Listening to Frank Swoboda's new podcast, The Most Interesting Person You've Never Heard Of, is a bit like overhearing a fascinating conversation unspooling at the table right behind you. You lean over to hear a little better, not wanting to let on that you're listening in. But the slickly produced podcast featuring Swoboda's affable, leisurely interviews with people chosen simply because they strike him as interesting is actually an open invitation to the curious.
Swoboda says one of the most popular episodes has been his interview with Sister Madonna Buder, touching on her career as a triathlete — she's the oldest woman in the world to have completed an Iron Man — and also why she decided to become a nun. Other interviewees include his less-than-well-known nextdoor neighbor, math educator and armchair philosopher Jeff Crawford, pondering how we can learn to understand one another more accurately and Feast World Kitchen's Maisa Abudyha revealing her story of immigrating to Spokane from Jordan and running a food truck that has now grown into a restaurant.
Despite the disparate subjects, all the episodes have in common surprisingly intimate, and often humorous, glimpses into the lives of people with deep connections to Spokane. "They're all people who are really passionate about what they do," says Swoboda. "I'm convinced everybody has a great story, they just do." He says the team tries to drop a new episode every week, and his list of possible subjects now runs more than a hundred long.
Streaming on Apple Podcasts, YouTube and Spotify
