{"id":131711,"date":"2026-06-03T10:55:54","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T16:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/polis-to-recognize-ksut-executive-director-for-creative-leadership-in-southwest-colorado\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T10:55:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T16:55:54","slug":"polis-to-recognize-ksut-executive-director-for-creative-leadership-in-southwest-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/polis-to-recognize-ksut-executive-director-for-creative-leadership-in-southwest-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"Polis to recognize KSUT executive director for creative leadership in Southwest Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"KSUT
KSUT Executive Director Tami Graham is one of the 2026 recipients of the Governor's Creative Leadership Awards for her work enhancing the arts and championing public radio over the course of her 42 yearlong career. (Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Tami Graham, KSUT Four Corners Public Radio executive director, will join other Colorado creative leaders in Trinidad on Thursday to be recognized by Gov. Jared Polis for her contributions to the state\u2019s arts and culture scene.<\/p>\n

While Graham\u2019s long list of achievements may seem like multiple lifetimes worth of work, she wants to clarify: this is not her swan song.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still got lots of juice in me,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n

The 60-year-old is celebrating a decade at the helm of KSUT this summer and 42 years supporting public media and community spaces for artists in Southwest Colorado. She is one of four of this year\u2019s winners of the Governor\u2019s Creative Leadership Award, with her specific achievement centering around arts and community action.<\/p>\n

The award celebrates individuals responsible for using the arts to provoke meaningful change in their communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis award typically would go to someone who, I think, very much defines themselves as an artist and a community activist,\u201d Graham said. \u201cThat I was recognized as a public media professional for this award really is heartening to me, because I think that means there\u2019s a recognition of the threat that public media has been under the last few years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graham has seen KSUT through some of its darkest hours. In 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order stripping PBS and NPR of federal funding. KSUT lost more than $300,000 and joined two other Colorado stations in successively suing the Trump administration. A judge ruled the order violated the First Amendment protecting free speech.<\/p>\n

\"KSUT
KSUT Executive Director Tami Graham, center, stands with Breeze Richardson, executive director of Aspen Public Radio, and Stewart Vanderwilt, president\/CEO of Colorado Public Radio \u2013 leaders of news stations who sued the Trump administration for public media funding cuts. In March, Trump\u2019s executive order enacting the funding cuts was ruled unconstitutional. (Courtesy of Tyrone Turner)<\/span>Courtesy of Tyrone Turner<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen around the world autocratic regimes or governments shut down the public, the free and independent media as a means of controlling the message,\u201d Graham said. \u201cAnd so it\u2019s absolutely crucial that these institutions remain strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite a favorable ruling, the future of government funding remains murky. KSUT continues to rely upon the listener support it pushed for after the funding fell through. Luckily for Graham, KSUT\u2019s audience is a strong and supportive community, bound together by the collective experience of listening to a good story.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe so-called driveway moment, where you can\u2019t get out of your car because you have to finish listening to this story \u2013 that creates community on the air. It\u2019s almost magic,\u201d Graham said. \u201cI\u2019ve really resonated with public radio.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graham began her love affair with the radio medium at Fort Lewis College in the 1990s managing the college station KDUR. She was responsible for bringing up-and-coming artists \u2013 some now household names \u2013 to perform in Durango.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was talking to a booking agent that represents a bunch of different musicians that we had worked with,\u201d Graham recalled. \u201cAnd he said, \u2018Hey, there\u2019s this young, new emerging artist that I think you\u2019d like. \u2029She\u2019s coming through. Her name\u2019s Ani DiFranco. Are you interested?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

She was gleeful.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went out to the airport to pick her up. And she was standing there next to her guitar case, which was taller than her,\u201d Graham said with a laugh. \u201cBut it was just so great to be part of catching an emerging artist right at the beginning of their career.\u201d<\/p>\n

From there, Graham engaged with a smattering of local arts and culture institutions in Southwest Colorado, organizing concerts and the restoration of the Mancos Times Tribune building.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a dilapidated building, and the presses weren\u2019t working, and it was just shuttered, and kind of an eyesore in downtown Mancos,\u201d Graham said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s now a thriving artist community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tami
Tami Graham, second from right, stands with other Mancos Common Press board members in 2014 after securing the Mancos Times Tribune building as an arts community space. (Journal file)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

She added that as oil and gas revenue in the region dried up, arts and culture have emerged as crucial drivers of economic activity, which lends the arts further significance in the state\u2019s lower corner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just an example, I think, of the role that arts and culture serves and especially in small, rural communities throughout Colorado,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n

Her community work, however, is not limited to the creation of vibrant and bustling community spaces for artists.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, Graham\u2019s partner of 13 years, Armida Huerta, died unexpectedly of a heart attack at 56 years old. She worked for Alpackaraft and held a deep love for river rafting, a financially restrictive passion she would not have been able to pursue if not for her job.<\/p>\n

Graham, through the Armida Huerta Adventure Fund, is working to honor Huerta\u2019s memory and legacy as a female rafter of both the LGBTQ and Mexican American communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to increase accessibility in her honor because she just thrived on the rivers,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n

The fund offers scholarships and travel and gear stipends to LGBTQ+ and women of color rafters throughout the U.S. While it\u2019s in its early years, Graham said she\u2019s already witnessed a positive impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a trans woman do a course in Durango on the Animas last summer, and what an incredible difference she said it made for her to feel safe \u2013 to feel supported, to feel she could just be herself on this trip,\u201d Graham said. \u201cIt\u2019s really, really heartening to see that it is making a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite her external commitments, her passion for KSUT remains unwavering as she prepares to make further strides for the station\u2019s coverage.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt some point, I\u2019ll be looking at retiring, but I\u2019m still fully engaged,\u201d Graham said.<\/p>\n

On the docket for the radio\u2019s future is expanded programming featuring Indigenous voices through its Native Lens project which showcases Indigenous films and videos. Additionally, the station is developing the Tribal Media Center which aims to teach broadcast and technical skills to native journalists seeking to provide information and coverage to their communities across the nation.<\/p>\n

\"KSUT
KSUT Executive Director Tami Graham is on air in the KSUT broadcast room at the station in Ignacio in 2021. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cOne thing I look forward to is just really continuing to evolve those training opportunities and storytelling and first-person storytelling from our Indigenous community members,\u201d Graham said. \u201cI look forward to more partnerships across local media in terms of bringing more local news and information to our region because, again, that\u2019s a cornerstone of a healthy democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Graham prepares to travel to Trinidad to receive her award in a ceremony featuring Colorado Poet Laureate Crisosto Apache, musical performances and discussions on Colorado cultural movements, it seems she has come full circle.<\/p>\n

\u201cPublic media has kind of been the bookends in my career,\u201d Graham said. \u201cIt\u2019s a place that I feel so much passion, obviously, because of all the ways it ties together my interests, and my recognition of the value that public media brings to any community that it\u2019s in.\u201d<\/p>\n

avanderveen@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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