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Congratulations to Hugo Morales

Community Technology Foundation
posted December 2007

Hugo Morales, founder and executive director of Radio Bilingüe, Inc., has been named the recipient of the prestigious Bader Award by the National Federation of Community Broadcasters for his groundbreaking efforts in building a model for radio stations to serve low-income audiences.

The Bader Award, given annually for a single stunning innovation or a lifetime of vital contributions to community radio, will be presented to Morales at the 2008 Community Radio Conference, March 26-29, in Atlanta, Georgia.

The award recognizes a lifetime of vital contributions to community radio and honors individuals or groups whose work has advanced the vision and values of community radio, whether in programming, management, infrastructure development, technology or development of the field, said Carol Pierson, president and CEO of the NFCB.

Background On Hugo Morales

In 1976, Mr. Morales and an all-volunteer staff of farmworkers, former farmworkers, and artists founded Radio Bilingüe, which began radio broadcast operation on July 4, 1980 over the entire San Joaquin Valley.

Radio Bilingüe is a national satellite community radio service in Spanish, English and Mixteco (an indigenous Native American language in Mexico) that serves Latino radio audiences in the Northern Hemisphere. It has its headquarters in Fresno. Regional offices are in Salinas and El Centro. The national production studios are in San Francisco. Radio Bilingüe is the recognized Spanish-language radio service for the public radio system in the United States. It serves over half a million listeners with its pioneering daily Spanish-language national talk show, Línea Abierta, its independently produced news service, Noticiero Latino, and its rainbow of Spanish-language folk music for its national Latino audiences.

The entire 24-hour daily operation is totally devoted to public service. Radio Bilingüe has a full-time staff of twenty-five and a budget of two million dollars. Its funders include the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The California Endowment, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council, the California State Health Department - Tobacco Control Section, and many other funding partners interested in informing hard-to-reach, low-income, Latino populations in California and across the U.S.

Mr. Morales is a Mixtec Indian from Oaxaca, Mexico. He was raised in Oaxaca until the age of nine when his family immigrated to California. He grew up as a farmworker in Sonoma County until he graduated in 1968 from Healdsburg High School where he had been elected student body president. He then went on to graduate from Harvard College and Harvard Law School. In 1994, he became the first resident of the San Joaquin Valley to be a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Also in May 1999, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting honored Mr. Morales with the Edward R. Murrow Award, public radio's highest distinction. Some of Mr. Morales' board memberships include the following: Central California Legal Services; California Tomorrow; Fresno Arts Council Folk Arts Program Advisory Committee; The Appleseed Foundation - a national coalition for alternative legal services for the poor; and The California Wellness Foundation Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative Advisory Panel.

In 1999, Mr. Morales began serving on the Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). In 2002, he was appointed to the boards of the Rosenberg Foundation and the San Francisco Foundation. He has also served on several funding panels for the following organizations: The California Arts Council Arts Program; The National Endowment for the Arts; The Fresno Arts Council.