Bill Thomas,
Director of Radio
Bill started at Prairie Public in 1999 as the first manager for
the new network. He came to North Dakota from working in Lincoln
at Nebraska's Public Radio Network. Before that, like many people
in media work, he moved around as his jobs changed. He’s worked
in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois; Los Angeles; Washington, DC; and
St. Louis. He started small community stations, managed national
program distribution, has been a program director, a station manager
and a network manager. In his spare time he gardens, cooks, plays
music, reads, gets outdoors—and spends time with his wife and
two daughters.
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Dave Thompson,
News Director
Since 1981, listeners to public radio in North Dakota have been
waking up with Dave Thompson. He's been the news director and Morning
Edition host since KCND went on the air in September, 1981. Before
that, Dave was a reporter/anchor with KNOX/Grand Forks, and KBOM/Bismarck-Mandan.
Under his watch, North Dakota Public Radio has won nearly 100 awards
for news reporting. Dave is a native of Bismarck. He graduated from
UND in 1978. Dave's hobbies are karaoke, bowling, karaoke, music
collecting, karaoke—and by the way, did we say karaoke?
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Todd McDonald,
Reporter/Producer
Todd came to NDPR after spending 13-years doing news in the realm
of commercial radio. Todd has spent a lot of his time in newsrooms
in northwest Minnesota and eastern North Dakota. Todd says "coming
to NDPR is giving me a great opportunity to keep track of the happenings
in the region and to make use of a great list of friends and contacts.
Prairie Public lets me bring listeners the news, and the STORY that
goes with the headlines." When Todd's not out with his microphone
gathering information, he's spending time with his wife, Lynette
and son, Ian camping, doing backyard astronomy and continuing his
search for obscure musics.
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Skip Wood,
Producer, Hear It Now
Skip was the news producer at Channel 4 in Fargo/Grand Forks for
22 years. He left to pursue various independent projects, including
"The Next Governor," a documentary for Prairie Public
Television. Skip agreed to help out when Prairie Public's "Hear
It Now" radio production job became vacant and he found the
work so interesting, he decided to stick around. Skip lives in Moorhead
with his wife Stacy.
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 Danielle
Webster,
News Reporter
Danielle Webster joined the staff of Prairie Public Broadcasting
as a radio news reporter in 2006. She delivers news from the Fargo
area to Prairie Public’s statewide radio audience. Webster
is a University of North Dakota graduate who worked as a feature
reporter, news reporter and production assistant for the university’s
“Studio One” news program. Her work on “Studio One’
was nominated for a regional Emmy.
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Merrill E. Piepkorn,
Program Host, Hear It Now
Merrill was born in Stanley, ND, raised in Fargo, and attended Concordia
College in Moorhead, earning a BA degree in Speech, Communication
and Theatre Arts. For several years after college Merrill performed
professionally with several musical groups, the most notable of
which was Skunk Hollow. Following his career in entertainment, (he
still performs occasionally), and previous to joining Prairie Public,
Merrill worked in broadcasting and advertising. Merrill spends much
of his free time with his son, Max. Tennis is high on the list,
too. Merrill, his wife Connie and Max live in North Fargo.
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Michael Paul Olson,
General Manager KFJM
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Deanne Forster Willows,
Production Coordinator
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Duane Lee,
Operations/Producer
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