A look at the news team at Wine Down Media
By Paul Franson
NAPA VALLEY, Calif. — We recently profiled Wine Down Media’s owners and their focus on community journalism. But a radio station is obviously dependent on its on-air personalities, too. That’s especially true as they’ve been beefing up local news and community programming.
KVYN and KVON have several interesting on-air personalities, some well-known and one certified legend. Some are more involved in the news than others. Here’s a quick look at those who are.
A ubiquitous personality
Barry Martin is a well-known voice—and face—in Napa Valley. He starts the day at 6 a.m. with his morning program Wine Country Live on KVYN, delivering breaking news, traffic, weather, music, guests and more. His recorded news clips appear throughout the day.
He also is a founder of community theater company Lucky Penny Productions, was once Napa’s public information officer and, before that, was the KVON host in the morning.
He also does The Barry Pod, a show with longer interviews that is streamed online.
Martin is from Joplin, Missouri. He wanted to move to California when he was 12 when he saw the sunny Rose Parade from gloomy Missouri, but ended up going to college at home, first studying teaching, then switching to theater.
His first radio job was in college, but then they moved to a group of stations in Iowa. When the farm crisis hit in 1986, he lost his job and decided to make his move to California.
He was hired by Tom Young, who then owned the Napa radio stations. He handled various tasks before settling in to the 9 a.m. to noon show.
Young sold the stations in 1996, and Martin continued part-time while taking another part-time job as the public information officer for the Napa River Flood Project in 2001.
Then the stations were sold in 2003 and the new general manager fired Martin. He joined the city of Napa full time as a spokesman, doing some radio on the side but remaining very visible.
Meanwhile, he met Taylor Bartolucci and they created Lucky Penny Productions to create a local theater company. He did their shows part-time, then full-time when they created the Lucky Penny Community Arts Center in 2015.
The Marcencias, current owners of the station, rehired Martin after he helped out with the emergency coverage of the Tubbs Fire and they saw his talent.
Martin remains very visible and busy between Lucky Penny and KVYN, and he’s also in great demand to moderate local community events.
Nate Campbell is the program director for KVYN. He’s been in radio 30 years starting in college, and in fact, taught radio at Sonoma State University for 15 years.
He was also the news director at KZST, the number one radio station in Sonoma County, but joined KVYN after the fires when the Marcenias turned KVON to Spanish and emphasized news at KVYN. He does hourly newscasts and interviews with local people, many of whom come to the station and others on the phone.
Ira C. Smith is a legend for covering local sports. He’s been with the stations for more than 47 years and has been inducted into the Napa High School Athletic Hall of Fame, the Vintage High School Athletic Hall of Fame and the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame.
Smith, who is originally from Plum Tree, Indiana, announces not only high school football, basketball and baseball, but also softball and volleyball. He graduated from Hanover College in Indiana, served in the Army from 1959 to 1961 and has worked at stations in Columbia City and Marion, Indiana, as well as in Monroe, Michigan.
Smith did play-by-play for University of Michigan football for six years, from 1970 to 1975, on WLEN out of Adrian, Michigan before moving west.
Gabriela Fernandez spearheads the Spanish news efforts as the morning personality on KVON with music, entertainment and breaking news in Spanish.
She was born and raised in Napa Valley where wine and viticulture were at the center of her family’s life. She worked at Caymus Vineyards while in high school and graduated with a business marketing degree from Saint Mary's College.
Studying abroad in Rome intensified her passion for food and wine and she returned to Napa in 2015. She is the director of trade and marketing events for The Duckhorn Portfolio, overseeing experiential opportunities for eight brands.
She was recently named to Wine Enthusiast’s Future 40 (what used to be formally called the “40 Under 40”) for her work as a tastemaker innovating the industry. She became the first Latina in history on the cover of magazine’s Future 40 for Duckhorn.
José Tenorio (who goes by JT on the air) is a salesman for the stations, but also produces the Everything Grape podcast with Brie. They dive into the world of food and wine for a behind-the-scenes look into winemakers, chefs, restaurateurs, brew masters and Everything Grape.
Find KVYN at www.993thevine.com and KVON at www.kvon.com.
Paul Franson is the publisher of NapaLife, a weekly newsletter that focuses on news and events about food, wine and the arts.