About KHOL - Jackson Hole Community Radio

 

About

Jackson Hole Community Radio produces innovative public radio programs, in-depth local news and cultural reporting, and events that touch a passionate community of more than 40,000 people monthly on-air, online and in-person. From its studios in the Center for the Arts in downtown Jackson, Wyoming, KHOL is shaping community radio for a new generation of listeners.

KHOL has received multiple accolades for its programming, including from RTDNA’s Regional Edward R. Murrow Awards, the Society of Professional Journalists and LION Publishers.

KHOL adheres to the ethics standards of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Mission

To serve the Jackson Hole community of residents and visitors through independent local and regional news and by creating a forum for the free exchange of ideas and music discovery that informs, entertains and promotes a deeper understanding of the world around us. 

Diversity Statement

As a public radio station funded and supported by the community, KHOL knows that cultivating a diverse team of employees and volunteers is essential  to understanding and serving the multifaceted communities of western Wyoming and eastern Idaho. 

KHOL is committed to recruiting and retaining a talented, dedicated and diverse staff, governing body, Community Advisory Board and volunteer corps through our core belief in valuing difference and by promoting an environment of inclusion. We seek diversity in cultural, ethnic and economic backgrounds, personal experiences, age, gender and sexuality, ability and skills that reflect the diverse needs and interests of the communities served by KHOL. We also prioritize diversity in the station’s selection of music and cultural programming as well as in our news coverage.

KHOL supports an inclusive and antiracist environment through equal opportunity in employment and by diversity and implicit bias awareness education.

History

KHOL was more than a decade in the making before its maiden voyage on the airwaves in April 2008. It was the long-time dream of the station’s founder and first executive director Jim Tallichet. The station’s launch happened from a windowless office space under Teton Barbershop. It was a grassroots beginning, with a handful of dedicated volunteers keeping the station afloat through dogged perseverance. The station transmitted from the top of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort with Saddle Butte hampering the signal. After a few years of basement broadcasting, KHOL moved above ground, at first to an attic space across from the Wort Hotel, before landing in its permanent home in the prestigious Center for the Arts in 2012.

Since then, KHOL has grown exponentially. Home to Jackson’s only nonprofit newsroom, KHOL has become a trusted community source for in-depth reporting, cultural commentary and community programming that reflects the diversity of its listeners.

KHOL Staff

Emily Cohen

Emily Cohen

Executive Director

Emily has served as executive director of KHOL since June 2019. She has a background in ecological design and urban planning and has worked as a teacher on the US-Mexico border in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, as a policy wonk in Washington, DC and as a land use planner in Wyoming. She is an avid fiddler of Appalachian old time music and other traditional folk styles. She has produced projects for the DC Fringe Festival, MIT’s Listening to the City Conference and the Megapolis Audio Festival and performed as a supernumerary with the Washington National Opera for over a decade. When not playing tunes or playing in the snow, she is working to tell the story of America’s favorite poor gal, Li’l Liza Jane.

emily@jhcr.org

Jack Catlin

Jack Catlin

Music Director

For more than a decade, Jack, a.k.a. KnewJack, has worked numerous parties and events as a DJ, employing his genre-hopping, finger-on-the-pulse style that always manages to move the crowd. Jack has worked in post-production music and sound design on major advertising campaigns, an experience that helped fuel his breadth of musical knowledge. He takes pride in tracking down the rare and obscure, the new and unheard, the re-tweaked and remixed, and, of course, the classic and undeniably funky. All music, he says, is in some way connected no matter the style and Jack’s mission is to provide listeners with a memorable experience each time they tune in to KHOL or see him spin live. Catch him during his show, “The Heavy Warmup,” 8 to 10 a.m. weekdays.

jack@jhcr.org

Hanna Merzbach

Hanna Merzbach

Senior Reporter/Managing Editor

Hanna Merzbach joined the KHOL newsroom in September 2022. Before this, she worked as an independent journalist in Bend, Oregon, reporting on housing and homelessness, state and local politics, and the environment. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, High Country News and NBC stations across the country, and she’s fact-checked stories for The Guardian and the Vox Media Company. Hanna first dipped her toes into the radio world in 2020, when she participated in the Next Generation Radio workshop at Oregon Public Broadcasting. She has a bachelor’s degree in international affairs from Lewis & Clark College, where she ran the student newspaper. When not reporting, you can find Hanna scaling rock walls or backpacking in the mountains. (Illustration by Ard Su)

hanna@jhcr.org

Reed Russell

Reed Russell

Development Manager

Prior to joining KHOL, Reed’s daily commute took him up the Jackson Hole Aerial Tram as a market researcher (and Corbet’s Cabin waffle ambassador). Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, Reed studied English literature, anthropology and creative writing at Kenyon College, where he also played lacrosse. Now graduated from the NCAA grind, he pursues more “freeride” forms of recreation, including backcountry snowboarding, mountain biking, rock climbing, and kitesurfing. After an adventure, you can find him at home with a Michalada in one hand and his guitar in the other, peering over his computer for the next day’s forecast.

reed@jhcr.org

Dante Filpula Ankney

Dante Filpula Ankney

Reporter

Dante Filpula Ankney comes to KHOL as a lifelong resident of the Mountain West. He made his home on the Eastern Montana prairies before moving to the Western Montana peaks to study journalism and wilderness studies. Dante has found success producing award-winning print, audio and video stories for a variety of publications, including a stint as a host at Montana Public Radio. Most recently, he spent a year teaching English in Bulgaria through a Fulbright Fellowship. When he isn’t reporting, you can find Dante outside scaling rocks, sliding across snow or winning a game of cribbage.

dante@jhcr.org

Tyler Pratt

Tyler Pratt

Producer

Tyler has over a decade of experience as a jack-of-all-trades at public radio stations across the United States and is most recently coming from WLVR in eastern Pennsylvania where he was assistant news director and helped launch the newsroom at this brand-new NPR affiliate. He’s told audio stories at KUT and KUTX in Austin; WNYC in New York; KCBX in California, and the Southern Foodways Alliance podcast Gravy. He’s a Columbia Journalism School alum (where he now also teaches a course on how to write for the ear). Tyler has a passion for reporting on criminal justice, social justice, politics and LGBTQ+ issues. He loves New Orleans Saints football, dance floors, barbecue, tasting new wines and trying out taco spots.

tyler@jhcr.org

Zoe Curran

Zoe Curran

Social Media Coordinator

Local DJ Zoe Curran (aka The Western Gem) believes in the absolute power of music. Zoe was born and raised in Jackson Hole before skipping town to attend college in Poughkeepsie, New York. It was there that they began DJing with the Vassar College Sound System and WVKR 91.3. After returning to the valley in June 2022, they sought a similar impassioned music community, quickly joining KHOL as a volunteer DJ. Their weekly Friday night show, “Last Night a DJ Saved my Life!” showcases diverse electronic sounds and artists through a cultivated live mix. Zoe brings skills from their time at VCSS, WVKR, and as Layout and Outreach Coordinator at Grey Matters Journal, an undergraduate journal on neuroscience and psychology.  When they aren’t spinning fresh electronica for radio and local throwdowns, Zoe can be hard to track down, but they’re probably tattooing, getting outside as much as humanly possible, or dancing in a low-lit bar.

zoe@jhcr.org

Alyson Spery

Alyson Spery

Producer (One Small Step)

Alyson joins the KHOL team to produce the One Small Step conversations as part of the station’s 2023 partnership with StoryCorps. She holds an MFA from the School of Visual and Media Arts at the University of Montana. She founded DIY Docs, a film education and production nonprofit whose flagship project The Sister Cities Docuseries won a Fulbright Fellowship for the Arts. Previously, she worked in social services; for one22 Resource Center and Teton Youth and Family Services in Jackson and for Big Sky Youth Empowerment in Bozeman, MT. Alyson is drawn to stories that connect people across cultural divides and remind us of the common threads of our humanity. She loves singing and dancing to all kinds of music, growing a garden, and traveling to new and also familiar places.

alyson@jhcr.org

David Dudley

David Dudley

State Government Reporter

David is the new State Government Reporter for KHOL and Wyoming Public Media. He is an award-winning journalist who has written for The Guardian, the Christian Science Monitor, High Country News, WyoFile and the Wyoming Truth, among many others. David is a Guggenheim Crime in America Fellow at John Jay College from 2020-2023. During the past 10 years, David has covered city and state government, business, economics and public safety beats for various publications. He lives in Cheyenne with his family.

ddudley5@uwyo.edu

Chris Clements

Chris Clements

Digital Media Specialist

Chris Clements is the digital media specialist for KHOL and Wyoming Public Radio. He previously reported for KSJD Radio in Cortez, Colorado, where he covered Indigenous affairs, drought, and local politics in the Four Corners region. He holds a degree in English (Creative Writing) from Arizona State University. Chris’s news stories have been featured on KUNC, NPR newscasts, and National Native News, among others.

cclemen7@uwyo.edu

Governing Board

Email: board@jhcr.org

Alex Kerr

Bill Burford

Garth Gillespie

Jill Baldauf (Chair)

Jolie Nelson (Secretary)

Kevin Cohane (Treasurer)

Phil Hartl

Our next board meeting is:

Tuesday,  April 9, 2024 at 2:30 p.m.

Meetings are generally held in the Center for the Arts conference room.

 

Community Advisory Board

Email: cab@jhcr.org

Anita Miles

Ben Read

Bill Helm

Christine Murdoch

Hanny Hindi

Jim Stanford

Josh Eavis

Karyn Chin

Liz Barrett

Liz King

Pat Wright

Will Finnie

 

We’re growing our Community Advisory Board.

Learn more and get involved.

FCC and Corporation for Public Broadcasting Compliance

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