MPB gets new director|Roads lead home to Mississippi

Published 12:00 am Monday, September 28, 2009

Dr. Judy Lewis has lived all over the world, but she has a preference for “Mississippi roads.”

MPB at a glance

• The Mississippi Authority for Educational Television (MAET) signed on the air with its first television broadcast on Feb. 1, 1970. MAET began airing radio programming in 1984. As part of a plan to streamline services, MAET began operating as Mississippi Public Broadcasting (MPB).

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• MPB television reaches more than 2.2 million people.

• More than 127,000 Mississippians listen to MPB radio programming weekly.

• Children’s programs constitute a major portion of the daytime and weekend morning TV schedule, and more than 40 percent of MPB’s hours.

• MPB Educational Services provides early childhood initiatives that are recognized nationally, including the popular and award-winning “Between the Lions” series and accompanying preschool curriculum.

• MPB provided more than 250 instructional television series to K-12 students/teachers statewide and provided workshops to teachers on use of these tools to enhance student learning.

• About 50 percent of MPB’s budget comes from state allocations. The rest is raised through grants, foundations and partnerships.

It’s an apt choice for the new executive director of Mississippi Public Broadcasting, which produces a show by the same name, one of Lewis’ favorites. Lewis’ career has taken her far afield of her hometown of Morton, in Scott County, but she is back now and glad to be here.

“We think Mississippi has a story to tell and we want to be part of it,” she said Friday, ticking off a few of MPB’s projects and productions that aim to entertain residents and promote the state nationally.

She took over at MPB about four weeks ago when Marie Antoon retired after seven years as executive director, and visited Vicksburg Friday to address a group of Mississippi Homemaker Volunteers, part of a Warren County and Mississippi State University Extension Service program.

Lewis has a background that includes teaching, political activism, fundraising, executive management and emergency response. She’s taught at colleges and universities in Mississippi, Alabama and Washington, D.C. She directed the United Nations World Food Program’s U.S. Relations Office, overseeing emergency food distribution to 10 African nations with more than 12 million people. She’s worked for the U.S. departments of agriculture and education, written articles and won awards and honors.

She’s lived in Rome, Angola, Ethiopia, Uganda, Washington, D.C., and other areas, but then retired from the U.N. and came back to Mississippi.

“It was fun being retired for about six months,” Lewis laughed. “Then I was bored stiff, and so I started teaching again.”

When she learned about the position at MPB, she thought it sounded interesting. A friend said it had her name written all over it, but Lewis said she wasn’t sure she’d be considered until she found out MPB was looking for someone with just the qualifications she had.

“It was a fit,” she said.

With a doctorate in higher education from the University of Mississippi, and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education and speech communication, Lewis said that she’s partial to children’s programming.

“Education is at the core of MPB,” she said. “We were established as the Mississippi Authority for Educational Television, and we’re going to continue to be involved in that.”

About 40 percent of MPB’s programming is aimed at children, she said, and the organization’s prized children’s show, “Between the Lions,” recently won daytime Emmy awards for best preschool program and best writing.

“We are going to continue to focus and work hard on ‘Between the Lions,’” she said. The show, developed by MPB in conjunction with WGBH-Boston, features a family of lion puppets who live in a library. In addition to show production, MPB writers develop curriculum and training materials to help pre-school teachers use “Between the Lions” in the classroom. Mississippi children who are exposed to the curriculum score above national averages on standardized reading tests, Lewis said.

MPB also develops programs for older children, including “workforce development,” a program targeted at high school and community college students which showcases manufacturing jobs and opportunities in Mississippi, including how high technology is used.

The organization also will focus on what Lewis calls “cultural tourism,” exporting Mississippi through programming about its writers, artists, musicians, history, geography and social developments.

A two-part companion piece to Ken Burns’ PBS series, “The War,” is in production, for example, which focuses on Mississippi’s contribution to the nation’s World War II efforts — not just the people who fought or served abroad, but also women who worked in factories, and shipyard and airfield products.

Finally, MPB will build upon its role in public emergency preparedness. MPB radio reaches every county in the state except Coahoma, the only broadcaster in the state with such reach, said Lewis. Among other honors, MPB won awards for its emergency broadcasts during hurricanes Katrina and Gustav.

And “Mississippi Roads” will continue to be produced, too. More than 350 Mississippi communities have been featured on the program, Lewis said, and she hopes MPB will get to all of them before she’s through. “I love the Mississippi flavor of the show.”

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Contact Pamela Hitchins at phitchins@vicksburgpost.com