Signal WSIU Public Radio
An Online Newsletter
Vol. 16, No. 4 •April 2015
This Month on
MORNING CONVERSATION 7:45AM AS SCHEDULED
MAY 5
SUMMER CAMPS Feature on SIU Continuing Education summer camps (6:45-7:00AM). Feature on Touch of Nature Summer Camps (7:45-8:00).
MAY 25
SIU PRESIDENT RANDY DUNN visits the WSIU Studios for an update on system events, news, and announcements.
Host Jennifer Fuller Photo: Kaitlyn Conrad
U.S. REP. JOHN SHIMKUS Interview (10:30-11:30AM).
Questions or comments?
CONTACT JENNIFER FULLER jennifer.fuller@wsiu.org | (618) 453-6101
Listen to past broadcasts at wsiu.org/programs/morning conversation
Help us Grow WSIU! wsiu.org/grow
WHY
WSIU is a vital community resource dedicated to inspiring personal growth, community engagement, and a love for learning. Together with you – our supporters – we’re able to transform classrooms, encourage civic participation, connect people to history, the arts, culture, and more, and empower people of all ages and backgrounds to achieve their full potential. We improve the quality of life for thousands of children, families, educators, and community members, and give hundreds of SIU students each year the unique opportunity to gain hands-on professional development in the broadcast industry, paving the way for future success. We make a difference – and your support makes that possible.
WHAT
WHEN
By now, you’ve likely heard a We’re launching our GROW few messages on the air, and WSIU campaign this spring with announcements on the air, online, and in print about in May, you’ll hear and see more of them, including WSIU’s mission, vision, and values, our financial testimonials from people just like you who value WSIU and want to help it grow. In June, you can structure, and our community impact. expect to hear more Grow WSIU stories and Find out more on our Grow WSIU web page at messages. Plus, we’ll have special Grow WSIU www.wsiu.org/grow and check out our WSIU-TV thank-you items for your donation, which we hope and WSIU Radio Facebook pages and Twitter feeds you’ll proudly display to encourage others for special messages. You’re invited to share these to become contributing WSIU members. messages with friends on social media – or write your own messages about why you love WSIU and Stay tuned for more details and remember… invite others to become a WSIU member. When you together we can all Grow WSIU! do, use the hashtag #GrowWSIU, so we can track, like, and share your posts and tweets.
WSIU RADIO IS POWERED BY YOU
Kevin Boucher, WSIU Radio Community Engagement Producer & Host. Photo: Robby Ballard.
WSIU Almanac Tune in
Monday - Friday 5:30am, 6:30am,7:30am, 8:30am WSIU Almanac is a new weekday feature that provides an overview of events, happenings, and local and world history. Each episode provides a little "slice of life" about the day. Please send information and ideas to almanac@wsiu.org.
Sponsored By:
Radio Voices
Tune in 7:45am - 8:45am Thursday, May 7 National Drinking Water Week: Dr. David Feldman
In celebration of National Drinking Water Week, May 3-9, WSIU’s Kevin Boucher talks to Dr. David Feldman, a water policy expert in the School of Social Ecology at the University of California Irvine. Dr. Feldman talks about his most recent book Water and about the tough choices states are making in regards to water usage.
Friday, May 8 National Drinking water week: Local follow up
In this local follow up to Dr. David Feldman’s interview regarding National Drinking Water Week, Boucher tours the Carbondale Water Treatment Plant with Tony Harrison, the Water Operations Manager for the City of Carbondale. Harrison explains the various stages and treatments that raw water from Cedar Lake goes through on its way to the final product: clean, safe drinking water for the residents of the city of Carbondale.
Dr. David Feldman Photo: UC at Irvine
Carbondale Water Treatment plant Photo: Kevin Boucher
Friday, May 29 Shawnee National Forest
Kelly Pearson is a Wilderness Technician and Volunteer Coordinator for the Shawnee National Forest who offers advice about the variety of areas to visit within the Shawnee National Forest, while also informing us about some of the history of the Shawnee National Forest.
Carbondale Water Treatment plant Photo: Kevin Boucher
• listen to past broadcasts: wsiu.org/programs/localalmanac
Join us at Community Cinema in May! NEW DATE
SATURDAY MAY 2 @ 2:30PM Carbondale Public Library 405 W. Main St.
Photos: Monica Tichenor
Limited Partnership is the last event of the 2014-15 COMMUNITY CINEMA season. We have shared a powerful season and are excited to share another exciting season next fall. THANK YOU for your support!
WSIU thanks discussion leaders throughout this season: Susan Patrick Benson, Associate Professor, SIU Theater Department; “Union County Sal”, Susan Addington, Singer; Najjar Abdul-Musawwir, Associate Professor, SIU School of Art & Design & Art Advocate; Christopher Mullins, Associate Professor, SIU Criminology & Criminal Justice; Yolonda Simon, Dean of Students, Retired, Carbondale Middle School; Catarina Alves, Adolescent Counselor, The Women’s Center, Inc.; Susie Toliver, Crime Victim Advocate, The Carbondale Police Dept.; Martha Cropper, President & CEO, Teach My Kenyan Children; Fr. Joseph Brown, Professor, SIU African Studies; Cathy Field, Racial Justice Coalition; Christy Emery, Jackson-Perry ROE, Homelessness Coordinator; Mike Heath, Executive
Carbondale Public Library
Limited Partnership tells the story of a Filipino American and an Australian who fell in love and married in 1975. Theirs was one of the first same-sex marriages with legal recognition worldwide. Director, Good Samaritan Ministries, Carbondale, IL; Fr. Bob Flannery, Pastor, St. Francis Xavier Church, President of the Board,, Good Samaritan Ministries, Ecumenical and Interreligious Director for the Diocese of Belleville, IL; Katherine Bryant Graves, Pastor, First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); and Paulette Curkin LGBT Activist. We also thank Diana Brawley Sussman with the Carbondale Public Library for her support throughout the season! Community Cinema is a national civic engagement initiative from the Independent Television Service and is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It is presented in communities across the country in partnership with local PBS stations and their partners.
Learn more at wsiu.org/community-cinema or communitycinema. org. You may also be interested in the project’s YouTube™ page at youtube.com/itvscommunitycinema, and the project’s social media pages online at facebook.com/community cinema and at Twitter @ communitycinema.
Engaging People And Issues Through Films & Discussion
Staff Member
ROGER SUSKI Accepts New Position
WSIU reluctantly says goodbye to Associate Director of Technology and WSIU “Digital Magician and Problem-Solver E x t r a o r d i n a i r e ,” ROGER SUSKI, who has accepted a position at Iowa State University within the College of Engineering’s Online Education division. Suski will rejoin his family in Ames, where his wife, Katherine, former Director of Admissions at SIU, joined the Iowa State staff last fall as Admissions Director. A 2000 graduate of the Radio-TelevisionDigital Media Department at SIU Carbondale, Suski has worked at the WSIU stations for nearly 20 years, first as a student employee and in multiple roles as a member of the professional staff, serving as a TV Producer; Digital Media Specialist, and Web Producer, which included overseeing all online content and redesigning the WSIU website; and finally as Director of Technology, overseeing WSIU’s engineering, IT, and digital media needs. Suski served as producer of WSIU’s Live Saluki Basketball coverage for many years, and produced or co-produced a variety of local programs, including A Sweet Saluki Season documenting the SIU Men’s Basketball team’s 2001-2002 NCAA Sweet 16 run; the six-part music series Positively Bluegrass; Honor & Sacrifice: WSIU Remembers World War II, featuring interviews with local veterans; the Murphysboro Apple Festival Parade; and Sounds of the Season; an annual holiday special featuring local school choirs created in partnership with WSIL-TV 3. Suski also contributed to the local productions WSIU InFocus and Scholastic Hi-Q, the awardwinning documentary The Legend of Charlie Birger, and the My Town series showcasing local communities. He created many excellent graphics and animation pieces, station promos, station IDs, and interstitials. We thank Roger for sharing his talent and great sense of humor with us at WSIU and send him our best wishes for continued success in the future!
Thank you
FROM EVERYONE AT WSIU
WSIU’s Jak Tichenor Retires After more than 33 years of service to WSIU-TV, WSIU Radio, and Southern Illinois University Carbondale, longtime WSIU-TV producer and broadcast journalist JAK TICHENOR will officially retire on May 31. “I have been privileged to have worked the better part of my life in public media,” says Tichenor. “I can’t imagine a tougher or more appreciative audience.”
A two-degree graduate of SIU Carbondale, with a B.A. in Radio-Television (1979) and a M.A. in Public Visual Communications (1989), Tichenor launched his broadcasting career at age 15, spinning records as a disc jockey at WMOK in his hometown of Metropolis, Illinois before moving on to WPAD/WDDJ in Paducah, Kentucky and WCIL in Carbondale.
Tichenor began his professional career with WSIU in 1981 when he was hired as News Director and Public Affairs Director for WSIU Public Radio. Under his guidance, the news department earned the respect of listeners and media peers as a highquality news operation. In addition to mentoring students and staff, Tichenor also won several awards of his own, including a downstate award from the Illinois Associated Press (AP) for Longwalling, a radio documentary about the region’s coal industry, and Stringer of the Year for the Associated Press and United Press International (UPI). Tichenor’s stories were also carried by National Public Radio’s (NPR) Morning Edition and All Things Considered. In 1991, Tichenor made the switch to WSIU Television and joined the staff of the statewide legislative series, Illinois Lawmakers, producing indepth coverage of the Illinois General Assembly as Statehouse Correspondent and assuming the role of series host beginning in 2006. Among the local programs Tichenor has produced for WSIU-TV, past and present, are One On One, SIU Connections, Southern Issues, and WSIU InFocus, along with numerous InFocus specials addressing a host of topics, including the region’s meth epidemic, local Civil Rights history, the Freedom Riders, local WWII heroes and stories, regional storytelling, and more. Tichenor also serves as lead producer of the Lincoln Laureates series documenting the annual award ceremony for the Lincoln Academy of Illinois. He is currently working on a statewide production for the Illinois Arts Council.
Tichenor also produced the television documentaries, Delyte Morris: A Southern Vision, a biography of SIU president Delyte Morris; A Date with the Duchess, which turned the spotlight on trailblazing journalist Virginia Marmaduke; and P.S. Illinois: The Paul Simon Story, A Life of Uncommon Courage, a biography of the life and career of U.S. Senator Paul Simon. He has also moderated numerous regional and statewide debates, interviewed Illinois Governors at the Du Quoin State Fair, and produced candidate forums and many other election specials.
Photo: Todd Pilon, WTVP
Among the many high-profile guests of the university Tichenor has interviewed for WSIU’s local television productions are Jeane Kirkpatrick, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; authors Studs Terkel, David Halberstam, and Karen Armstrong; CNN correspondents Walter Rodgers and Bernard Shaw; artists Preston Jackson and the Zhou Brothers; former CIA Director Stansfield Turner; General John Shalikashvili, former Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff; Cherokee storyteller Robert Lewis; historians David Herbert Donald and Doris Kearns Goodwin; astronauts James Lovell, Jr. and Story Musgrave; Illinois Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks; and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Additional accolades for Tichenor include the Friends of WSIU Broadcaster of the Year Award in 1990; the SIU College of Mass Communication & Media Arts University Service Award in 2001; SIU Carbondale’s prestigious Lindell W. Sturgis Memorial Professional Achievement Award in 2006; and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Community Impact Award for Education in 2009 for the production of My Source promotional spots showcasing WSIU’s Biz Kid$ and Raising Readers educational outreach initiatives.
“Looking back, I would have had to work in four or five different media markets to have gained the experiences I’ve had right here at WSIU,” says Tichenor. “We’ve had two series (Illinois Lawmakers and Lincoln Academy) that have enjoyed statewide audiences for more than two decades, and that’s very fulfilling. But the best part is that I’ve been able to work on programs that matter to people here in Southern Illinois. This is my home. I know within hours of a program I’ve produced that it’s made a difference to my friends and neighbors.”
Tichenor’s commitment to excellence certainly has contributed to his long list of achievements, but he is quick to credit others for his success. “I have always said I’ve been lucky enough to work alongside some of the best people in the business at SIU,” says Tichenor. “To the outstanding faculty who taught the value of real-world experience and theory, to the professional colleagues whose work measured up to the highest standards of our craft, and to so many students over the years who came here to learn the ropes and launch their careers– I am forever in your debt.”
WSIU Radio is #1!
Photo: Jeff Williams
Photo: T.J. Price
We have great news to share. WSIU Radio has won Best Newscast in the State and the 2015 Station of the Year Award from the Associated Press (AP)! Additional awards went to WSIU’s Benjy Jeffords (pictured at left) who won first place in Best Light Feature, second place in Best Videography, and second place in Best Newswriter. Congratulations to our talented and hardworking WSIU Radio staff Jeff Williams, Jennifer Fuller, Brad Palmer, Benjy Jeffords, and Kevin Boucher!
SATURDAY 7PM & SUNDAY 6PM MAY 2 & 3 New Releases & May Songs
We start the “lusty month of May” with some love songs about “budding” romances, and a roundup of new and recent releases.
MAY 9 & 10 Jackie Daly & Company
Accordion player Jackie Daly, from the Cork/Kerry border area of Sliabh Luachra, has been recording since the 1970s with some of Ireland’s leading fiddle players and bands. This week we feature him in the company of the likes of Kevin Burke, Matt Cranitch, Seamus Creagh, De Danann, Buttons & Bows, Patrick Street, Arcady, and others.
Thank you Please join us in thanking the underwriters who recently began, renewed, or expanded their partnership to make public radio possible:
Bluegrass Music Museum Owensboro, KY Gator Automotive Carbondale, IL IMSA – Illinois Heartland Library System Carbondale, IL Land Between the Lakes of Golden Pond KY Mark Williams Outdoor Murphysboro, IL SIU Department of Theater Carbondale, IL SIU Department of Music Carbondale, IL The Velvet Hammer Cobden, IL
MAY 16 & 17 In Concert
All the recordings this week are from live concert appearances, including some recent recordings from Boston’s Burren Pub, and from the Celtic Colours festival in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
MAY 23 & 24 Mining Music
The mining of coal, or copper, or gold, or even diamonds, has been the subject of many a song and tune from Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, and North America. We explore mining songs and tunes this week.
MAY 30 & 31 Old Favorites
This week continues our exploration of the compositions of Co. Clare fiddle player Martin “Junior” Crehan (1908-1998), one of Ireland’s most loved traditional musicians.
For a complete list of WSIU sponsors and information about sponsoring WSIU’s programs and services, visit us online at wsiu.org or call (618) 453-4344.
WSIU Public Radio Communications Building 1003 Mail Code 6602 Southern Illinois University 1100 Lincoln Drive Carbondale IL 62901 (618) 453-6101 wsiuradio@wsiu.org