Board of Directors | Montana Broadcasters Association

Aaron Pruitt

Ex-Officio

A native of Bozeman, Aaron Pruitt has served Montana PBS in leadership roles for over 20 years, working in programming, production and management. He is the Executive Producer for many award-winning Montana PBS productions including 11th & Grant with Eric Funk, Class C: The Only Game in Town, Fort Peck Dam and C.M. Russell and the American West. Pruitt collaborates with independent filmmakers distributing programs to national PBS, including Wolves in Paradise (PBS PLUS) and two PBS INDEPENDENT LENS documentaries, Butte America and Indian Relay. In addition to serving on the Montanans for 4-H board, Aaron is also a director on the Friends of Montana PBS board.

Brian Joyce

Director

Brian Joyce was named vice-president and general manager of KPAX-TV in Missoula in December 2020. Joyce has over 20 years of news and sales experience, including four years at E.W. Scripps stations. Most recently, he served as director of sales at KMGH, Scripps’ ABC affiliate in Denver. Prior to that, he served as director of sales at KGUN and KWBA, Scripps’ ABC and CW affiliates in Tucson, Arizona. Before joining Scripps, Joyce was a local sales manager and national sales manager at KOLD in Tucson and a local sales manager at KBMT/KJAC in Beaumont, Texas. He also served in leadership roles with London Broadcasting in Dallas, including director of news and programming and vice president and general manager of KTXD. Joyce launched his broadcast career in Texas as a sports journalist for KETK in Tyler before moving into sports director roles at KBTV in Beaumont and KYTX in Tyler. Joyce holds a bachelor of arts degree in broadcast journalism from Oklahoma State University.

Cam Maxwell

Director

Cam Maxwell is the president and CEO of Desert Mountain Broadcasting. Cam was born and raised in Billings, married to his wife Shannon for 26 years and they have 3 daughters 14-23 years old. Cam began his broadcast career as a board operator, then graduated to voicework, in his teens in the mid-80’s at KOHZ FM in Billings. His love of radio led him to work in all departments which eventually opened up management opportunities from the Sales and Programming departments to Market Manager positions. Cam has run groups in Billings, Bozeman, Rapid City, Bismarck, Phoenix, Kansas City and Los Angeles; and he has held ownership and executive positions in multiple corporations including his own companies. Cam is a highly experienced, award winning, proactive and entrepreneurial broadcast executive. Currently, Cam owns twelve stations in Billings and Bozeman.

Denise Dowling

Ex-Officio

Denise Dowling teaches broadcast journalism at the University of Montana. Since her start there in 2000, she's taught writing, reporting, ethics, radio, television and documentary courses. Dowling took a student environmental reporting group to India in 2014 and spent a semester teaching at Salish-Kootenai College in addition to her duties at UM's mountain campus. Dowling worked in television news for 20 years in Montana, Colorado and Washington before coming back home to Montana. She has won numerous awards for her professional work and teaching and has served the university as a department chair and acting dean. Dowling is honored to serve on the Montana Broadcasters Association board and represent the School of Journalism.

Dewey Bruce

Ex-Officio

Dewey Bruce is the president and CEO of Montana Broadcasters Association (MBA). As MBA president, Dewey lobbies on behalf of Montana’s broadcasters at the state and federal levels and is responsible for all activities of the association. Dewey began his career in broadcasting at KGVO radio in Missoula as an account executive. He has worked in broadcasting for over 30 years in sales, sales management and station management. Dewey has served on numerous boards including the MBA board where he served as the Board Chairman for a year. Dewey serves on the board of St. Peter's Hospital and is chair of the St. Peter's Hospital Community Relations Committee. Dewey was named Business Person of the Year in 2012 by the Helena Area Chamber of Commerce. Dewey has a B.S. degree in Business Administration/Marketing from Fresno State University. Dewey is married to Nancy and has two step children, a son-in-law, daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren.

Keith Teske

Vice-Chair

Keith began his career in broadcasting in 1989 as an aspiring "DJ" (his first job was to play "The Sounds of Sinatra" and "America's Ball Room with Blossom Dearie" on Saturday nights). Keith's first full time job was in Eastern Washington as the morning show host on a low power FM station playing "The Best of Yesterday and Today". Over the next several years he worked in a number of positions from music director to talk show host and sales representative. Eventually he became the Operations Manager of a group of stations in charge of programming and engineering and then moved on to become the General Manager of a group of 8 stations. In 2008, Keith made the leap to Great Falls to assume the General Manager position for the Fisher Radio group. Immediately, he fell in love with Montana and Great Falls in particular and jumped right into being an active part of the community. In the spring of 2011 he followed many of his colleagues and made the move to television by Joining the KFBB team as the Local Sales Manager and in September of 2012 assumed the position as station manager for KFBB, Great Falls and KHBB, Helena.

Kevin Terry

Director

Kevin Terry is the General Manager of The Montana Radio Company in Helena. They feature nine different radio stations that provide entertainment, news, and sports to over 65,000 people in and around the Capital City.

Ray Ekness

Ex-Officio

Ray Ekness was named director of the Broadcast Media Center at the University of Montana in Missoula in August 2016. He’s a former UM School of Journalism professor and department chair of the Department of Radio-Television. Ekness worked radio jobs in his native North Dakota and worked on-air at KUFM as a UM student in 1982. He then launched a career as a commercial producer and newscast director at television stations in Montana and Idaho. He worked at the Broadcast Media Center as a producer/director starting in 1989 before joining the J-school full-time in 2000. Ekness has helped produce many MontanaPBS programs, including the popular “Backroads of Montana,” “Remembering the Columbia Gardens,” “To Helena and Back: the First Special Service Force,” “Building Bridges: Back to Ireland” and “War of the Worlds.”

Ron Davis

Chair-Elect

Ron is a native of Butte Montana, known as the richest hill on earth and now America’s largest superfund clean up site. He is president of Butte Broadcasting and General Manager of radio stations KBOW, KOPR and KGLM . Ron started his broadcast career as a junior in high school at the stations. Working for Shag Miller he worked his way from weekend announcer to General Manager over the next 16 years. He and wife Shelly bought the radio stations from Shag on April first of 1994. Ron can still be heard on the air as the morning announcer on KOPR 94 and doing play-by-play sports. Recently he has added Buttesports.com, an on-line sports page, to the radio stations. During his more than 30-year career he has served Montana broadcasters twice on the Board of Directors of the Montana Broadcasters Association. Ron’s first term started in 1990 and lasted ten years. Seven of those years Ron served as NAB Legislative Liaison working closely with our representatives in Washington DC. The term included two years as President of the Association, in 2010 Ron re-joined the MBA board and is currently active on the board. In 1998 Ron was elected to his first term on the NAB radio board representing Montana, Idaho and Wyoming he served through 2002. In 2006 Ron was re-elected to the NAB Radio Board and finished his six years of service to the national radio industry in 2012. In 2012, the National Association of Broadcasters honored radio station KBOW with a prestigious Crystal Award. Since 1987, the NAB Crystal Radio Awards have recognized 10 radio stations radio stations each year, for their outstanding year-round commitment to community service. Ron and his wife Shelly along with their two children Maggie and Austin and Ron’s 80 year old mother all can be found working at the radio stations.

Tamy Wagner

Board Chair

Tamy Wagner is the Vice President and General Manager of NBC Montana, she is responsible for the NBC stations in Kalispell – KCFW, Missoula – KECI, Butte and Bozeman-KTVM. Tamy has 20 + years of experience managing dynamic sales teams within media, telecommunications and retail industries. She's demonstrated success in driving revenue growth combined with recruiting, mentoring, and retaining top performing sales groups in competitive markets across Montana. Additionally she is responsible for news operations in these cities, broadcasting separate and regional newscasts in Missoula, Kalispell and Bozeman with a bureau in Butte. NBC Montana broadcasts to over 50% of Montana from southern Canada to and including Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and parts of eastern Idaho.

Tom Ciprari

Director

Tom Ciprari is the station manager at KTMF ABC/Fox 23 in Missoula for the Cowles Montana Media Company Born in New York City and raised in the Midwest, Tom found his way to Western Montana through his interest in broadcast and the outdoors. Before becoming the station manager at KTMF Tom was part of a small team bringing a FOX station to Western Montana viewers for the first time. Launching the station and eventually merging the station with an ABC group and creating ABC FOX Montana in 2003. In addition to his work in local broadcast, Tom is a family man and the father of a 5-year daughter whom he cherishes and enjoys seeing the world again through the curious eyes of a child. Montana offers a plethora of outdoor activities to engage in and take a respite from the world of technology all around us. On these occasions Tom can be found enjoying one of Montana’s national parks, lakes, rivers, trails or ski areas.