Ohio Public Broadcasting Official Shirley E. Timonere To Receive Third Annual Fred Rogers Award

For Immediate Release on January 29, 2003

Excellence in Children's Educational Media Honored

Washington, D.C. -- Shirley E. Timonere, a veteran public television executive and former teacher, will receive the third annual Fred Rogers Award for excellence in children's educational media the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced today.

Timonere, who has spent nearly three decades in public broadcasting, pioneered extending public television's rich educational resources to childcare settings. Drawing on this experience, she helped implement the Public Broadcasting Service's (PBS) Ready To Learn initiative.

Ready To Learn, a cooperative effort among the U.S. Department of Education, CPB, and PBS, provides educationally rich children's television programs and ancillary materials for use by children, parents and caregivers. Resources include workshops to teach parents and caregivers how to extend the educational value of public television programs beyond their broadcast. Today 144 local PBS stations, with signal coverage serving more than 95 percent of the country, participate in Ready To Learn.

"Ready To Learn is a strong educational tool in the hands of our nations caregivers and children," said Timonere. "It is incredibly gratifying to know that WGTE's first project, begun over a decade ago, has expanded to most of the public broadcasting system. We have overcome the skeptics to prove the impact that public television can make on child care." CPB created the Fred Rogers Award in 2001 to honor an individual or organization that, like the legendary Mr. Rogers, has contributed to excellence in children's educational media. Mr. Rogers hosted the longest running children's television show in history. Past recipients include Fred Rogers (2001) and Sesame Workshop, the creators of "Sesame Street" (2002).

Beloved public television personalities, Mr. McFeely, the jovial mailman from "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," and Zoe, Elmo's friend from "Sesame Street," will present the award on Friday, January 31, 2003, during the PBS Ready To Learn Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.

Timonere is the Executive Administrator of the Ohio Educational Televisions Stations' Association. This past December she retired from the Public Broadcasting Foundation of Northwest Ohio, where she served for 13 years as its president and general manager. The Foundation operates WGTE Public Television, WGTE-FM, WGLE-FM, WGBE-FM, and WGDE-FM Public Radio.

WGTE served as one of 11 original model stations that launched the PBS Ready to Learn Service more than a decade ago. Under her leadership, the station conducted more than 150 Ready To Learn workshops annually. As a result of her efforts to obtain a multi-year grant from the Ohio legislature, the public stations provide hundreds of Ready To Learn workshops throughout the state.

Prior to joining WGTE in 1977, she was a public school teacher in Ashtabula, Ohio and in various districts in the Toledo area. She also was a teaching fellow at Bowling Green State University.

Timonere serves on the Board of Directors of the Toledo Childrens Hospital, the Toledo Mudhens Corporation, the Center of science and Industry, and the ProMedica Education and Research Corporation. She is a former member of the Ohio Arts Council Media Panel and a past chair of the Ohio Educational Broadcasting Television Stations.

A graduate of Ohio University and Bowling Green State University, she is the author/editor of "Worlds of Ohio Women."

About CPB

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a private, nonprofit corporation created by Congress in 1967, is the steward of the federal government's investment in public broadcasting. It helps support the operations of more than 1,300 locally-owned and -operated public television and radio stations nationwide, and is the largest single source of funding for research, technology, and program development for public radio, television and related online services.

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