Helen Chickering
Morning Edition Host, ReporterHelen Chickering is a host and reporter on Blue Ridge Public Radio. She joined the station in November 2014.
Helen grew up in Texas. Her broadcast career began in television news in 1985 at WLBT, the NBC affiliate in Jackson, Mississippi. There she did everything from news to weather and found her niche in medical reporting. Over the next 20 years she covered health and science news on both local and national levels, including 5 years in Charlotte at the CBS affiliate, WBTV. In 1998, Helen helped launch the health and science desk at NBC News Channel, the network's affiliate news service. She became the first journalist to serve as president of the National Association of Medical Communicators and was on the founding board of the Science Communicators of North Carolina.
In 2012, Helen and her family moved to Asheville from Chapel Hill and she started working as a freelance producer and as a Montessori teaching assistant. A longtime NPR listener, she was thrilled to land a job at Blue Ridge Public Radio. Helen is an active member of the Asheville Science Tavern and a guest lecturer and an advisory board member at the University of North Carolina's Medical and Science Journalism Program.
Email: hchickering@bpr.org
-
State health officials will be in Asheville this week to get the public’s input on who should operate an acute care hospital that will be built in Buncombe County. -
A joint class-action lawsuit filed by the City of Asheville and Buncombe County is the latest legal action against HCA Healthcare, the Nashville-based corporation that bought the nonprofit Mission Health System in 2019
-
Buncombe County commissioners doled out millions of dollars during their July 19 meeting – earmarking funding for everything from pandemic recovery to reparations.
-
Buncombe County Health & Human Services today confirmed the first case of monkeypox in the county. There are currently 21 cases across North Carolina.
-
The Community Reparations Commission learned about redlining during their fifth meeting. The commission will present to the Buncombe County Commissioners on Tuesday night to recommend a budget for reparations.
-
An SBI investigation is underway of an in-custody death at the parking lot of an apartment complex in Henderson County on June 15.
-
The City of Brevard is the latest to announce a lawsuit against HCA Healthcare, the Nashville-based corporation that bought the nonprofit Mission Health System in 2019. A press release issued by the City of Brevard says the lawsuit further alleges that HCA’s actions have also harmed Brevard and its community by “making changes to charity care, performing and billing for unnecessary procedures, causing the loss of experienced and highly qualified physicians and other health care providers from the HCA system and reducing the availability of appointments for health care services.”
-
The newly formed Asheville-Buncombe Community Reparations Commission passed its first recommendation Tuesday night. The proposal by former city council member Keith Young, who has played a major role in the reparations effort, asks that both the City and County place money in their annual budget in perpetuity for reparations
-
Voters in Asheville will school board candidates on their ballots. The district is one of the last in the state to make the shift from appointed to elected board members.
-
The Primary Election is May 17th. Find your polling place and learn about the local races. This is the first year the Asheville School Board is on the ballot.
