The final hour of a membership drive is usually the most challenging 60 minutes for the KOSU staff. After a solid week of making the on-air case for support, our voices are weaker and our eyelids are heavier by the end of the drive. So imagine our surprise when NPR’s legendary legal affairs correspondent, Nina Totenberg, and her producer, Art Silverman, strolled into our Oklahoma City studio during the final hour of the spring 2016 member drive to help us reach our goal.
Nina was in the city working on a story about Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland and KOSU’s Rachel Hubbard had done some advance work on behalf of the story. As a thank you, Nina stopped by to infuse some last minute energy into our drive, and the listener response was incredible. In fact, several KOSU faithful who work in Oklahoma City just happened to show up at the Film Row studios after hearing her live on the air, hoping to catch a glimpse or shake her hand. We are very grateful to Nina Totenberg for so graciously sharing her time with all of us, and we are thankful to the nearly 1,500 listeners who pledged nearly $175,000 to keep KOSU strong.
As always, the financial support of our listener partners will be put to good use, as we prepare to enter price negotiations on behalf of the existing programs we air, from Morning Edition, All Things Considered, On Point and Fresh Air to This American Life, the Moth, Marketplace and much more. KOSU remains dedicated to securing the best national programs that NPR and our other program vendors offer, as well as StateImpact Oklahoma’s collaborative reporting around energy, the environment and natural resources and our education beat. As community support for KOSU grows, the station hopes to do more local reporting around health care and the arts in our state.
Listener support is also helping to strengthen KOSU in the community. Our Invisible Nations producer, Allison Herrera, will be a panelist for a BBC taping this afternoon at OSU in Stillwater, examining how much and why things are changing for Native Americans in Oklahoma. She also recently partnered with StateImpact Oklahoma to produce a series of stories about Sardis Lake.
Looking ahead, KOSU is partnering with AARP Oklahoma to host a free Invisible Nations concert at Guthrie Green in downtown Tulsa on May 15, featuring several Native American bands, including Kalyn Fay, Desi and Cody and the Redmen Blues Band. In June, Invisible Nations will host a bicycle tour of Native American sites in the Tulsa area.
With the election season upon us, KOSU is also planning a series of community conversations at our Film Row performance studio. Voters may be asked to consider up to a dozen state questions on the general election ballot, and public radio will serve as a resource to help you make sense of all of the issues you will be asked to decide.
Thank you again for choosing KOSU as a resource for news and music and for supporting your listening future.
