CORPORATE

We've hired a new Vice President of News.

I'm extremely excited to welcome Maurice Jones to WHRO Public Media. Maurice is the former president and publisher of Pilot Media, the parent company of The Virginian-Pilot. He served as deputy secretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under the Obama administration and as Secretary of Commerce and Trade under the McAuliffe administration.

Maurice is a Virginia native and is passionate about journalism's important role in the community. Adding him to our staff is another step forward in our mission to deliver high- quality and impactful local journalism, and I'm very excited to welcome him aboard.

Speaking of news, I hope that by now you have had the opportunity to hear WHRO Weekly Edition, our recently launched local news program on WHRV FM. This exciting new show features the latest local and regional news to keep you informed about the stories that matter most to our community. You can find it on the air on Fridays at noon and on-demand anytime at whro.org/weeklyedition

In other updates, 2024 has already been a very busy year. We've just wrapped up Paul Shugrue's annual Emerging Artist Concert Series at the Sandler Center in Virginia Beach. This year marks the 20th anniversary of Paul's incredibly popular program Out of the Box, and 10 years of his concert series. As an ardent supporter of local arts, WHRO offers these free weekly concerts as just one way we strive to provide our community with avenues to enjoy work by local artists.

We are also in the midst of competition season at WHRO. Each year our education team facilitates several events, such as our annual WHRO Spelling Bee, Great Computer Challenge, and the Young Storytellers writing competition, where local students compete for prizes and to enhance their skills. These competitions are one of the many ways that our educators serve local schools and families. You can read about these competitions, as well as highlights of other educational initiatives we've worked on this year, on page 9.

All of these exciting programs and events would not be possible without your generous support. Whether it is our arts, music and news programming, our educational services, or our local journalism, your faithful contributions are crucial to all we do. Thank you for helping keep public media strong in Eastern Virginia!

Bert Schmidt
President & Chief Executive Officer