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
-
Find candidate information plus voting locations and times.
-
Asheville Watchdog investigative reporter Andrew Jones shares the latest about HCA and Mission.
-
Some big names in the field of climate science - many of them locals - are headlining a Town Hall style event to help the public understand how the findings in the country’s latest climate change report card can help Western North Carolina become more resilient.
-
The last trace of moderate drought in the far southwestern part of North Carolina has vanished, according to the most recent US Drought Monitor map.
-
Early voting in the 2024 primary election is underway, and absentee-by-mail ballots should start showing up in mailboxes across North Carolina this week. This is a resource guide that includes info on registration, mail in voting, in- person early voting and everything you need to get ready for the primary election.
-
Flooding risk increases from heavy rainfall to WNC.
-
Asheville native Heath White who launched one of Asheville's first river tubing tourism businesses along the French Broad River in 2012, died from complications after heart transplant surgery on December 11.
-
The UNC Board of Governors confirmed interim chancellor Dr. Kimberly van Noort as UNCA's ninth chancellor.
-
Award winning storyteller Ray Christian's new season of his "What's Ray Saying" podcast is airing on BPR, a show that uses history and story to explore the Black American experience from his unique perspective. Christian stopped by the BPR studios to talk with morning host Helen Chickering about his podcast and how how his military service helped shape him as a storyteller.
-
Almost all the counties in the BPR listening area are now in a severe drought, a big bump up from just a week ago .