Weekend Edition Sunday Senior Host Liane Hansen will speak at the Akron Press Club at the Martin Center on The University of Akron campus on Thursday, April 22. The event includes lunch and begins at 11:45 a.m. For information on the Akron Press Club or to make reservations, call (330) 564-4211. Hansen will speak on "My Life in Radio."
Hansen has been the host of NPR's award-winning Weekend Edition Sunday for 20 years. She brings to her position an extensive background in broadcast journalism, including work as a radio producer, reporter, and on-air host at both the local and national level. The program has covered such breaking news stories as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the capture of Saddam Hussein, the deaths of Princess Diana and John F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Columbia shuttle tragedy. In 2001, Hansen received the National News and Documentary Emmy Award for "She Says/Women in News" (narrator) directed by Barbara Ricks. Hansen was also part of NPR's coverage of Sept. 11, which received the 2001 Peabody Award. In 2004, Liane was granted an exclusive interview with former weapons inspector David Kay prior to his report on the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
A native of Worcester, Massachusetts, Hansen received the key to the city in November of 1980. She attended the University of Hartford in Connecticut, and acted with the Worcester Childrens Theater, Entr'Actors Guild, Footlights Theater Company, and the Fenwick Theater Company at Holy Cross College where she was an assistant to the director of the Theater Division. She made $26 dollars in the professional theater as April in Company at Caesars Monticello in Framingham, MA. Hansen's voice can be heard on the Emmy-Award-winning TV documentary, "Women In News," as well as the film In Their Footsteps: Lewis and Clark, and many audio books. Her current passions are figure skating, baseball, The Food Channel and tap dancing.
Additional Information
Akron Press Club
Weekend Edition Sunday