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“I’m really happy to be able to send out history tidbits and maybe get more people interested in our history,” Judy Linsley, “Two Minutes of History,” podcast host said.

Three decades ago, Linsley published columns in the Historical Journal for the Beaumont Journal that she would recycle in 2019 for the podcast. Episodes cover diverse topics like the history of Southeast Texas, local figures, and historical events.

The podcast can be found on all streaming platforms, like Spotify, and air every Friday at 9 a.m. on the KVLU radio station, 91.3.

“I did write a lot of columns in the History journal for the Beaumont journal, which was in the 90’s,” she said. “It was a weekly supplement to the Enterprise, and I had what they call the history journal, and I wrote a column for a long time every week, and so I’ve used a lot of that material. There’s one on the Beech Avenue, which is in Port Arthur and stretches to High Island. And you know how old it is, and how it was a Native American path before, long before it was a road, and what all happened to it over the years,” she said. “There’s one about a famous hunter, Ben Lily. “Trumpet Superstar” covers the success of Harry James, the trumpet superstar, who grew up in Beaumont.”

One of her stories covers a scandalous tale that shocked the academic world.

“There’s one on a thesis written at Lamar University that got the author in trouble because she wore a bikini,” Linsley said. “And she had a photograph of her in bikini, and on top of it was her thesis and the use of a sextant, which is a navigational instrument. They weren’t going to give her masters, you know.”

The retired Lamar University history adjunct instructor also covered historical events ranging from visiting shows to wars.

“Not only did I write about it,” she said, “I lived through some of the times. I wrote about Buffalo Bills Wild West show that came here in 1900, the town of Concord in Hardin County and how it got started and what happened to it, and “Lamar During Wartime, which covered Lamar University during World War Two. I talk about anything and everything. It’s amazing what’s out there. If I look in an old newspaper and there’s an article about somebody doing something, you know it doesn’t take long to fill up a two-minute show.”

The idea originated in 2019, during Lamar University’s Centennial.

“When I was the Director of the Center of History and Culture of Southeast Texas and the Upper Gulf Coast, we were asked to create a historical program,” she said. “The Assistant Director of the Center, Brendan Gillis, and I kind of worked it up and Brendan said since I had a genuine Southeast Texas accent, since I’m from here, that he thought I ought to be the one to do the podcast. So, I guess then we ran it by the KVLU and they were receptive to it. And Byron Valentine, at that time, was the director of KVLU and he gave me good hints on how to format the shows.”

For more information visit www.npr.org.