Noah Adams
Noah Adams, long-time co-host of NPR's All Things Considered, brings more than three decades of radio experience to his current job as a contributing correspondent for NPR's National Desk., focusing on the low-wage workforce, farm issues, and the Katrina aftermath. Now based in Ohio, he travels extensively for his reporting assignments, a position he's held since 2003.
Adams' career in radio began in 1962 at WIRO in Ironton, Ohio, across the river from his native Ashland, Kentucky. He was a "good music" DJ on the morning shift, and played rock and roll on Sandman's Serenade from 9 p.m. to midnight. Between shifts, he broadcasted everything from basketball games to sock hops. From 1963 to 1965, Adams was on the air from WCMI (Ashland), WSAZ (Huntington, W. Va.) and WCYB (Bristol, Va.).
After other radio work in Georgia and Kentucky, Adams left broadcasting and spent six years working at various jobs, including at a construction company, an automobile dealership and an advertising agency.
In 1971, Adam discovered public radio at WBKY, the University of Kentucky's station in Lexington. He began as a volunteer rock and roll announcer but soon became involved in other projects, including documentaries and a weekly bluegrass show. Three years later he joined the staff full-time as host of a morning news and music program.
Adams came to NPR in 1975 where he worked behind the scenes editing and writing for the next three years. He became co-host of the weekend edition of All Things Considered in 1978 and in September 1982, Adams was named weekday co-host, joining Susan Stamberg.
During 1988, Adams left NPR for one year to host Minnesota Public Radio's Good Evening, a weekly show that blended music with storytelling. He returned to All Things Considered in February 1989.
Over the years Adams has often reported from overseas: he covered the Christmas Eve uprising against the Ceasescu government in Romania, and his work from Serbia was honored by the Overseas Press Club in 1994. His writing and narration of the 1981 documentary "Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown," earned Adams a Prix Italia, the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award and the Major Armstrong Award.
A collection of Adams' essays from Good Evening, entitled Saint Croix Notes: River Morning, Radio Nights (W.W. Norton) was printed in 1990. Two years later, Adams' second book, Noah Adams on All Things Considered: A Radio Journal (W.W. Norton), was published. Piano Lessons: Music, Love and True Adventures (Delacore), Adams' next book, was finished in 1996, and Far Appalachia: Following the New River North in 2000. The Flyers: in Search of Wilbur and Orville Wright (Crown) was published in 2004, and Adams co-wrote This is NPR: The First Forty Years (Chronicle Books), published in 2010.
Adams lives in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where his wife, Neenah Ellis, is the general manager of NPR member station WYSO.
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After a mild winter and a late-April freeze, Michigan's apple harvest was decimated. Less fruit means fewer picking jobs. It also means little to no income from apples in storage that growers rely on to get them through to next year's harvest.
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Ann Arbor residents would easily recognize their city in Harry Dolan's crime fiction, but the likeness ends with murder; while Dolan can pack several homicides into each book, the real Ann Arbor is much more peaceful.
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Classic-car enthusiasts descend on the picturesque town square in Milan, Ohio, on Tuesdays, during the summer. Many come to show off their gleaming antiques, while others come just to take in the show and soak up a little hometown camaraderie.
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How can an inmate beat out a sitting president in his party's primary? In parts of West Virginia, the answer is easy to explain. Just ask those who say Obama's policies threaten the culture of coal.
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When the gates fly open at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., on Saturday, all eyes will be on the 20 racehorses that launch themselves into the 138th Kentucky Derby. That's a lot of horses, and a special challenge for the men charged with getting them into the starting gate safely.
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Seventy years ago Wednesday, 80 Army Air Corps crewmen flew 16 B-25 bombers on a secret mission to Japan. The World War II attack became known as the Doolittle Raid, and this week, four of the five remaining Doolittle raiders will be gathering in Dayton, Ohio, to remember the mission.
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"Art is about being provocative," says the award-winning poet. "Art is also about beauty and if you leave the latter out, the former doesn't matter."
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From January into June, about 8,000 registered thoroughbred colts and fillies will be born in Kentucky. As 3-year-olds, a few may be Triple Crown contenders. NPR's Noah Adams was there as one was born.
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Berea College's 1,600 students come from low-income households, and sophomore Emily Nugent says they "know about the challenges Americans are facing." Inspired by their own diverse backgrounds, they're taking up causes like standing with the newly poor, helping immigrants or embracing their heritage.
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The Keeneland racetrack in Lexington, Ky., holds a vast collection of the Daily Racing Form, the newspaper of the thoroughbred industry. It doesn't have enough financial resources yet, but the library is working on preserving and digitizing the paper, in print since 1894 — and still printing.