.com/ Enjoy tuning in today!