Programmer Shelia Rue received the Don Otto Award at PRPD.
PRPD and ARA honored Tampa programmer Sheila Rue with the Otto Award. (Photo: Mark Vogelzang.)
The veteran programmer and workshop instructor for Public Radio Program Directors was honored for career contributions to the field at a presentation during the association’s conference last month in Baltimore.
Rue, p.d. at Tampa’s WUSF since 2008 (and lately its classical sister station, WSMR), previously directed programming at KUSC in Los Angeles and WUNC in Chapel Hill, N.C. She also ran her own consultancy, SR Sound Programming, and shared her expertise with other programmers by running PRPD’s training workshops.
The award honors the legacy of an influential mentor to the founders of PRPD, the late Don Otto — a “proactive, innovative and creative thinker,” said Steve Olson of Audience Research Analysis, announcing the award Sept. 22 [2011].
PRPD and ARA jointly present the award to recognize programmers who have “made public radio better through their creative contributions,” he said.
Rue credited her mother for laying the foundation for her radio career when her family lived in the Azores.