NAFB Blog

During Washington Watch (April 27), The Doan award, honoring excellence in reporting agriculture, was awarded to Michelle Rook, managing farm director at WNAX (Yankton, SD). This is the inaugural year for The Doan. Presented by the NAFB Foundation, through a gift from Agri-Pulse Communications, Inc., The Doan is named after Stewart Doan, a farm broadcaster and senior editor at Agri-Pulse, who passed away suddenly in May 2012. He was known for his passion for politics and determination for delivering breaking farm and rural policy news. Doan's reporting on issues affecting farmers and consumers is missed by the entire agriculture community. He served as NAFB president in 1998. 

The first NAFB Leadership Academy convened in Washington D.C. just prior to Washington Watch. Farm News Director Sabrina Hill (AgNet West Radio Network, Sanger, CA) wrote about her experience in a blog which we are excerpting here. “This was my first year attending Washington Watch. I was the only representative of California in the group, and it’s always fun for me to meet up with cohorts from the Midwest and other areas,” she said. “This year was also the inaugural NAFB leadership class, and I had the honor of being one of the nine people in the class.”

​Agri-Pulse founder and President Sara Wyant will be named to the annual Folio: "Top Women in Media" recognition in the Entrepreneurs category at a June awards ceremony at the Grand Hyatt in New York City. Sara was the only agricultural media professional included in this year's awards, which also honored women from such mainstream media as Forbes, Time and The New York Times.

Joe Gangwish, will be taking over June 1 for retiring Mike LePorte, left, as Farm Director of KRVN and the Rural Radio Network. Mike joined KRVN/Rural Radio Network in October 1990 and was named Farm Director in 1995.

WJBC-AM (Bloomington, IL), is celebrating its 90th Anniversary this year. Carrie Muelhling reports, “While we are doing some special things all year long to mark the milestone, we recently enjoyed some fun programming on April Fool's Day as we brought back a number of former show hosts, reporters and anchors to fill shifts on the air and deliver newscasts throughout the day.”