Elise Pepple, a producer of community outreach programming for public radio and podcasts will become the general manager of Marfa Public Radio (KRTS) and West Texas Public Radio (KXWT) this fall.
She has produced for the nationally recognized Story Corps radio series as well as for isolated radio stations in Alaska. Pepple has been a TEDx speaker. She is a resident of Portland, Maine.
“This is a dream position for me,” Pepple said. “It’s an opportunity to help sustain and shape remarkable public radio stations. KRTS and KXWT are a platform to celebrate the wide range of Far West Texas.”
She said she has a strong interest in programming that engages residents in remote rural communities and encourages them to tell their life stories.
Jim Byerlotzer of Midland, president of the Marfa Public Radio Corp. board, welcomed Pepple’s experience in remote parts of the country.
“Our stations in the Big Bend and Permian Basin serve truly distinctive communities set in a huge, magnificent but sometimes isolating landscape,” he said. “Their common radio stations can be a vital unifying force.”
In addition to producing radio content, Pepple has been teaching classes at Maine College of Art and coordinating outreach at a Portland arts nonprofit.
Pepple earned an undergraduate degree from McGill University in Montreal, and studied social work at Smith College. She has also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and at California College of the Arts, and completed radio production studies at the Salt Institute for Documentary Study.
Marfa Public Radio went on the air in 2006. The broadcasting license for KXWT in Odessa-Midland was purchased and developed several years later. Both are NPR member stations – they have won numerous regional and national journalism awards.
Marfa Public Radio and West Texas Public Radio broadcast from four towers to reach approximately 380,000 potential listeners in more than 22,000 square miles of southwest Texas.