Terry Ward

All Things Considered Host

Terry Ward hosts WMRA's afternoon Drive Time broadcasts during "All Things Considered," pens the "Eye on Art" essay series and is an assistant producer (and self-described bumper music improver) for WMRA's arts and culture show "The Spark". Ward is also the key call-screener for the program "Virginia Insight."

Ward started with WMRA in the Reagan Era as a volunteer writer, character actor, and voice mimic for the WMRA variety show "Our Little Radio Show."

Ward also hosted classical music shifts and acted as emergency back-up ersatz substitute host of last resort.  After a hiatus spent teaching art in Massachusetts and in Northern Virginia, Ward was invited to join WMRA full-time in 1997.   Ward was a regional  "All Things Considered" host before moving to "Morning Edition" for a decade and later moving back to  "All Things Considered."  Ward lingers sometimes into the nighttime classical airshifts and almost always during nighttime news special coverage (Election Day, the State of The Union, etc).

Being a regional host during an NPR program imposes its own stylistic restrictions on what one can say.  When Ward occasionally speaks freely, he thinks of his radio delivery style as a sort of audio freeform deadpan surrealism.

Ward is also the PublicRadioArtSpace curator/wall-tsar and also manages the Valley Voice reading service for the blind.

His FaceBook radio personna is RadioActive Terry Ward.

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Art Exhibit
12:00 am
Thu January 1, 2015

Art Shows at PublicRadioArtSpace

Selected peeks at some of a year of WMRA art. (Detail views; actual art may be larger.)

Call to artists infoPast exhibits.  Since 2006 WMRA has hosted art exhibits at the Harrisonburg facility.   The broadcast media almost never  mention visual artists, but WMRA has long supported quality regional art-makers.  Artists are mentioned on-air occasionally during the run of the exhibit and also might appear on our news/interview shows (like The Spark).

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Art Exhibit
1:45 pm
Wed August 28, 2013

Clearly Unusual (Art Show)

Art-peekers welcome (M-F 9am-5pm) thru Thurs 29 August.  Aaron Shifflett's art on layers of clear plastic seems somewhere between painting and sculpture. They're thick-as-a-brick and yet also airy. Paintstrokeoids (often slices of digital print-images) evoke energetic Keith Haring marks --or maybe photos of flower parts or cellular structure. PublicRadioArtSpace is in WMRA's Harrisonburg facility.  

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The Spark
2:41 pm
Fri June 14, 2013

Creepy Junk Shop Story

The "FBI photo" mentioned in the essay.

Terry Ward tells about his favorite thrift store --a creepy place that gets one thinking about mortality.

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Art Exhibit
2:15 pm
Thu May 16, 2013

Deadpan Alley (CLOSED)

If one passes by 5000 scenes in a typical commute, maybe one might be "funny" somehow --and photographer Jeff James will notice.  Humor and a sort of pop art irony and social critique appear. Now hanging and up until Thurs 30 May 2013, a collection of his art photos / visual jokes will hang at PublicRadioArtSpace in WMRA's Harrisonburg facility. Art peekers welcome weekdays 9-5. 

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Web Extra
3:03 pm
Thu May 9, 2013

A Tall Tale from Mack Swift

Image: WMRA News (tw)

Storyteller Mack Swift appeared on The Spark.  Here is his rendition of

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Area Runner's Insight
5:42 pm
Tue April 16, 2013

Jack Marmorstein on Boston Marathon Bombing

A WMRA-area runner was in the 2013 Boston Marathon, and much to friends' relief, he promptly said on Facebook: "I'm fine."   He's familiar with the finish line area and his modestly self-described "little sliver of insight" about the attack has gone national.  

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Couple Hours of Web-Oddity
12:40 am
Tue April 16, 2013

NPR.org Hacked

On Monday night, public radio station websites from New England to the deep South briefly showed odd web "news" articles saying only, "Syrian Electronic Army Was Here" (see examples in our slideshow).  Apparently NPR.org was hacked, and many local affiliates who show the official NPR newsfeed on their own websites thus showed SEA's cybergraffiti. 

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(VFOTB Event Fri 22 Mar)
10:00 am
Fri March 22, 2013

WMRA Alumna leads Festival of the Book Panel

Hey Andifans! Past classical music announcer Andi Arndt is moderating a Virginia Festival of the Book panel about audiobooks

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The Spark
8:00 am
Mon March 4, 2013

Artistic Appropriation or Just Inappropriate?

At Harrisonburg arthouse café,  The Artful Dodger, a painting in a Rashidi Barrett art exhibit struck one visitor as  disturbingly familiar --maybe another artist’s concept.   It was.  Soon news media from Norfolk to Richmond to the Shenandoah Valley were noticing.

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The Spark
1:00 pm
Fri March 1, 2013

Spark Intern Julia

2013 Spark intern Julia Skinner has been tasked with blogging about some potentially-Sparkworthy peers. 

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