WKSU STAFF HONORED WITH OHIO PUBLIC BROADCASTING AWARDS
JOE GUNDERMAN RECOGNIZED AS RADIO PRODUCER OF THE YEAR
Monday March 27, 2006

On Feb. 14 during a ceremony in Columbus, eTech Ohio recognized WKSU with four Ohio Public Broadcasting Awards for work created in 2004 and 2005. Honors included Producer of the Year to WKSU Production Coordinator Joe Gunderman. The Ohio Public Broadcasting Awards replace the OET Awards presented by Ohio Educational Telecommunications Network Commission, which merged with Ohio SchoolNet Commission to form eTech Ohio in 2005. WKSU staff members have been named Producer of the Year for three contests in a row.

Gunderman adds this prize to Producer of the Year honors from 1997 and 2000. Work in his submitted entry included his original dramatic anthology, "Holiday Stories from 'The Gundie Journal'"; 30-second promotional announcements for area arts organizations and Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion"; station IDs for WKSU that use sound unique to Northeast Ohio; folk artist interviews by WKSU host Jim Blum; and a recording of a live concert by Apollo's Fire, the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra.

Reporter/Producers Mark Urycki and Vivian Goodman were awarded a First Place prize for their extensive coverage of The Cleveland Orchestra's tour of European classical music festivals in August 2004. Urycki and Goodman filed a total of 18 stories during the 10-day tour, gathering sound during the day and writing and editing on laptop computers at night. Reports, pictures and online diary entries were sent back to Ohio via the Web using blog software and FTP file sharing protocol. Stories covered included the Orchestra’s successful concert appearances as well as "century" floods in Lucerne and personal profiles of the touring artists.

A First Place award was also presented to WKSU Senior LAN Administrator Chuck Poulton, Blum and Marketing Associate Ann VerWiebe for FolkAlley.com in the Public Information, Program/Project Website category. Folk Alley uses previously aired broadcast playlists to create the basis for an online music service that streams folk music over the Internet 24 hours a day. The website – which offers a blog, links, music news along with the high-quality hosted stream – draws visitors worldwide from more than 100 countries and has drawn attention from the public broadcasting community for its innovation in repurposing broadcast content for stand-alone online projects.

Al Bartholet, WKSU general manager and executive director, Blum and Public Relations Director Bob Burford were presented an Honorable Mention for their work with the 38th Kent State Folk Festival.

WKSU broadcasts NPR & Classical Music at 89.7 FM, and is a service of Kent State University. WKSU programming is also heard on WKRW 89.3 FM in Wooster, WKRJ 91.5 FM in Dover/New Philadelphia, WKSV 89.1 FM in Thompson, WNRK 90.7 in Norwalk, and W298BA 107.5 in Boardman. The WKSU web site is www.wksu.org.
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