Each year Murray State’s NPR station, 91.3 WKMS-FM, broadcasts its annual series of special music and storytelling programs for the holiday season. Company for the Holidays begins Thanksgiving Day and continues through New Year's Day 2013 and includes over 40 hours of radio features not broadcast elsewhere in this region.
On Thursday, November 22, Thanksgiving Day, WKMS broadcasts Giving Thanks: A Celebration of Fall, Food & Gratitude from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. With music and stories for Thanksgiving, host John Birge creates a thoughtful, contemporary reflection on the meaning of the holiday. This year, there’s a tribute to writer and director Nora Ephron including warm and funny highlights of her Giving Thanks visit from 2011. Ephron is best known for Academy Award winning films When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and Silkwood.
The two hour special also includes original music in the studio with pianist Jacqueline Schwab, heard by millions for her piano music for Ken Burns' "The Civil War,” and a visit from poet and former National Endowment for the Arts chairman Dana Gioia.
WKMS is able to present this annual holiday programming series with the support of contributing listeners as well as businesses and organizations that support the station through underwriting. Giving Thanks is sponsored in part by Paducah Renaissance Alliance.
The complete schedule for Company for the Holidays is online here, where the station also provides both its channels of programming, one that is news and music, the other, all music. The station website offers all news features produced by its award-winning news staff, an interactive community events page, and a safe, secure giving page for contributions at any time of the year. Contributions are tax-deductible. To request a schedule call WKMS toll-free at 800-599-4737. Contributing members receive schedules in thanks for their support.
WKMS broadcasts to over 20,000 listeners weekly in western Kentucky, southernmost Illinois and northwestern Tennessee. The station's public media services include 91.3 WKMS-FM, Murray; WKMS HD-1 and All-Music HD-2; 90.9 WKMD and WKMD HD-1 and HD-2, Madisonville; 89.5 WKMT, Fulton; 99.5 Paris, Tenn., and All-Music 92.5 Paducah and 101.5 Madisonville. The station also offers both channels WKMS HD-1 and HD-2 at wkms.org, where weekly schedules of programs are available.
