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Valley Public Radio Names Studios After Longtime Leader

Station board members and members of Stepanian's family gather to formally dedicate the sign honoring the station's longtime leader.

CLOVIS, CA - Valley Public Radio is recognizing the longtime leadership of Mariam Stepanian, the station’s late President and General Manager by naming FM89’s studio complex in her honor.

At a ceremony Saturday January 12, 2019, station board members alongside Stepanian’s family unveiled a monument sign outside Valley Public Radio’s Clovis Broadcast Center reading "Mariam Stepanian Studios."

“Mariam’s dream was to build a new, state-of-the-art home for Valley Public Radio. Without her determination and vision, we would not be here today in this marvelous new building,” said Joe Moore, President and General Manager of Valley Public Radio.  “It’s a most fitting honor to have Mariam’s name attached to this facility, as a reminder of her legacy and dedication to public radio.”

The concrete sign with bronze letters will stand as a memorial to Stepanian, and is accompanied by a plaque in the station’s lobby, honoring her service to public radio listeners across the valley. The sign also sits just feet away from a sculpture dedicated to Stepanian’s late friend, former Valley Public Radio Chairperson Ed Palacios. Stepanian unveiled the statue at a ceremony in 2017.

Stepanian led Valley Public Radio from 1983 to her death in early 2018, guiding the station as it expanded its service to the entire southern San Joaquin Valley, launched local news coverage, and transitioned to digital technology. Most significantly she led the decade-long push to raise funds to build the station’s new Clovis Broadcast Center, a roughly $4 million project completed in 2016 that provides the station with its first permanent home since it began broadcasting in 1978.

Joe Moore is the President and General Manager of KVPR / Valley Public Radio. He has led the station through major programming changes, the launch of KVPR Classical and the COVID-19 pandemic. Under his leadership the station was named California Non-Profit of the Year by Senator Melissa Hurtado (2019), and won a National Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative reporting (2022).
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