Becky Magura | WCTE President & CEO

Becky has served on the PBS Board of Directors since 2014. With over 37 years of experience in management, production, educational strategy, and engagement at public television station WCTE, Magura brings to any project a level of commitment, leadership and strategic direction necessary for success. She resides in Cookeville, TN and serves on numerous regional & national boards. She received the Cumberland Business Journal’s Ovation Award for Community Service; a Tennessee Senate Proclamation for Outstanding Service & TCCY John Seigenthaler Making KIDS COUNT Media Award.

She holds BS and MA degrees in Education from Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, with an emphasis in Communications. She has years of experience in television production as an on-air host, producer, and videographer. In 2006, Magura became WCTE’s fourth General Manager and has led the station team through the digital transition in transmission and production, as well as securing WCTE’s downtown studio and offices. In 2017, she worked with creative business partner, Lite Wire, on the completion of a new Public Media Joint Master Control, designed in consideration of small and mid-size stations across the nation.

Also, on a national level, Magura has served on the boards of America’s Public Television Stations; National Educational Telecommunications Association’s (NETA) and as a member of the CPB Community Service Grant Review Committee. She is currently a member of the Public Media Venture Group. Locally, she serves as a member of the Cookeville/Putnam County Chamber of Commerce Board; Tennessee Technological University Alumni Board; Impact Board of Directors and Cookeville / Putnam County Multicultural Advisory Council

Magura believes strongly in supporting independent producers and in collaborative station productions such as WCTE’s Live Green Tennessee, now in its’ 12th season. She serves as station liaison for numerous independent producers in presenting their work to the public media system. These include Bluegrass Underground; Songwriting with Soldiers; Barnegie Hall; Jammin’at Hippie Jacks; Perfect 36: When Women Won the Vote and as a contributing partner to Havana Time Machine a PBS Great Performances. She served as the station liaison for Todd Jarrell’s documentary, CRANK: Darkness on the Edge of Town, which was funded in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting through an Independent Television Service (ITVS) LiNCS grant.

She serves on the PBS Executive Board; Chair of the PBS Interconnection Committee and on the PBS Station Services Committee and PBS Strategic Planning Committee as well as the APTS Board Diversity and Inclusion Task Force.

Sara Cravens | Voice Actress & Writer

Sara is a comedic actress who grew up in the sticks playing in trash cans for fun. Tennessee is her jam. Go Big Orange. But man, she loves LA.

Sara rose up quickly in the video game world, voicing Frost in Mortal Kombat 11, Power Girl in Injustice 2, Valkyrie Hildr in God of War, Boom Bloom in Skylanders and having roles in Agents of Mayhem, Batman Arkham Knight, Star Wars Uprising as fan favorite Deathstick, and Halo 5: Guardians, as well as voicing promos for Fox’s Gotham. She has voiced 100s of commercials for cars, banks, grub, beverages, tech and a heckuva lot more. You can hear her on Big City Greens on Disney as Skids, TripTank on Comedy Central voicing several characters including Cinderella, Harriet Wolf in Monster High, Emma Stone's voicematch in The Croods and Reese Witherspoon's voicematch in The Good Lie. She is PrincessMaribel in Disney's feature The Snow King. And, anime crowds love her as Sachiko in Erased and Child Emperor in One Punch Man. Sara won Best Supporting Actress in an Anime Movie for her work as Miyako Ishida in A Silent Voice.

Sara loves yoga, country music, building stuff in her backyard with power tools, and makes the best from-scratch buttermilk biscuits you've ever tasted. For real. You don’t even know. Saracravens.com

Brent Clark | WCTE Director of Content & Digital Media

Brent Clark is the Director of Content and Digital Media of WCTE. Clark is responsible for overseeing the direction, production, and coordination of all aspects of WCTE’s on-air and online content, as well as its contract-based production services, including its digital strategy. Clark is also responsible for refining and developing WCTE’s programming to best reflect the special nature of its region and to ensure it is in alignment with national PBS programming. Prior to joining WCTE, Clark worked for Turner Broadcasting System, INC (TBS), managing production related projects for its entertainment and animation, news, young adults and kids networks including CNN and CNN.com; TBS, TNT, Turner Classic Movies and truTV; Cartoon Network and Adult Swim; and Turner Sports. Clark also worked as a freelance manager for Country Music Television (CMT) in print and off-air, managing graphical elements for CMT.

Billy Dec | Award winning TV personality and Restaurateur

Most well-known for his award-winning restaurant concept Sunda New Asian (Chicago and Nashville), he is regularly seen on NBC's TODAY Show as a TODAY Food Contributor, and has appeared on TV shows like Empire, Criminal Minds and Chicago Fire. Dec is also a Lifestyle Contributing Editor for ESQUIRE Magazine, and hosts The Meal of Your Life! podcast on Apple Podcasts. In addition to his food and lifestyle-focused endeavours, Dec was a Presidential appointee, serving on the White House Advisory Commision on Asian American & Pacific Islanders, and the White House Bullying Prevention Task Force.

"Food. Roots." gives viewers the opportunity to accompany Dec by plane, boat, motorcycle, jeepney and foot, as he searches through bustling metropolitan cities, tiny remote islands, and hidden cloud-scraping mountain villages to find his family members. He climbs a mountain to meet with a 103 year-old tribal tattoo master, where she blesses him with a tattoo related to his ancestral connection. Through the ups and downs of the trip, Dec gains a deeper understanding of his family history, along with an elevated appreciation for how food has shaped their view of the world.

Noel Stojkov | WCTE Senior Producer & Digital Media

WCTE PBS's Cell-phone Filmmaking walking workshop instructor, Noel Stojkov, has been an Emmy-nominated producer working with WCTE PBS for 2 years. She has been obsessed with video production for as long as she can remember. She attributes it to her parents for letting her watch Sesame Street before she could walk or talk and them letting her play with the family's video camera starting at the age of 3.
It was only natural that she would pursue a Bachelor's Degree in Film/Video production and continue her career in media production. During college, she worked at her local PBS station, starting as a production assistant. From there, she worked her way up to being a producer at various TV stations in the midwest. She is now a senior producer and digital media for WCTE. Noel grew up moving around but spent most of her life in Michigan. However, she did attend Mount Juliet Elementary School for some time when her dad's job brought the family to Tennessee. She loved the state so much as a child she jumped at the chance to moved back and work for PBS.

Jerod Hollyfield | Carson-Newman Associate Professor of Film Studies and Communication

Jerod Ra’Del Hollyfield is an Associate Professor of Film and Communication at Carson-Newman University whose academic work primarily examines Hollywood cinema within a settler-colonial context. His book, Framing Empire: Postcolonial Adaptations of Victorian Literature in Hollywood was released in 2018 by Edinburgh University Press. Hollyfield has contributed essays to Settler Colonial Studies, The Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies, Graham Greene Studies, Film International, CineAction, and several edited collections from publishers such as Routledge and Palgrave among others. He is also a filmmaker whose work has screened at Oscar-qualifying film festivals and is largely set in the American South. Links to his past and current projects are available at jerodradel.com.

Laura Holloway | Storyteller Agency Founder & Chief

Although she is a child of the South, raised in Tennessee with a passion for sweet tea and people who say 'y'all', she also has more than a decade of experience in Los Angeles in the film and television industry, and in Phoenix as a content marketing strategist, editor, and journalist. A passionate storyteller, Laura founded The Storyteller Agency to help businesses rethink marketing, to consider their message an ongoing narrative - a conversation with their audience. Laura is frequently asked to speak at conferences, meetings and workshops about the value of content marketing for business and how to tell a really great story. She is also the Co-Founder of SheWolf Collaborative, a collective that promotes and inspires creative, entrepreneurial women. You can read more about her professional experience, if you like. Or you can follow along the journey by reading the Storyteller Blog.

Laura is the cofounder of the Storyteller Theatre Company and Cookeville Improv Alliance, and she currently serves as WCTE's Festival Director.