Diane Katzman

Lifetime Achievement Award Winner

For 50 years, Diane Katzman has been a passionate public radio ambassador. She has served St. Louis Public Radio as Board Chair, and she co-chaired the station’s Capital Campaign. She has served on nearly every board committee, organized station events, and pitched on-air fund drives. A 2007 Golden Microphone honoree, Diane Katzman Design, created branded jewelry and accessories for NPR and St. Louis Public Radio, as well as hundreds of other non-profits and Fortune 100 companies. Diane’s commitment to St. Louis is evident in the boards she serves and the art she creates for local institutions. She is a founding board member of the Touhill Performing Arts Center, ACLU’s Liberty League, Planned Parenthood’s Women’s Leadership Circle, and Concordance Academy of Leadership.

Shanti Parikh

Golden Mic Award Winner

Shanti Parikh, Ph.D., is Associate Chair of African and African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, Associate Professor of Anthropology, and a Fellow with the Institute of Global Health. As a feminist scholar, writer and activist, Professor Parikh is a highly acclaimed researcher, consultant and speaker of racial justice, gender inequalities, and community empowerment.

Dr. Parikh’s dedication to justice and rights-based causes dates to her high school and college days, when she was a leader in the local NCAACP youth chapter, in the student anti-Apartheid activities on her college campus, and in designing a community participatory manual as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in in Kenya. Since moving to St. Louis 20 years ago, she has been an active player in racial, reproductive and economic justice. She served as the Board Chair of Planned Parenthood, Vice Chair of St. Louis Effort for AIDS, Financial Chair of the Deaconess Foundation, Board Chair of Professional Organization of Women, and on the boards of St. Louis Public Radio, Safe Connections, Clayton Community Foundation, and the Danforth Plant Science Center Leadership Council.

Originally from Maryland, Dr. Parikh received her B.S. in Finance from the University of Virginia and a PhD from Yale University in sociocultural Anthropology. She was the first Black woman to be promoted to tenure in Arts & Sciences at Washington University. Her husband Jason Wilson owns Northwest Coffee Roasting Company and is on Clayton’s Board of Education, and they have two sons Jason (13 years old) and Julian (11 years old)

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Vantage Credit Union

Golden Mic Award Winner

Vantage Credit Union has been a sponsor of St. Louis Public Radio for the last 5 years. Their initial sponsorship was $16,000, however since then they have increased their sponsorship with their 2020 total being $30,000. In 2019, they sponsored the first Photojournalism Prize event. Since the beginning of their sponsorship in 2016, they have given a total of $110,580 net. As a credit union, it’s part of their mission to support and give back to the community. (‘People Helping People’ is the credit union philosophy.) For Vantage specifically, their core stated purpose is ‘Enhancing your life, strengthening our community.’ Their employees and members come from all walks of life, regardless of their race, gender or socio-economic background.

Jia Lian Yang

Mary Edwards Award for Staff Excellence

Jia Lian Yang holds both a Master of Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis and a Master of Divinity from Eden Theological Seminary. She is the co-founder of the St. Louis-based Who Raised You? podcast, which explores culture and family with a focus on stories from people of color. The show won the Arts & Education Council of St. Louis’ 2018 stARTup competition. And this year, St. Louis Magazine’s editors named it the best local podcast. Previously, Jia served as the Public Programs Manager at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation.

Daryl McQuinn

Mary Edwards Award for Staff Excellence

Daryl McQuinn is a 35-year veteran of radio engineering, having worked at stations and radio groups in Texas, Illinois and Missouri (including, coincidentally, a couple of years in the 1990s at KMST-Rolla, now part of St. Louis Public Radio). Early in his career, Daryl realized that that radio was rapidly evolving from tape players and vinyl records to computers and hard drives and has since made it his mission to stay on top of the latest and greatest technology. With the help of his team, his goal at STLPR is to keep the state-of-the-art equipment and computers in top shape, so that the rest of the staff can do their jobs without frustration. He’s happiest when everything is working properly!

In his free time, Daryl enjoys listening to and playing music; he started learning the guitar when he was eight years old and played in bands throughout high school, college and beyond. He still likes to perform and is keeping his skills up by currently teaching himself the electric upright bass. When not working, playing music, attending concerts or mixing music that he records in his “laboratory,” Daryl likes to travel with his wife Liz; they have visited more than 40 countries as far-flung as Greenland, Bali and Antarctica. He also likes to edit their travel videos down to something someone would actually like to watch. They really like living in the St. Louis area and the city’s many cultural institutions, especially the Missouri Botanical Garden, which his father-in-law headed for many years. He also likes helping others with their audio projects, most recently volunteering with the International Institute to help them with their broadcasting initiatives.

A native of Edwardsville, Illinois, Daryl graduated from Lewis and Clark Community College with an associate’s degree in radio and TV technology and then earned his bachelor’s degree in mass communications and music from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. As a student, he worked at the university’s public radio station, WSIE, in a variety of roles, from music librarian to on-air announcer. He is delighted to have come full circle back to public radio.