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Presentation of 2006 PRRO Award
by Ron Kramer, WSPR, on Behalf of PRRO
May 5, 2006 Washington, DC
Dennis
Haarsager
Associate Vice President & General Manager,
Educational Telecommunications and Technology, Washington State University
Each year Public Radio’s Regional Organizations present the PRRO Award to an individual whose work has significantly contributed to the health and growth of Public Radio. I’m Ron Kramer, President of Western States Public Radio, and my fellow presidents have asked me to speak for them in presenting this year’s award.
Each year the Award is a fully restored and working vintage radio especially selected for its recipient. This year’s Award is a beautiful 1946 Zenith Consoltone radio in its pristine bakelite case.
This year’s PRRO Award recipient is now entering his 37th year in public broadcasting administration. During his career he has been responsible for the birth and growth of a significant number of both public broadcasting stations and ancillary facilities. Beyond his work for the stations he manages, his no-nonsense, common sense approach in seeking to solve our industry’s challenges and explore our opportunities have been relentlessly advanced with the genial, collegial energy he radiates.
Having for many years been responsible for both public radio and television operations, and achieved the role of respected statesmen in the public broadcasting arena, public radio has clearly remained a central allegiance. He has served public radio through Board service in a wide variety of settings including West Coast Public Radio, National Public Radio, the Station Resource Group and the Integrated Media Association in addition to a lengthy litany of committee and other assignments. For a person whose background is steeped in the hallmarks of administration, it is the possibilities of our technological information society that seem to have increasingly fired his imagination and creative energies. His writings about the transformational opportunities and implications of our information age seem to pour out of him in torrents as has he seeks to stimulate thought, and share his passion for that exploration, with others through papers, presentations, blogs and a host of other media. A forward thinker – he likes to say that, in contemplating an issue, he thinks it useful to draw upon the conclusions of all his experience in public broadcasting – and then consider doing the opposite. His is a constant voice pushing the envelope of exploration of the most effective ways in which technology can help public radio can best enhance its service to the American people.
His interest and commitment to that quest led him to devote two full years, as a half-time consultant, to the CPB-funded Digital Distribution Initiative collaboration between public radio and public television. That landmark work, if anything, seems to have served only as a foundation on which to ground his constant campaign to push us all to new levels of exploration of the nexus between our values, our talents, our possibilities and our public service.
He travels constantly and widely as he serves to strengthen public broadcasting. His co-workers describe him with affection and admiration – about the only thing they would seemingly change would be the timeliness of his filing his endless travel reports.
For a career in which he has consistently championed public radio’s highest ideals, painstakingly developed stations whose programming elevates the communities they serve, pursued a national vision of cutting-edge innovation to public radio’s public service, and his statesmanship and friendship to our industry and all of its citizens, we are pleased to confer this year’s PRROAward to Washington State University’s Associate Vice President and General Manager for Educational Telecommunications and Technology, and Northwest Public Radio’s General Manager – Dennis Haarsager.