"This is almost incomprehensible," Fuerst said from San Francisco, where he was attending the conference. "We came into this year with a lot of prob-
lems and a lot of hope. We would have been pleased if we had just survived the year and had a few more listeners."
Indeed, WXPN's achievement is remarkable. The CPB awards, comparable to the film industry's Oscars, pitted WXPN, with its largely volunteer staff, against 266 other public radio stations, including such giants as New York's WNYC-FM, Washington's WETA-FM, Boston's WGBH-FM and San Francisco's KQED-FM.
The WXPN gold-award winners were:
* For children's programming, Kid's Corner, hosted by Kathy O'Connell. The live, 7-to-8-p.m. weekday call-in show is aimed at listeners 6 to 12 years old.
* For community service, "WXPN's City-Wide Public Hearing on Drugs," produced by news director Julie Drizin, multicultural affairs producer Rusanne Bucci and free-lancer Becky Thorne. The program brought community leaders together at the Free Library of Philadelphia's central branch for a seven-hour public hearing on the city's drug problems and was broadcast in December.
* For public affairs, "No Bed of Roses," produced by Judi Moore Smith. The 30-minute documentary told of the difficulties faced by black families traveling through the South before 1964 civil-rights legislation. Smith, who was a National Public Radio education reporter, produced the documentary through a grant from WXPN. It aired on WXPN in January 1988 and later over NPR. Smith is now executive producer for special programs at NPR in Washington.
