Veteran, Storyteller And Teacher Ray Christian

WUNC | By Laura Lee,

Published February 9, 2015 at 12:02 PM EST

Meet history instructor and storyteller Ray Christian

Ray Christian is a born storyteller. Growing up, he read to his illiterate parents. He sought escape from an impoverished childhood in Richmond, Virginia by joining the military. In his two decades in the Army, he served in combat zones and jumped from planes as a paratrooper with the82^ndAirborne. Today he weaves tales of those experiences into narratives that he shares on stage and he highlights the stories of others as a history instructor at Appalachian State University. Host Frank Stasio talks with Ray Christian about his life and stories.

Laura Lee

Laura Lee began her journalism career as a producer and booker at NPR. She returned to her native North Carolina to manage The State of Things, a live daily statewide show on WUNC. After working as a managing editor of an education journalism start-up, she became a writer and editor at a national education publication, Edutopia. She then served as the news editor at Carolina Public Press, a statewide investigative newsroom. In 2022, she worked to build collaborative coverage of elections administration and democracy in North Carolina.

Laura received her master’s in journalism from the University of Maryland and her bachelor’s degree in political science and J.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Frank Stasio

Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.

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