Ambassadors

Cara Williams Fry is General Manager of Northwest Public Broadcasting (NWPB). Cara’s career spans over a decade in regional and national commercial television production before she moved into the Public Media arena. Williams Fry spent seventeen years as Chief Content Officer for WITF, a public media organization in Central PA, before joining NWPB in February 2022. She thrives at building teams across disciplinary boundaries, creating partnerships in public media; and for envisioning challenging goals and devising ways to achieve them.

In 2022, NWPB celebrated 100 years of broadcasting. The next challenge will be to focus on the future by creating sustainable and interactive Community Engagement and offering multiple bi-lingual educational experiences for children ages 2-8 years old. As well as building NWPB’s outreach to diverse communities, more robustly serve rural and Native audiences, and provide indispensable information to audiences across the Northwest.

Northwest Public Broadcasting is a PBS and NPR affiliate serving 3.5 million people in 44 counties across Washington State, and in parts of Idaho, Oregon and British Columbia with news and information, classical music, regional/local programming, NPR, APM, BBC and PBS programming. With a few programs available in Spanish. Tune in online at www.NWF.org.

Tami Graham has been KSUT’s Executive Director since 2016. She successfully led a $2.5M capital campaign that resulted in KSUT moving into a new 5,000 sq. foot home in 2020.  Under her tenure, a new Tribal Media Center was created, which offers training and storytelling opportunities to Native American and Indigenous community members and a local news department has been developed and is now serving the news desert of the region. Tami won Woman of the Year in 1996 for her leadership of KSUT Community Radio at Ft. Lewis College in Durango, Colorado.  She’s a fifth-generation Coloradoan and lives with her partner and lots of farm animals in Mancos, Colorado at the foot of Mesa Verde National Park.

KSUT is a music and news format station serving a population of 225,000 that spans seven counties and four Native American tribes in the Four Corners region. We were founded by the Southern Ute Tribe in 1976 and continue to operate on the Southern Ute tribal campus. Through our two distinct stations, Four Corners Public Radio and Tribal Radio, we broadcast programs from NPR, PRX, Native Voice One, BBC, and local programming. Tune in online at www.ksut.org and www.tribalradio.org.

Elvin Jenkins joined WJAB as the Director of Electronic Media Communications in November 2016, after spending the previous 13 years as the General Manager of WSNC-FM, the public radio station licensed to Winston-Salem State University, in North Carolina. Elvin began his broadcast career as a Staff Announcer at WPRL-FM in Lorman, Mississippi (Alcorn State University). He left the university in 1989 to work as an Announcer and Producer at Iowa Public Radio (formerly KUNI/KHKE FM) in Cedar Falls. While at KUNI, Elvin received his Master’s Degree from the University of Northern Iowa. In 1992, Elvin returned to Alcorn State University as an Instructor. Then in 1997, Elvin was selected to be the Director of Television Services and later, Interim General Manager of Broadcasting Services at Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina, where he served until 2003.

WJAB is a Jazz, Blues, and Gospel format station, serving a population of over 600,000 that spans across 20 counties in Alabama. We broadcast programs from NPR and local programming. Tune in online at www.wjab.org.

Mollie Kabler has been involved in public media in Alaska for forty years. She worked at KCAW Sitka, served on the Alaska Public Broadcasting Commission and has been the Executive Director of both Alaska Public Broadcasting, Inc. and CoastAlaska, Inc.  Her leadership at CoastAlaska began in 1994 when several small community radio station leaders met to envision a future of collaboration designed to preserve local news service in the face of funding threats and consolidation. Mollie has been involved in state and federal funding policy as well as legislative advocacy.  She enjoys hosting a seasonal radio show about gardening in Southeast Alaska.

CoastAlaska is a public media collaborative serving 26 stations across Alaska from 2400 miles east to west and 1400 miles north to south. We broadcast programs from NPR, APM, PRX and local programming with an emphasis on state and local news. You can routinely hear programming in Inupiaq, Yupik, Alutiiq, Unangax, Dena language dialects, Tlingit, Haida and others.

Dick Pryor is general manager of KGOU Radio, an NPR member station that serves more than one million Oklahomans with news, public affairs and entertainment programming. Pryor began his journalism career at KGOU as a student at the University of Oklahoma and returned in November 2016 to become general manager. For 25 of his 34 years in television, Pryor served as deputy director, managing editor, anchor and host of news and public affairs series and programs for OETA, Oklahoma’s educational television network. He has won numerous broadcasting awards, including three regional Emmy Awards.

KGOU is an NPR member station that serves 36 counties across the state of Oklahoma, with broadcast facilities in eight cities, including Oklahoma City. The station reaches more than 1,000,000 people and has a regular weekly audience of 70,000 to 90,000 over-the-air listeners, plus more than 30,000 listeners per month on the station’s website, www.kgou.org. KGOU’s terrestrial signal reaches from east-central Oklahoma across the Oklahoma City metro area, and into western and northwestern Oklahoma. KGOU is also heard in southwestern Kansas and the Texas panhandle.

Mike Savage joined WEKU in 2018. He has worked in public radio for nearly 30 years and has managed public radio stations in Georgia, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky.  In his current role as WEKU Director & General Manager, Mike directs station operations, programming, news and fundraising.

Mike also serves as a director on the NPR Board and the board for the Association of Kentucky Public Radio Stations. In 2022, Mike was named one of the Best Managers in Radio by Radio Ink Magazine for the fifth time since 2015.

WEKU is a news/talk format station, serving a population of 1.5 million people spanning across 50 counties in Kentucky. We broadcast programs from NPR, APM, PRX, and local programming. Tune in online at www.weku.org.

Rick Schneider serves as President and CEO of Maine Public, the public media company operating statewide networks for Maine Public Radio (NPR), Maine Public Television (PBS), and Maine Public Classical radio. Previously, he has served as CEO of the public television stations in Reno and Miami and as COO of WETA, the public television station and classical radio station for the Washington DC market.Rick is proud of Maine Public’s service as a news and information lifeline connecting the entire state through radio, television, and online content.

Maine Public operates statewide networks for Maine Public Radio (NPR), Maine Public Television (PBS), and Maine Public Classical radio. As the only broadcaster reaching the entire state, Maine Public serves as a news and information lifeline connecting 1.4 million Mainers across 16 counties with radio, television, and online content. News Connect is an online video initiative that translates Maine Public’s journalism into French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Somali in service to the state’s diverse communities.