Pierson To Person

BRIAN PAYNE is the president and CEO of the $750 million Central Indiana Community Foundation and the founder of the internationally-recognized Indianapolis Cultural Trail. Brian was recently named an Indiana Living Legend -- not something the California native with two degrees in theater arts from UCLA ever imagined being. (42:28)     EPISODE NOTES: Who in their right mind moves from the beautiful, hippy-dippy seaside city of Santa Cruz to landlocked Indianapolis? I mean, what sort of self-respecting native Californian heads Midwest to live in Indiana? That’s what I thought 23 years ago when BRIAN PAYNE told me that he’d decided to do just that – a decision that I didn’t fully understand or appreciate until my 5th and most recent trip to Indy when Brian and I sat down for a heartland heart-to-heart. HOOSIER BY CHOICE is the 17th episode of PIERSON TO PERSON, but the first episode in which I’m the one who gets a little choked up during the interview. I met Brian when he was a graduate student at UCLA. He was