Perhaps no single plant was more useful to the early day inhabitants on the High Plains than the spiky yucca, or soap weed, as it was commonly called. Pioneers learned from the Native American tribes that the roots could be used as soap, especially good for hair shampoo. The process of making the soap was a long one, involving digging the sticky green roots, then pounding them on a wooden board until they were softened. The resulting pulpy mass was put into water to soak. The juice and water mixture that was drained off became soap in a community where store bought goods were rare and costly.

Hi, I’m Shaun Dunn from Lincoln, Nebraska here for HPPR’s Radio Readers Book Club. John Steinbeck is one of my favorite authors, so I was excited to re-read what is arguably his most celebrated book: The Grapes of Wrath.

This week we prepare for Chamber Music Amarillo’s upcoming concert with excerpts from the organization's recent program of “passionate” music!

The Joads and 2.5 million other Oklahomans and Midwesterners left the dust bowl for California. Grapes of Wrath chapter 19 “And then the dispossessed were drawn west—from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out.”