WNIJ’s Dan Klefstad to sign off morning show for final time Friday after more than 25 years in public radio

DeKALB – Dan Klefstad, the longtime local host of NPR’s Morning Edition delivering the latest news, weather and program information to WNIJ listeners, will sign off for the final time Friday after working more than 25 years in public radio.

Klefstad said he is looking forward to setting his sights on retirement come the week’s end.

“I’d worked at WNIJ, which is licensed to Northern Illinois University, for 30 years, so I was eligible for full retirement,” Klefstad said. “I thought, ‘30 years is a very long time to do anything, really, when you think about it.’ So, I thought this would be kind of nice to change things up a bit.”

Klefstad, who assumes duties not only as a morning show host at WNIJ but as reporter and a content manager, said he plans to use his newfound time to complete a sequel to the novel he authored called, “Fiona’s Guardians.”

“I have a sequel to a vampire novel that I’m trying to write,” Klefstad said. “It’s been getting great reviews and I thought, ‘Well, I owe my readers a sequel.’ So, I will do that. It’s about halfway done right now. I figured I could knock it out in another year or so. Having that extra time would be great.”

“It turned out to be something that worked for our audience, for the station management. Incredibly, I ended up hosting for 25 years. I never thought that I would host Morning Edition for more than five or six [years.]”

—  Dan Klefstad, retiring longtime Morning Edition host at WNIJ in DeKalb

Klefstad started at the station as a part-time jazz host in 1990 after finding a job posting when he was a graduate student at NIU.

“I got the buzz for radio very quickly,” he said. “Back then, we were actually using both CDs and LPs – and I know LPs are back again – but when you’re on the radio and you start an LP, you have to do a quarter-turn, so it starts cleanly. I just fell in love with that kind of magic.”

A few years later, Klefstad was hired by the station full time to host jazz and blues, only to find that it wouldn’t be long before he started making his mark in the newsroom.

Klefstad said his experience went well so much so that when the host of the Morning Edition shift became available in 1997, he started to view the opportunity as too good to pass up.

“It turned out to be something that worked for our audience, for the station management,” he said. “Incredibly, I ended up hosting for 25 years. I never thought that I would host Morning Edition for more than five or six [years.]”

Klefstad said that interacting with the station’s listeners has been a pleasure over the years. He said he’s long been fond of public radio and the value it can hold in the community.

“I just really enjoy both the mission of public radio and the opportunity [to be a companion,]” he said. “I think in commercial radio, the on-air schedule is a lot tighter. They have a lot of commercials they have to air. With public radio, you can breathe a little bit and actually be more of a companion to the listeners, which I’ve always thought was special because I used to listen to public radio growing up in the Chicago suburbs.”

Klefstad commended his colleagues for making WNIJ the workplace it is.

“The one thing I will really miss about WNIJ and Northern Public Radio is the people I’ve worked with over the years,” he said. “We have a great crew in the newsroom. I’m really going to miss everybody I’ve worked with. They are true professionals. I’ve felt very fortunate to work with them.”