Head of NPR to visit SEMO on March 14

The president and chief executive officer of National Public Radio will speak at Southeast Missouri State University on March 14 in conjunction with the 15th anniversary celebration of KRCU, the local NPR radio station.

Kevin Klose is scheduled to speak at 6:30 p.m. in Dempster Hall's Glenn Auditorium. He will discuss the current state of National Public Radio. The event is free and open to the public.

"We are pretty excited," said Dan Woods, general manager of KRCU radio on the Southeast campus.

KRCU became an NPR affiliate in November 1990. The 90.9 FM station's signal currently reaches from Ste. Genevieve to New Madrid in Southeast Missouri, west into Bollinger County and east into Southern Illinois.

The station will install a repeater tower in the Farmington, Mo., area that will allow the station's signal to reach all the way to south St. Louis County. The tower could be in operation by early March, Woods said.

The new tower will allow the station to reach about 1.5 million people in a wide region, Woods said.

Klose, a former editor and correspondent with the Washington Post, has headed NPR since November 1998.