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LAWRENCE -- For the seventh year in a row, KANU 91.5-FM at the University of Kansas was named the Kansas Non-Commercial Station of the Year by the Kansas Association of Broadcasters.
The Station of the Year designation, the highest overall honor in the annual KAB awards competition, is based on points accumulated for winning first place, second place and honorable mention in several categories. Those categories include news, public affairs programming, news features, in-depth reporting, station promotional announcements, editorials/commentaries and public service.
Members of the KANU staff also received three first-place awards and three second-place awards. All awards will be presented during the Oct. 16 KAB luncheon in Wichita.
"Kansas Public Radio is an important broadcast service of the University of Kansas, providing news, music and much more to a large part of our state," said Janet Murguia, executive vice chancellor for university relations. "I'm proud that the station and its staff have again been recognized by other broadcasters for the great job they do serving the needs of Kansans."
For station promotional announcement, KANU Program Director Darrell Brogdon nabbed a first place award for a spot promoting the comedy show "Right Between the Ears." News Director J. Schafer and "Morning Edition" host and reporter Laura Lorson took second place for a spot promoting the station's "Recollections-KANU Turns 50 "series. KANU has spent the year celebrating its 50th anniversary of broadcasting.
For in-depth news reporting in a series, KANU took home the first-place hardware for the weekly series "Kansas Kids: A Prescription for Change." Reporter Bryan Thompson and editors Lorson and Schafer produce the series, which looks at children's health issues and related public policy topics in the state.
"This awards contest has become extremely competitive, especially in the past three or four years, so we're particularly pleased to have been chosen as the best all-around station in Kansas for the seventh year in a row," Schafer said. "The bar has been raised, though, and the competition is definitely putting us on notice. It will be extremely difficult for KPR to keep our winning streak alive, but I think our news and production departments are up to the task."
For editorial/commentary, "William Jennings Bryan Oleander" -- better known as writer Tom Averill -- received first place for his commentary titled "Kansas Day Weather Roll Call." Averill, a longtime contributor to KANU, is an English professor and writer-in-residence at Washburn University in Topeka.
In the public affairs program category, Statehouse Bureau Chief Peter Hancock, Schafer and Lorson shared a second-place award for their coverage for Gov. Bill Graves' 2002 State of the State Address.
For single-topic event news coverage, the news staff of Hancock, Lorson and Schafer took second place for "The Course of the Crisis," a compilation of live reports, special newscasts and interviews the news staff broadcast throughout Sept. 11, 2001.
KANU is the flagship station of Kansas Public Radio, a consortium of stations that blankets northeast Kansas with an eclectic blend of music, national and state news, entertainment, cultural and information programming. Other stations in the KPR network are KANH 89.7-FM in Emporia and K210CR 89.7-FM in Atchison. A station to serve the Junction City and Manhattan areas will come on line later in the year.
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