ISSUED: 10 July 2014
MEDIA CONTACT: Valerie Owens
SHEPHERDSTOWN, WV — Longtime West Virginia Public Broadcasting reporter and Eastern Panhandle bureau chief Cecelia Mason will be joining Shepherd University’s Office of University Communications as a staff writer in August.
During her 23-year career at West Virginia Public Broadcasting, Mason has covered a wide range of state, regional, national, and local topics. She serves as the host and producer of the regionally distributed radio program “Inside Appalachia” and served for many years as the host of the television show “Jefferson Agenda” on Cable Channel 10.
“We have been fortunate to benefit from Cecelia’s talents during her time with West Virginia Public Broadcasting and now are pleased to welcome her to our university communications staff,” said Shepherd President Suzanne Shipley. “Her considerable reporting skills and storytelling talent will help us tell the Shepherd story at a dynamic phase in our development as a public liberal arts university.”
Fairmont native Mason, who earned a bachelor of science degree in journalism/political science from Western Kentucky University, began her broadcasting career as a weekend announcer at WFKN radio in Franklin, Kentucky, while she was in college, moving to reporter and news director positions at stations in Tennessee and Texas. She served as a general assignment reporter at a television station in Oklahoma before returning to her home state as the news director at WXVA radio in Charles Town. In 1991 she joined West Virginia Public Broadcasting as the chief of the Eastern Panhandle bureau located on the Shepherd campus.
During her broadcasting career, Mason has interviewed entertainers (including singer Mary Travers of Peter, Paul, and Mary fame, comedian Bob Hope, and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Larry McMurtry) and statesmen (she counts Senators Robert C. Byrd and Jay Rockefeller as favorites); flown on assignment with the W.Va. Air National Guard to Panama, Germany, and Bosnia; covered appearances of all presidents from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush; and reported on a U.S. Supreme Court case. Many of her West Virginia Public Broadcasting stories have been picked up by National Public Radio and the Associated Press.
Mason has served as bureau chief since Shepherd University began hosting West Virginia Public Broadcasting on its campus in 1991. Shepherd will continue its relationship with WVPB by offering office space for a WVPB Eastern Panhandle bureau.
— 30 —