Local Voices · Film, photography & documentary
Coal Region Campfire
Talking all people, places, things PA Coal Region
Pottsville · Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania
Coal Region Campfire is the media project of Pottsville videographer Alfredo Mercuri — a podcast and video series built around one line: “Talking all people, places, things PA Coal Region.”
The heart of the archive is the long-form interview. The podcast opens in October 2017 with coal-region lawyer Fred Fanelli and runs through Episode 85 in June 2022 — unhurried, episode-length conversations with the people behind the region’s stories. That final numbered episode, a sit-down with Frank Gangemi, the 1980s Pottsville football standout who went on to play at Johns Hopkins, is one Mercuri counts among his own favorites.
Mercuri reports with a camera, too. In September 2020 his video investigation of the “Pottsville Cream” doughnut’s disappearance from Schuylkill County Dunkin’ locations was carried by Skook News as a special report.
The feed ranges wider than the interviews: from 2019 to 2021 the Lenten Fish Dinner Review Tour worked through the county’s fire-hall and church fish-dinner circuit, and in 2024 Mercuri began hosting The Mike Brennan Show for T102 Sports Now — a weekly in-season sit-down with Pottsville head football coach Mike Brennan.
Sources
- Coal Region Campfire podcast feed License: publisher
- Coal Region Campfire on Facebook License: publisher
- Coal Region Campfire on Instagram License: publisher
- Coal Region Campfire on Apple Podcasts License: reference
- Episode 85 — Frank Gangemi (Apple Podcasts) License: reference
- Skook News — Coal Region Campfire: Pottsville Cream Donut Special Report (September 17, 2020) License: publisher
- Coal Region Campfire on Spotify License: reference
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