J-school to co-host longtime NPR personality Carl Kasell on April 16

National Public Radio newscaster and radio personality Carl Kasell will speak at a free public discussion on April 16 at 5:30 p.m. in the Genome Sciences Building, room GS 200, on the UNC campus.

“An Evening with Carl Kasell” is co-sponsored by UNC Friends of the Library, the University Archives and Records Management Services, WUNC and the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media. WUNC radio host Eric Hodge and UNC journalism student Mike Rodriguez will join Kasell in a conversation about Kasell’s career, his involvement with the early days of WUNC radio, and his experience breaking such news stories as the space shuttle Challenger explosion and the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

At a 5 p.m. reception preceding the event, attendees can view items from UNC’s University Archives related to Kasell’s time at UNC, his involvement with the university radio station and his career at NPR.

Kasell is a 1956 graduate of UNC. He and fellow UNC broadcast great Charles Kuralt helped to establish WUNC as a student-run FM station in 1953.

Kasell, a Goldsboro, N.C., native first joined NPR in 1975 as a news announcer for “Weekend All Things Considered.” From 1979 until his retirement in 2009, he was the daily news announcer for NPR’s “Morning Edition.”

He has since found new fame as the official judge and scorekeeper for the NPR weekly quiz show “Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” Winners receive Kasell’s familiar voice recording a greeting on their voicemail.

Kasell is a 2010 inductee to the National Radio Hall of Fame. Other honors include the Leo C. Lee Friend of Public Radio News Award for lasting commitment to public radio journalism and induction to the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame, which is based in the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media.