Dear Friends,
These are exciting times at Texas Public Radio. We have recently welcomed three new people to our newsroom staff. You have likely already heard Virginia Alvino on air. Virginia joined us as Host & Producer of Fronteras and is doing a great job at that, as well as some general assignment reporting. If you haven’t already heard Louisa Jonas’s reporting, you soon will. Louisa is a seasoned reporter and producer and has also served as an instructor for college classes on the craft of public radio production. You will hear Tricia Schwennesen on air from time-to-time, but her influence will be most felt on our tpr.org website in her role as Digital Producer & Editor. We are very pleased with these recent additions.
Thanks to the generosity of a small group of donors, we have funding committed that will allow us to create a dedicated Bioscience & Medicine reporting beat. This sector is a $30-billion-per-year industry in our community, with frequent newsworthy advancements and accomplishments, so we think it is important to have a reporter with an appropriate background who will devote his or her full-time efforts to covering it. We’ll be posting that position shortly.
We also have new additions to our Board of Directors to report. As of January 2016, the Board terms of Terry Collier, Bill Galbreath, Hector Garcia, and Kris Kieswetter will end. (I’d say that we will bid them a fond farewell, but we’ll find plenty of other ways to keep them involved!) Elected to fill those four seats are Katy Flato, Lamont Jefferson, GP Singh and Rick Soat, each of whom brings a wealth of talent, experience and insight. We look forward to working with each of them, as TPR’s Board continues to guide us from strength to strength.
Speaking of board service, I am pleased to report that I was recently elected to serve as a Member Director on the National Public Radio Board of Directors. I am honored to have been chosen by my peers to serve in the role, and take very seriously the responsibility of helping to set the strategy for NPR, which is such an important part of the public radio enterprise.
TPR served as a host station to many of those peers last week, when the 2015 Public Radio Super-Regional Meeting was held in San Antonio. The meeting brought to our beautiful city more than 250 leaders in public radio, including from stations throughout the US, NPR, prominent producers and other thought leaders. The attendees had many glowing comments about the reception we hosted for them at the Alamo on a perfect South Texas fall evening, about the keynote address given by San Antonio marketing guru Lionel Sosa, and about the beauty and friendly hospitality of the people in our community. Y’all would have been proud.
Finally, I want to thank all of our McClain Circle members who attended the 2015 Reunion on Sunday. It was great to enjoy the beautiful day, wonderful event and terrific company with all of you.
I hope to see many more of you at upcoming events, and I’m always happy to hear from you by phone or email if you have comments or concerns to share.
Warm regards –
Joyce