For listeners of local UA Little Rock Public Radio it’s a sad time as it was announced last Friday that general manager Nathan Vandiver will be resigning from his post where he led NPR affiliate stations KUAR-FM, 89.1 and classical music outlet KLRE-FM 90.5.
According to Arkansas Business, Vandiver’s last official day at the station will be July 8, as he and his family will be moving to Portland, Oregon where his wife Julie Vandiver has taken a job with the Federal Public Defenders office.
UA Little Rock is currently working on a job description and will post it soon to begin seeking applicants for a new General Manager for the station but currently there has been no timeline set.
“I’m proud of the work we’ve done in the time that I’ve been here,” Vandiver said in an interview Friday with longtime colleague and KUAR News Director Michael Hibblen. “With the death of Ben Fry, it was a big transition to make and we stabilized the station after that difficult period.”
Ben Fry, the former General Manager of KUAR passed somewhat unexpectedly from a heart attack in 2016, which led Vandiver to eventually take over as General Manager.
As general manager, Vandiver developed and maintained station policy, supervised the programming staff, selected on-air programming and oversaw on-air sound quality. Even as interim GM, he helped upgrade control rooms with new consoles and audio control equipment, as well as growing donor memberships to KLRE and KUAR. Last fall’s pledge drive drew an anonymous gift of $1.5 million, a record.
In a statement, Sarah Beth Estes, who oversees the stations as dean of the College of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences, and Education, praised Vandiver and wished him well.
