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Luke Dennis

WYSO Public Radio Adds Staff

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Luke Dennis and Neenah Ellis Photo Credit Andy Snow

Luke Dennis, WYSO General Manager, and Neenah Ellis, Executive Director of The Eichelberger Center for Community Voices (The Center) have announced a number of staff changes both at WYSO Public Radio in Yellow Springs, signaling a fundamental shift in the direction and capacity of the station, and at The Center.

“Our world has changed dramatically in often turbulent and dramatic ways. The credibility of institutions is tested every day and people often are unsure where to find accurate, credible, and responsible news and information,” Dennis said. “We believe our audience, which has increased substantially over the last several years, looks to our station, our reporters, and editors and to NPR as a credible, balanced, and responsible news source. This change strengthens our news gathering and reporting capacity in order to keep pace with a rapidly and fluid news and information environment.”

 

According to Dennis, four new staff members have been added to the news team and three current WYSO employees have transitioned to new job responsibilities at the station. The new WYSO staff members are: News Director Jason Saul, Reporter Leila Goldstein, Environmental Reporter Chris Welter and Morning Edition Host Mike Frazier.

Three current WYSO staff members have assumed new duties at the station. They are:

Juliet Fromholt, who’s been with the station since 2009, has been  promoted to Director of Digital and Programming Strategy.  She will continue to oversee web and social media with  a special focus on developing new digital music content in the coming year. She will continue to host  “Kaleidoscope” and “Alpha Rhythms”.

Katie Main, formerly the Business Support and Events Manager, becomes an Account Executive, managing a portfolio of underwriting clients  with a focus on Greene and Clark Counties.

Business Manager Art Boulet becomes Director of Finance and Administration, reflecting new responsibilities in HR and administration since Miami Valley Public Media received the station’s FCC license from Antioch College and made WYSO a completely independent radio station.

 

In addition, Luke Dennis becomes President and General Manager, overseeing the entire growing staff.  He’s been with WYSO since 2012, leading its development team and increasing fundraising significantly in all categories.

Neenah Ellis, WYSO’s General Manager from 2009 to 2019, becomes the first Executive Director of The Eichelberger Center for Community Voices, which she began in 2010 as community training workshops.

Ellis is joined by the long time and award-winning producer of “Dayton Youth Radio,” Basim Blunt.  He began an assignment in January as full-time Senior Producer and Instructor for The Center.  Managing Editor and Reporter Jess Mador leaves the WYSO newsroom and becomes Senior Producer and Assistant Director of The Center  focusing on community engagement and special projects. Finally, community producer Jocelyn Robinson, producer of several WYSO radio series, including “Rediscovered Radio” and “Senior Voices,”  joins the staff of The Center as Producer for Emerging Initiatives, Education and Archives.

WYSO Staff with Volunteers – Feb 2020 – Photo Credit Andy Snow

“Now is our time,” says Ellis, “we’re grateful to our listeners and donors for the faith they’ve placed in us and with this reorganization we will change the face of public media in the Dayton area, with more local voices and more local stories. There’s never been a more important time to focus on local news, music and storytelling. We’re ready.”

 

On the air 62 years, with studios in Yellow Springs on the campus of Antioch College, WYSO has seen steady growth in fundraising and award-winning programming in the last ten years, increasing its listening audience significantly.  Last year it became independent of Antioch College when Ellis and Dennis raised $3.5 million dollars in the community and worked with the College to create a new nonprofit entity, Miami Valley Public Media, to own the license and manage the station.

 

“Launching the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices and strengthening our newsroom are two pillars of our strategic plan. I’m proud that, with this reorganization and the new hires, we are delivering on those aspirations,” says Luke Dennis. “Like Neenah says: We’re ready!”

WYSO Now Independent and Community-Owned!

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It’s official: the FCC has approved the transfer of WYSO’s broadcast license from Antioch College to a new 501c3 called Miami Valley Public Media. WYSO is now independent and community-owned!

As you may recall, MVPM took fiscal responsibility for the station and WYSO staff began managing the day-to-day finances on April 1.  Now that they have the license, they’re ready to begin the next part of our growth as your public radio station, including growing our newsroom and preparing to launch The Center for Community Voices.

With the new ownership come leadership changes as well.  Neenah Ellis will  now serve as President of WYSO and will focus much of her energy on the eventual launch of the Center for Community Voices.  Luke Dennis will serve as General Manager and oversee the daily operations of WYSO.

In a recent email Ellis shares :WYSO is in a very strong position now to grow and change quickly.  We have big plans for improving and  increasing our local programming and we’re working with our Community Advisory Board to get their input all along the way.”

One of their first steps involves growing their local news department and as a result the following positions are now open:

Crafting a Career: Luke Dennis: Development Director, WYSO 91.3FM

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L Dennis Headshot2Do you love music and theater, and want to work in that world, but aren’t sure of your route? Luke Dennis started there and followed a winding path to his career at WYSO 91.3FM. I asked Luke how he crafted his career. The highlights of his story follow.

In the beginning…

As Luke Dennis was growing up in Wilmington, Ohio, his parents adopted a hands-off approach, allowing him to set his own course. He liked music. Starting in 6th grade, he played euphonium in the band and bass guitar in the jazz band and various rock bands. Currently, he plays in a local band, Lord Kimbo, with his best friend from elementary school, Mike Bisig.

Luke was in charge of his college search and visits. He visited just one school, Kenyon College, liked it, and applied early decision. After Kenyon accepted him, they sent him his financial aid package. In Luke’s hotheaded eighteen-year-old opinion, it was insufficient. Without consulting his parents, he told Kenyon, “I’m going to withdraw unless you increase my financial aid. They said, “Just do it”. “I dropped out of Kenyon before I even started and I had nowhere to go to college”. A friend’s stepfather knew the Dean of Admissions at Wittenberg University and suggested Luke visit. Within eight days, Luke was enrolled and attending orientation for new students. “One of many happy accidents I’ve had”.

“Without any reflection,” Luke declared a double major in music and theatre at Wittenberg. He quickly found mentors in each department and “it ended up being a great fit. I could act and direct in the theatre program and I ended up doing a vocal performance emphasis in the music department, which has helped me at WYSO”.

What path did Luke take after Wittenberg?

After graduating from Wittenberg, “I thought I might like to direct plays at a college”. To pursue that goal, Luke enrolled at Tufts University in Boston in a dual M.A./ Ph.D. program in theater history, literature and theory. “I didn’t do any research or think about it”.

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Luke & Sally

Luke had met his wife, Sally, in the Wittenberg Theatre program. Boston sounded good to her, too, so she moved with him and found a job teaching at Cambridge Montessori School.

While Luke studied at Tufts, he also worked three jobs, “so I wasn’t putting a lot of focus on my studies”. His jobs included:

  • Box office at the American Repertory Theater
  • Improv theater in Boston’s North End running the lighting and sound
  • Reading Room at The Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library– a public facing position working with researchers who were “researching cool interesting stuff”
  • Tufts graduate fellow – “I got paid to teach acting to undergraduates” which was “real validation of why I went to graduate school”

Although graduate school “felt like the right path for me… I couldn’t force myself to sit down and write”. “I liked going to class; I liked reading the plays a lot. But I certainly was not interested in publishing papers or going to conferences or writing a dissertation”.

Consequently, after three years at Tufts, Luke dropped out of the Ph.D. program and accepted a full-time position in the Reading Room at the Harvard Theatre Collection doing the same thing he’d been doing on a part-time basis. “I liked the ways that the past could inform the present”.

During that time, Luke and his wife also started a theater company, “actively producing about three shows a year at the Boston Center for the Arts with a focus on new plays. So I was in that world and that’s why the Theatre Collection interested me”.

Did Luke stay with the Harvard Theatre Collection?

After a year, Luke decided he needed more money. Knowing that he wanted to work with theater productions in Boston, he found a job as the Director of Education and Outreach for the Boston Lyric Opera. Opera had been Luke’s focus as graduate student, “so I just applied and basically talked my way into the job”.

opera singer
Opera Singer

The Boston Lyric Opera Company is a big company, with four main stage productions a year at the Schubert Theater, and a summer season of public performances on Boston Commons. “It was a fun job. I got to travel with their touring children’s opera”.

Three years later, Luke’s boss retired and the company wanted Luke to take on a much larger role. Luke and Sally had just had their first child, which changed things. “We felt very isolated having an infant – none of our friends had kids yet”. Luke and Sally decided, “We should raise our children around family”.

What did Luke and Sally do?

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Victoria Theater, Dayton, Ohio

Three months after their daughter was born, Luke and Sally moved to Yellow Springs, Ohio. Luke took a job as Education and Outreach Director at the Victoria Theater Association in Dayton.

The job wasn’t a good fit for Luke, however, so he only lasted for one and a half years. It did serve as a “stepping stone to become the Director of Muse Machine”.

How did Luke like Muse Machine?

Started in 1982, Muse Machine is an arts education program that works with Dayton area schools to connect students and teachers to the performing and visual arts.

Due to education’s increased emphasis on testing, arts education had changed since the Muse Machine began. Schools no longer had room in their schedules for arts appreciation programming. “I was there as a real driver of change, not just an administrator, but a creative program person – moving toward more of a residency model where artists are in the school for a prolonged period doing in depth curriculum based stuff with students”.

The funding landscape for nonprofits in the Dayton area had also changed. Major corporate supporters like NCR and Mead Corporation had drastically decreased their support as they reduced their presence in the region. Consequently, Luke had to sell the new program approach to the schools at the same time that he was reinventing the organization’s funding model.

Luke stayed for four years with Muse Machine. “I enjoyed it, but it took a toll on my family life. I did not have a good work/life balance and was letting it bleed into my personal life”. Work pressures made him want to “go back to a time when things were different”.

What did Luke do to relieve the pressure?

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Boston skyline

Luke learned that the Curator of the Harvard Theatre Collection had died suddenly.Remembering how much he had liked working there, he applied and persuaded his wife to move back to Boston. “I won’t have to work as much. I’ll make more money and our kids can grow up in the richness of the culture”.

“I thought it was going to be great, but it was terrible”.

Why was the job as Curator of The Harvard Theatre Collection terrible?

As the Curator, Luke was responsible for

  • Building the collection
  • Managing the funds and the purchases of materials
  • Discovering auctions of rare items around the world
  • Preparing materials on requested theater subjects for student use in the Reading Room

“The job was fun. I traveled a lot”. But Luke’s wife, Sally, was deeply unhappy. They had left “a very supportive network of close friends with kids the ages of our kids” and didn’t find anything similar in Boston. Consequently, Luke left Harvard after six months.

That sounds drastic! What happened next?

Luke and Neenah for March 2016 predrive letterLuke called Neenah Ellis, General Manager of WYSO 91.3FM, and told her, “I’m desperate to move back. I need a job, so if you hear of any opening, will you let me know”.

Luke & Neenah Ellis

In another happy accident, Neenah told him WYSO was searching for a Development Director. He applied for the  job, interviewed, got the job, resigned from Harvard, and moved back to Yellow Springs – all within 40 days.

WYSO 93.1FM is a public radio station, based in Yellow Springs, Ohio, which airs 24/7. Operated by Antioch College since 1958, WYSO is the only NPR News station in the Miami Valley. In addition to NPR programming, WYSO delivers:

  • local and state news
  • public affairs programming and news specials
  • Public Radio International
  • American Public Media
  • PRX
  • BBC (British Broadcasting Service)
  • the work of independent radio producers

Did Luke find happiness at WYSO?

“WYSO is a good fit”. Although his title is Development Director, he’s not just focused on dollars, because “programming drives fundraising”.

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WYSO receiving support from the DPL Foundation

He said, “I get to be creatively involved” as long as it relates to the mission. “I’m really more of community, outreach, partnerships AND fundraising. I get to go to all the meetings. I get to meet with funders, meet with producers. I got to help launch the area youth program”.

“WYSO is such a nexus of so many interests and ideas; it’s like a place of ideas and collaboration. In a theater company or opera company, we were hitting… barriers to participation such as the high expense of a ticket. I love that WYSO is free”.

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WYSO 91.3FM memorabilia

WYSO offers “so much programming: storytelling, news, journalism, programs that celebrate young people with youth radio. Those are some of the things that have made me want to go to work”. That’s obviously a big draw, because Luke is celebrating his five-year anniversary.

In describing the work culture at WYSO, Luke quoted Mother Theresa, “I can do things you cannot; you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things”. He has found that sort of collaboration at WYSO.

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WYSO out and about in the community

“Everybody works from their strength and does their part”.

 Luke’s observations:

  • Keeping searching. “If you want to be part of making something in the arts, there’s a place for you”
  • Find a positive environment and be positive yourself. “If you’re going to work in an industry where you work long hours and don’t get paid a lot, you should be surrounded by people who are just as dedicated as you are and glean just as much satisfaction”
  • Decide: “What do you like? What drives you? What are you excited about?”
  • Recognize your strengths. For a long time, Luke thought he didn’t have the right skill set, that he needed a project management background or MBA. Today his perspective is different. “What you’re good at is not a liability. It might be a liability in one setting, but it’s a gift and it’s a talent in another setting, so just get yourself in the right context, because everybody has their thing that they’re good at. Don’t just take the job because you can get it and then suffer with it, because it’s not actually utilizing your talents. Just find the thing that’s utilizing your talents”
  • “I like to experiment to see what will happen – that’s the story of my career”.

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