Carla Eckels
Director of Organizational Culture and Soulsations HostCarla Eckels is Director of Organizational Culture at KMUW. She has been an award-winning announcer and news producer for KMUW since 1996. Eckels also produces and hosts the R&B and gospel show Soulsations that airs Sundays at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m and in markets across the U.S. and in Canada. She brings stories of race and culture to The Range with the monthly segment In the Mix. Prior to coming to KMUW, Carla was the local host for NPR’s Morning Edition at WYSO in Yellow Springs, Ohio, hosted a gospel show on WCSU in Wilberforce, OH, and co-hosted a nationally syndicated gospel radio show in Cincinnati. Carla was also program director for KIBN, the Inspirational Black Network in Wichita, hosted the Joyful Sounds gospel show on Q92-FM and produced the number one gospel radio show on KSJM 107.9 JAMZ.
Carla's collection of honors and awards is extensive and well-deserved. Most recently, she received Elliott School of Communication Honors as 2024-2025 Outstanding Alumna. Carla also received the 2024 1st Place KAB award Diversity/Equity/Inclusion, "Relative and friend of Emmett Till reflects on why his story is important now more than ever," and 2023 1st Place KAB award, “A Conversation with Con Funk Shun’s Michael Cooper” and a 2023 Shine Award from StoryTime Village. In 2022 Carla was named a Diversity & Inclusion Awards honoree by the Wichita Business Journal. She was inducted into The Kansas African American Museum's Trailblazers Hall of Fame in November 2020 for her work in broadcast/journalism. She is a member of the Kansas Association of Black Journalists and recipient of the Wichita Branch NAACP’s Janett Jackson Community Service Award. In 2018 Carla was honored with the Sonny Slater Award for Service to Station and Community from the Kansas Association of Broadcasters, and the Drum Major Award at Wichita State University's Office of Diversity and Inclusion. She received the prestigious National Edward R. Murrow Award in 2017 for her work on Then And Now: The Summer Of Justice and a Regional Edward R. Murrow Award for Newman Basketball Coach And Wife Recount His Struggle With Depression—And His Return To ‘Normal’. In April 2016, Wichita State University presented Carla with the Wayne Carlisle Distinguished Service Award. The Carlisle Award is presented to a WSU professional who models the standard of extraordinary service exhibited by the late Wayne Carlisle.
Carla can be reached by email at eckels@kmuw.org.
-
Housed in the archives of the Museum of World Treasures is a rare piece of civil rights history. -
Painter and fiber artist Stephen Towns has created quilts and paintings that depict lakeside leisure at Paradise Park, a Florida resort that offered Black families joy and refuge during Jim Crow. His artwork is on display now at the Wichita Art Museum. -
-
-
About 30 people gathered at the entrance of Wichita’s Holy Savior Catholic Academy for a “clap-in” — an event celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the Million Man March by applauding students as they arrived for the school day. KMUW’s Carla Eckels has this Wichita Soundscape... -
-
-
This month on "In The Mix," Carla Eckels talks to a son of a veteran who is helping to bring the joy of Christmas to children. -
-
