NPR Special Correspondent to speak

Susan Stamberg to speak in Dayton
WYSO and Dayton Art Institute Collaboration

Susan Stamberg, NPR Special Correspondent, will speak in Dayton on Friday June 29 at a fundraising event for WYSO. The event will be held at the Dayton Art Institute’s NCR Renaissance Auditorium at 7:30 pm.

Tickets are on sale through the DAI box office and WYSO.org. WYSO also has a limited supply of special passes available to meet Stamberg at a private reception in the DAI’s Gothic Cloisters immediately after the speech.

Stamberg, the first woman to anchor a national nightly news program in the United States, has been with NPR since the network began broadcasting in 1971. The following year she became the co-host of “All Things Considered,” NPR’s first daily news magazine.

After serving as co-host for 14 years, she launched Weekend Edition Sunday for NPR. Today she reports on cultural issues for all NPR programs and serves as an occasional host for Morning Edition and Weekend Edition Saturday.

Neenah Ellis, General Manager of WYSO calls Stamberg an American broadcasting icon.

“Susan Stamberg changed broadcasting. Her style has always been was conversational. She dares to probe and to laugh. She never forgets the listener, never talks down to them. It’s hard to believe it today, but when Susan became host of All Things Considered, it was a bold move on NPR’s part to select a woman for that role,” says Ellis, who worked with Stamberg at All Things Considered in the late 1970s and ‘80s.

In the last 20 years, Stamberg’s reporting focus has been cultural figures. Artists, actors and writers are often the subject of her work and she regularly features museum exhibitions. Her talk at DAI is titled: “How Art Will Save the World (And Whatever Else Occurs to Her).

“The Dayton Art Institute is thrilled to be partnering with WYSO on the June 29 speaking engagement featuring Susan Stamberg, says Michael R. Roediger, Executive Director of the Dayton Art Institute. “We are honored to host a radio pioneer of Stamberg’s caliber and the community is fortunate to be able to have her visit and share her wonderful stories with us. Her talk: ‘Why Art Will Save the World’ is a topic near and dear to our hearts,” he said.

In addition to her public presentation on June 29, Stamberg will also take part in a “master class” for WYSO’s Community Voices students he next morning at the radio station.