Local Radio Personality is Featured Viewpoints Speaker

Nancy Travers has been on the air for more than three decades

She loves to sing, but struggling with a bit of stage fright, can’t quite bring herself perform in front of an audience. So Nancy Travers has made her career in the music business on the airwaves. Travers, a White Stone resident and personality on WKWI 101-7 Bay FM, will be the featured speaker at Rappahannock Westminster-Canterbury’s Viewpoints series on April 2. The title of her talk will be “Finding My Voice,” and she’ll talk about her career in radio and how music has affected her life, as well as sharing some radio business behind-the-scenes stories.

Travers grew up in a musical household (her father sang with members of the 1960s group The Mamas and the Papas). “I grew up in a house where there were always musicians in the basement, singing and jamming. And I would join in,” she says.

But she drifted away from music until one day in college when she happened to be at the school’s radio station and ended up on the air. “I was hooked,” she says. In her 36 years in radio, she’s seen a lot of changes in the industry. “With the advent of computers and technology, it’s gone from a one-on-one radio personality to more automation,” she says. “It’s trickier to have your personality integrated into it now.”

At RWC, she’ll tell how she overcame her stage fright to become a successful radio host and why radio continues to be an exciting medium. For Travers, it mostly comes back to her original love. “Music should be part of everybody’s life,” she says.

RWC’s Viewpoints series features experts on a wide range of topics of current interest. These free presentations begin at 11 a.m. and are held on the first Monday of the month through June 4 in the Chesapeake Center Auditorium on RWC’s campus, 132 Lancaster Dr., Irvington.

Reservations for the April 2 event will begin on March 19 by calling RWC at 438-4000. Attendees are invited to remain after the presentations for a complimentary lunch. Reservations open for each speaker two weeks prior to the event. RWC maintains a waiting list and honors reservations in the order received. Separate reservations must be made for each speaking event in the Viewpoints series.

This year’s line-up includes an all-female cast. Other speakers include:

May 7:  Carolyn Quinn, U.S. Department of Homeland Security

June 4: Dr. Cheryl Brown Davis, music educator