Beginning at 6:00 a.m. on Monday, July 27, morning audiences will hear an additional hour with local hosting and news, and a new voice on Aspen Public Radio, with the arrival of Vic Vela as the station’s new host of Morning Edition, following Megan Tackett’s departure last month. When not live on the air, Vela will be covering education issues in the Roaring Fork and Colorado River valleys, adding reporting capacity to the local newsroom on a beat which has long been a priority for the station.
Colorado native Vic Vela is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, educator, public speaker and fierce advocate for addiction and mental health recovery.
“I’m super excited and grateful to be here in the Roaring Fork Valley — one of the most beautiful areas on the planet — and to engage with public radio listeners as a host, reporter and storyteller,” shared Vela. He continued, “As a Colorado native, I can’t think of a better place to be, and I sure hope you’ll join me on weekday mornings.”
After graduating from the Metropolitan State University of Denver in 2000, Vela launched his journalism career as a sports anchor and reporter for an NBC affiliate in West Texas. He’s also worked in newspapers, including as an investigative crime and courts reporter for the Albuquerque Journal, and covered politics and state government as a member of the Colorado Capitol Press Corps. For nearly a decade, Vela was a news and podcast host and reporter for Colorado Public Radio. He has also taught aspiring journalists as an affiliate journalism instructor at his alma mater, MSU Denver, and is a 5-time Edward R. Murrow award winner who was named the 2020 Colorado Media Person of the Year by the Public Relations Society of America.
Vela has inspired countless people who struggle with addiction and mental health issues through his advocacy work as a public speaker and through his podcast, "Back from Broken," which features comeback stories of people who have overcome the biggest challenges in their lives. “Back from Broken” has won several awards – including back-to-back wins for Best Podcast by the Colorado Broadcasters Association – and has helped thousands of people along the road to recovery. In 2022, Vela received the prestigious Larry Tajiri Media Award from ACLU Colorado “for honesty and compassion in sharing stories of substance use and recovery.” In 2025, he launched the Back From Broken Foundation, a nonprofit organization that aims to help people in recovery through storytelling.
A fourth-generation Colorado native, Vela was the first person in his immediate family to attend college. He comes from a large Chicano family that’s deeply rooted in the American West. On his mother's side, Vic's Indigenous and Spanish ancestral roots from New Mexico predate the earliest New England colonies. Vic's grandparents on his dad’s side were raised in southern Colorado, relocating to Boulder County where they worked long hours picking vegetables in beet fields, and his dad is an Army veteran and a longtime Chicano rights and community organizer in Longmont.
Vela is an enthusiastic supporter of animal rights and often helps to raise money for rescue groups. He’s also a huge fan of the Grateful Dead, even naming his rescue dog Rider after one of their songs.
Vic Vela joins an award-winning newsroom at Aspen Public Radio, including News Director Halle Zander, All Things Considered host and associate editor Sage Smiley, Arts & Culture Reporter Regan Mertz, Women’s Desk Reporter Hannah Weaver, Climate Desk Reporter Michael Fanelli, Social Justice Desk Reporter Eleanor Bennett, and Aspen Daily News Reporter Lucy Peterson, who also reports for the radio station.
Aspen Public Radio broadcasts local newscasts and radio features from 6-9 a.m. and 4-6 p.m., Monday through Friday, within national programming; produces a daily local news podcast available each morning; and publishes daily to aspenpublicradio.org.
You can learn more about the Aspen Public Radio team here.
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Aspen Public Radio is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization with the mission to support, nourish, and enrich our community by providing informative, entertaining, and educational radio and digital programming in a reliable and professional manner. Founded in 1980 as Roaring Fork Public Radio Translator, broadcasting from Sy Coleman’s living room in 1981, Aspen Public Radio has now grown into one of the most relied upon news institutions in the Roaring Fork Valley. The station is located in the Red Brick Center for the Arts at 110 E. Hallam Street, Suite 134, Aspen, Colorado.
You can listen to Aspen Public Radio at 91.5FM and 88.9FM, along with other repeater signals depending on location throughout the Roaring Fork Valley, or by streaming the station at aspenpublicradio.org from anywhere in the world.