Articles by Joshua Skarda

Up in the residential neighborhoods of Swannanoa, North Carolina, a family-owned tire shop stands on the corner of North Avenue and Park Street. In the midst of dilapidated, flood-ravaged houses and flattened foundations, stacks of tires and jacked-up cars mark the neighborhood’s one reminder of how things used to be.  A modest town of 5,000 […]

As Media Milwaukee reporters drive into Barnardsville, North Carolina on an overcast April afternoon, dark clouds roll over the sky and a slight wind picks up. It’s not raining right now, but it will be later. The Ivy Creek that runs through town rolls in the distance, and only grows louder as the reporters pull […]

There’s music in the mountains. With a rich history of folk, Americana and string band music set against the backdrop of the Appalachians, western North Carolina continues to serve as a breeding ground for young artists sustaining the traditions of Southern singer-songwriters.  Music and recreation journalist Grayson Haver Currin knows this better than anyone. A […]

Malibu’s Reel Inn was more than a seafood restaurant. No one knows that better than Teddy Leonard, the Inn’s co-owner. “It seemed to be appreciated by many,” said Leonard. “I mean, we would have surfers in line with actors, in line with homeless people, in line with movie executives. You had families, you had everybody. […]

The air is muggy and dense in downtown Pacific Palisades – more accurately, what’s left of it. A once-bustling Sunset Boulevard is now eerily vacant, with only a few charred buildings spared from destruction. Along the side of a parking lot that used to serve a now-ravaged Ralph’s grocery store, half-a-dozen food trucks line the […]

Driving through the scorched streets of Altadena, residents look for remnants of homes, businesses, churches – some semblance of what their city once was.  Reporters walked the city’s streets with little police presence in their way. In a strip mall on the corner of Mariposa Street and Lake Avenue sits Ms. Dragon Print & Copy, […]

It’s a Wednesday morning in late February, and a light ocean mist rolls over Arizona Avenue in Santa Monica. It’s the city’s weekly downtown farmers’ market, and local vendors have set up booths or tents in the street to sell their fresh produce from all over Southern California. The festivities span almost two bustling city […]

Think about the most infamous missing persons cases. Natalee Holloway vanished during a trip to Aruba, Chandra Levy disappeared while having an affair with a high-profile congressman, and Gabby Petito took social media by storm with a highly documented missing case. These were all tragedies, but what else do they have in common? They were […]

She was barely 16 years old when she last saw her son, Christopher. The toddler was swept into the web of a fractured and estranged family. Where is Christopher Harris? Today he would be 28 years old, and Elizabeth Harris-Liuhouolo has spent her adult years trying to find him. She thinks she has, and she’s […]

“She was outgoing, she was a hard worker, she put her kids first.” Niko Nunez was only 14 when his mother, Susan Nunez, disappeared from her house in Milwaukee. “She was the life of the party for the holidays; she made everybody happy,” Niko told Media Milwaukee. Susan D. Nunez was reported missing to the […]

Josh Skarda spotlights a community-oriented, volunteer-run radio station in Milwaukee’s Riverwest neighborhood.

Franklin Wahlstrom collects vinyl records as a hobby, taking after his dad.