Rachel Hubbard, the executive director of KOSU, has been elected to the NPR Board of Directors, the organization announced Thursday.
She is the first Oklahoma public radio executive to be elected to the board.
Hubbard was elected by the Board to serve as a Member Director, filling an unexpired term vacancy. She will serve the remainder of the term, ending in November 2026.
"The media industry continues to be disrupted. NPR and public media are in an amazing position to take advantage of an opportunity and be the best version of what our network was designed to be," said Hubbard. "I look forward to serving with this group of colleagues as we navigate and collectively shape what is to come."
Hubbard has been KOSU’s executive director since February 2020.
She began her radio career at the age of 16, reading obituary and hospital reports as a part-time announcer and board operator at KTJS in Hobart, Oklahoma. She continued her radio career in 1999, joining KOSU as a student reporter. Following graduation from Oklahoma State University in 2003, Hubbard served as the station’s state capitol reporter and news director. She was promoted to associate director in 2007, managing the day to day programming and news operations of KOSU.
Her journalism has won numerous awards including the Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Scripps Howard Foundation Award for National Journalism and the duPont-Columbia Award.
She spearheaded KOSU's innovative collaboration with AAA music station, The Spy, in 2012. Under her leadership as Executive Director, KOSU's newsroom has more than tripled in size and became the first mainstream newsroom in Oklahoma to have an Indigenous Affairs beat.
Hubbard also serves on the board of Station Resource Group and Public Radio in Mid America (PRIMA). She is a member of Rotary Club 29 in Oklahoma City. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Communications and a Master's Degree in Business with a focus on entrepreneurship from Oklahoma State University. She lives in Oklahoma City with her husband and sons.
NPR's 23-member Board of Directors consists of 12 Member Directors who are managers of NPR Member organizations and are elected to the Board by their fellow Members, nine Public Directors who are prominent members of the public selected by the Board and confirmed by NPR Members, the NPR Foundation Chair, and the NPR President & CEO.
The organization also elected Shawn Turner, the general manager of WKAR in Michigan, to fill an unexpired term vacancy this week.
