{"id":8205,"date":"2025-06-18T15:54:50","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T21:54:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthfund.org\/a\/?p=8205"},"modified":"2025-06-24T13:21:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T19:21:20","slug":"pih-mike-matson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthfund.org\/a\/pih-mike-matson\/","title":{"rendered":"Podcast episode 26: Mike Matson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Welcome to the Pioneers in Health podcast<\/a>. In this podcast, we share inspiring stories of pioneering leaders from our nation and from your backyard who are working to improve health. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In episode 26, we interview Mike Matson<\/a>. He is a lifelong Kansan whose career has touched various aspects of communications: radio and TV news, press secretary to a governor, systems advocacy, newspaper columnist, deejay and podcast\/radio talk show host.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also has authored two books <\/a>that center on alcoholism \u2013 one a family memoir of growing up in an alcoholic home and one about his own story of addiction.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Today, Mike is semi-retired but hosts a live daily radio talk show\/podcast<\/a> created to foster critical thinking and writes a column for his local newspaper, the Manhattan Mercury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this episode, he discusses his journey into broadcasting and his early career as a radio and news TV reporter. He went on to work as a political reporter, which led to a new chapter in his career in government and politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That experience and interest in politics ultimately led to a position working in politics himself. He decided to leave a successful career as a journalist to join Bill Graves’ gubernatorial campaign in the mid-90s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I was getting a steady paycheck every two weeks. I was doing a great job. I loved the work. And I was giving all that up for something as iffy as a political campaign,” he said. “It felt right at the time, and as it turned out, he did get elected.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Graves became the 43rd governor of Kansas in 1994, and Mike became his communications director. He shares how seeing that government could serve as a force for good drew him to the public sector and what it was like working in politics at that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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He also discusses:<\/p>\n\n\n\n