Watch The Recording of the 2024 VAB Hall of Fame & Awards Gala

Saturday, November 16, 2024, almost 260 members and their guests enjoyed a spectacular night of eating, drinking, socializing and celebrating at the VAB Hall of Fame & Awards Gala 29th Anniversary!

This year’s gala was held at the new Farmhouse at Sunset Pond on the grounds of presenting sponsor The Essex Resort & Spa. The rustic elegance of the new venue lent itself nicely to this year’s theme, Stick Season! Inspired by Noah Kahan’s song of the same name, the VAB will be donating $1,125 ($5 from every paid registration) to the mental Health Foundation started by Noah Kahan called “The Busyhead Project”. 

After dinner, attendees heard from Congresswoman Becca Balint and Senator Peter Welch via recorded videos congratulating the Hall of Fame inductees and awards winners. The “first” of which was Dr. First, who received the VAB “Friend of Broadcasters” award for writing and hosting over 1,400 “First With Kids” segments that air on both radio and television. 

In an effort to recognize stand outs amoung the newest generation of broadcasters without having to wait 30 or 40 years into their careers, the VAB chose to celebrate four rising stars with awards; Spencer Lieberman from Vox AM/FM/Digital for sales, Lauren Granada from WPTZ-TV for News Anchoring, Ike Bendavid from WCAX-TV for Investigative Reporting and Haley Bouley from WFFF-TV & WVNY-TV for Meteorology.

Former recipients of the Alan Noyes Community Service Award introduced this year’s winner, FrankFM, Froggy & The Penguin for their “Jam for Slam T1D” battle of the bands style promotion, which raised just under $20,000 for Slam T1D, a local non-profit dedicated to enhancing the lives of people living with Type 1 Diabetes.  The award was accepted by Betty B and folks from Slam T1D.

The Snyder-Teffner award, which recognizes excellence behind the scenes in a support role, was awarded to WFFF-TV & WVNY-TV Chief Engineer Dave Turner.

Although Ira Wilner, who won the VAB’s Distinguished Service award, was unable to be with us at the event, his colleague Stephen Hamel, Operations Director for Monadnock Media Group, accepted the award on Ira’s behalf.

Then it was time for the big finale, where the VAB inducted three new members into the VAB Hall of Fame:

longtime broadcast journalist, host of “The Mark Johnson Show”, part owner of WKDR-AM and now the host of WCAX’s “802 Podcast” Mark Johnson…

Air personality and sports play-by-play commentator on WWLR-FM, WCPV-FM, WIZN-FM, WDEV AM & FM and WVTK-FM as well as the voice of The Vermont Lakemosters, Rich Haskell…

and WCAX-TV Chief Meteorologist Gary Sadowsky!