Hot Seat: Media Monday with Ron Klopfanstein

🎙️ This week on Hot Seat: Media Monday, we spotlight independent creativity, community, and perseverance across the Mohawk Valley.

🎬 Pete Colter, creator and producer of the upcoming retro horror anthology Carrion Creek, joins us to discuss bringing the series to life, launching its Kickstarter campaign, and why he's bringing back the classic 22-episode TV season.

🌮 Then we sit down with Sarita Ruiz, owner of Sarita's Food Truck, ...

This week on Hot Seat: Media Monday...

☕ Jeff Miller from Coffee, Tea & a Ph.D. joins us to discuss his innovative lecture series at The Tram, lifelong learning, and the history of segregation in Upstate New York.

🎵 Musical guest Citizen Lou returns with two original performances, including a song written especially for Hot Seat: Media Monday.

🎤 Lily Christopher and I speak with the children of Edgar Lopez-Duran about the emotio...

This week on Hot Seat: Media Monday, Ron Klopfanstein brings together comedy, music, culture, creativity, and community.

The episode features comedian Brandon Ciotti, who talks about stand-up comedy, joke writing, stage confidence, bombing, improv, and his upcoming comedy night at Players of Utica on June 27.

Recording artist Amanda Marie, also known as Batmanda, joins the show to discuss her music, her songwriting process, buying be...

“Stories are what make us and shape us.”

This week on Hot Seat: Media Monday, we celebrate Pride, creativity, identity, and the power of telling your own story.

We take you to the Oneida County Pride Festival at the Clinton Arena, where the community came together for a celebration of diversity, inclusion, equality, and belonging.

Then artist Lorraine Krameyer joins us with our own Jim Hale to talk about International Fair...

Hot Seat: Media Monday on 95.5 FM The Heat 🔥 | S2:E36

This week:

⚡ Thomas Roy, the Oneida-Madison Electric Cooperative's 2026 Student Scholarship Award winner, joins us to discuss his recent trip to Washington, D.C., where he advocated for rural electric cooperatives and learned firsthand how grassroots organizations work with government leaders to address issues affecting local communities.

🕌 We visit the Utica Masjid Eid Al Adha C...

Hot Seat: Media Monday with Ron Klopfanstein on 95.5 FM The Heat 🔥

Watch the full episode on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/o3OVMLZ-TqE

This week’s episode brings together Pride Month, local history, original music, and a big-picture conversation about artificial intelligence, robotics, and the future.

Ron opens the show with Ace Morreale of the Oneida County Pride Alliance for a conversation about Pride Month events across Oneid...

This week’s Hot Seat: Media Monday with Ron Klopfanstein on 95.5 FM The Heat 🔥 brings together community, culture, comics, summer movies, horror, and creativity.

We open with a feature story from the Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month Celebration at Parkway Recreation Center, hosted by the Midtown Utica Community Center. It was a beautiful celebration of food, music, dance, family, culture, and tradition &mdas...

Hot Seat: Media Monday S2:E32 — Catstock 6, May Day, CFLR Open Mic & Biker Brotherhood

🎥 Watch the full show here:
https://youtu.be/2xuypWbh4vg

This week on Hot Seat: Media Monday with Ron Klopfanstein on 95.5 FM The Heat 🔥, we bring together music, animal rescue, workers’ rights, recovery, motorcycle culture, and community.

We open the show with John Chesebro, who previews Catstock 6, a major local fundraiser bui...

This week on Hot Seat: Media Monday with Ron Klopfanstein on 95.5 FM The Heat 🔥, we explore resilience, grief, faith, history, science, creativity, and the power of sharing our stories.

We begin at Grace Episcopal Church in Utica with a feature story on its rare Henry Holiday stained glass windows — priceless works of art connected to Helen Munson Williams and her daughters, Rachel Munson Williams Proctor and Maria Watson Wil...

This week on Hot Seat: Media Monday with Ron Klopfanstein on 95.5 FM The Heat 🔥, we move from myth and identity, to 4/20 community culture, to a deeply powerful conversation about trauma, healing, and survival.

We begin with writer A.S. Galbraith, whose work explores fairy tale, folklore, queerness, neurodivergence, chronic illness, and life at the margins. We talk about why ancient stories still resonate, how fairy tales can be re...

This week on Hot Seat: Media Monday with Ron Klopfanstein on 95.5 FM The Heat 🔥, we bring you a show packed with creativity, community impact, and local achievement.First, Photojournalist and AI Content Producer Jim Hale, Associate Producer Nick Phillips, and I take you to Utica University for a look at Armada, an early modern swashbuckling stage combat spectacle written and directed by Jim Drake. Then Cassandra Garcia from United...

This week on Hot Seat: Media Monday with Ron Klopfanstein on 95.5 FM The Heat 🔥, we bring you a powerful episode about leadership, service, joy, and human dignity.

First, I sit down with Cassandra Harris Lockwood — owner of 95.5 FM The Heat, CEO of For The Good Inc., longtime activist, artist, journalist, and community leader — to talk about her life, her work, and receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award.

We also take you...

This week on Hot Seat: Media Monday with Ron Klopfanstein on 95.5 FM The Heat 🔥, we bring you a show packed with heart, resilience, and voices from across the Mohawk Valley you need to hear.

Associate Producer Nick Phillips brings you his first solo feature story for the show as he takes us to Utica Royalties’ Eid celebration in downtown Utica. Then we sit down with Kristy Russitano of Finding the Next Step Together and Dave ...

This week’s 95.5 FM Hot Seat: Media Monday with Ron Klopfanstein on 95.5 FM The Heat 🔥 is now streaming!

From neon lights and dance floors to history, health, and human rights — this episode covers it all.

We take you inside the Electric Garden Dance Party at 16 Stone Brew Pub, where Cleo Qupid is building something special for the Mohawk Valley nightlife scene — and proving that yes, radio still brings people out....

What do the Oscars 🎬, Ukrainian Easter eggs 🥚, HBCU football 🏈, and a neon dance party 💃 have in common?

They’re all on this week’s Hot Seat: Media Monday with Ron Klopfanstein on 95.5 FM The Heat 🔥.

🎨 A look inside Pysanky egg-making at the Kirkland Art Center
🏈 Author Bruce “Moon” Martin on The Four Horsemen
🎧 Cleo Qupid’s Electric Garden Dance Party
🎬 Nabil’s Oscar wrap-up

It&rs...

Ron is also joined in studio by Dave Roberts, author, adjunct professor of psychology at Utica University, and host of The Teaching Journeys Podcast. Roberts shares the powerful personal story that shaped his life’s work after losing his 18-year-old daughter to cancer in 2003. In a moving conversation about grief, resilience, and spirituality, Roberts reminds listeners that “we get through grief by remembering, not forg...

Sometimes the best stories come from the people you meet by accident.This week on Hot Seat: Media Monday on 95.5 FM The Heat, my husband Jim and I were having lunch at Wendy’s in Rome when we met the incredible members of Girl Scout Troop #20010. They were out selling cookies and learning real-world skills like leadership, teamwork, and even cybersecurity—all while raising money for a trip to Legoland. 🍪Then we head to...

This week on 95.5 FM’s Hot Seat: Media Monday, I’m joined by Jermiko Thomas (author of the Adventures of Walter series) and JWatch (writer, poet, and community producer). Jermiko talks about his new fitness planner and guide, built around motivation, hydration, and structured goals for every level, plus his new ASL children’s book inspired by sign language being his first way to communicate. JWatch shares what dri...