Meeting: Northstate Public Radio - 50 years

Phil Wilke is the (relatively) new General Manager of North State Public Radio. He came to NSPR from Las Cruces, New Mexico, where he served as the director of membership and community outreach for KRWG Public Media, which provides public radio and television to communities in Southern New Mexico and West Texas. Prior to his time in Las Cruces, he worked for Kansas Public Radio, Lawrence, Kansas, in fundraising, sales, newsgathering, event management, promotions and publicity.

He arrived in Chico after one fire (the Carr Fire in Redding, California, that burned up the station’s transmitter) and before the Camp Fire. Since then, the Redding transmitter has been brought back online, and the station’s show After Paradise has been recognized with a National Edward R. Murrow Award for Continuing Coverage. He directs a staff of 11 and a dozen independent producers and on-air volunteers.

Wilke began his media career on the copy desk of the Lawrence, Kansas, Journal-World newspaper, where over time he also wrote news, sports, and columns. He also has worked for the Topeka, Kansas, Capital-Journal, worked as a free-lance journalist and corporate communications writer, and was a firefighter for the City of Lawrence. He holds two bachelor’s degrees, one in journalism and one in radio-TV-film production from the University of Kansas. His knowledge of Monty Python and Simpsons trivia and dialogue has been described by some as “voluminous” and by others as “grow up and get a life.”