Stormin' Bob Swanson

Category: Blog Posts

Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back

In my childhood, when I was going to attend a birthday party or spend a night at a friend’s house, my mother would remind me that, “Good guests get invited back.” As I continue to plan for this summer’s tour, I’m always thrilled when I get a request from a library I’ve been to in […]

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Can’t let go of good musical memories

As friends and fans know, I generally play music as a “one-man band.” You may also know that I’ve been getting my boys involved in music-making, and we’ve formed a little family band called “Henry and The Dynamite.” But this is not actually my first band experience . . . . During my holiday break, […]

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Dreaming of an ice Christmas

My eldest son, Daniel, was born in Northern Virginia (Arlington) in 2007. By 2009, my wife and I had moved to North Mississippi. One of our first Christmases in our home in Tupelo just also happened to coincide with a white Christmas. This relative rarity made quite an impression on Daniel — he expected all […]

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Bad news bars

COVID-19 certainly has played a part (pun intended) in my theater experience here in Starkville. If you recall, my breakthrough case of COVID in August 2021 (during the “delta variant” surge) delayed rehearsals and pushed back production of “Smoke on the Mountain.” Well, the pandemic reminded me that it is still very much alive and […]

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Life imitates art

Many of you know that I travel with my family to play shows at schools and libraries featuring science demonstrations and weather/astronomy-themed songs. If you’ve been to a show, you also know that it is a production. Okay, there’s no laser light show or pyrotechnics, but I still bring a lot of equipment — demo […]

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Get in the meteorological mix

When I was working as a weatherman (TV and print/online), it was not unusual for me to forecast (and explain the atmospheric setup for) a “wintry mix” of snow, sleet and freezing rain. Whether as a full-time meteorologist or as a physics/astronomy instructor, I make a sincere effort to explain scientific processes in an understandable […]

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Smiles make it all worthwhile

Fans who have a physical copy of my CD (believe it or not, these are still available) may have noticed that, in the liner notes, I thank the thousands of school kids who have enjoyed my shows over the years. Though I wrote those liner notes nearly 20 years ago, getting kids excited about science […]

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So long, SOFIA . . .

In my last post (“How ‘Bout Them Jackets?“), I featured a couple of my weather jackets. I have also been known (especially during the 2019 “Out of this World” tour) to sport a snazzy NASA flight jacket. I got that cool jacket as part of my work as an Airborne Astronomy Ambassador (AAA) aboard NASA’s […]

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How ’bout Them Jackets?

For those who don’t know, I’m based out of Starkville, MS — home of the Starkville Yellowjackets! I had the pleasure over the summer to be involved with one of the SOCSD (Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District) educational camps — Discovery Street. This involved bringing elementary-age kids to my campus (Mississippi State University) on two separate […]

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Now That’s What I Call Folk Music! (Vol. 1)

The best folk music is about folks, so you can imagine my surprise and delight to find myself a “folk” subject of a folk song. A little backstory . . . . Students in my physical science classes are required to complete a “Smarter Every Week” group project. Presentations typically occur on Fridays and focus […]

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