FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 6, 2012

DALLAS/FORT WORTH – KERA 90.1 FM is pleased to announce the receipt of nine 2012 Texas Associated Press Broadcasters (TAPB) Awards. The awards will be presented at the 2011 TAPB Convention on Saturday, March 31, 2012, at the  Headliners Club in Austin. 

Judges awarded KERA first place honors for the special series, Letters From Sendai.  Produced by KERA managing editor Shelley Kofler and special contributor Tami Ishii, the stories focus on correspondence from residents of Sendai, Japan, in the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami. North Texas residents responded with their own online letters of encouragement. Art&Seek’s Jerome Weeks received a first place award for Specialty Beat Reporting on arts and culture. His entry included stories about a Dallas couple living and creating art at The Fairmont Hotel entitled Living in the Arts District, Making Art, Ordering Room Service and Singing Handel’s High Notes: A Look Into the Dallas Historical Society’s Archives about the Fort Worth Opera’s production of Handel’s Julius Caesar.

Other members of the KERA News team received three second place honors. B.J. Austin won second place honors in the category of Light Feature for a story about the science behind the sport of baseball in Rangers, World Series & Baseball Physics, and in the category of General Assignment for Dallas Red Cross Worker Remembers 9/11, about a Dallas woman whose job was to assist families looking for missing loved ones at Ground Zero. Bill Zeeble also received second place honors in the Use of Actuality-Production category for his story, Dallas Symphony Prepares Percussion Premiere, about a world premiere of a new work, Gamelan D’Drum, performed by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and D’Drum, a Dallas percussion ensemble.  

ABOUT KERA

KERA is a not-for-profit public media organization that serves the people of North Texas. The station broadcasts to the fourth-largest population area in the United States. KERA produces original multimedia content, carries the best in national and international public television and radio programs, and provides online resources at www.kera.org. The station’s extensive coverage of the arts can be found at www.artandseek.org. KERA-TV broadcasts on Channel 13.1. KERA WORLD broadcasts on 13.2. KERA-FM broadcasts on 90.1 in Dallas/Fort Worth/Denton, 88.3 in Wichita Falls, 100.1 in Tyler and 99.3 in Sherman. KXT 91.7 FM, KERA’s new music station, KXT 91.7, is streamed online at www.kxt.org.

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CONTACT:

Christopher Wagley

Director, Marketing & Communications

KERA, KXT and Art&Seek

cwagley@kera.org

214-740-9377