There are trophies you put on a shelf, plaques you hang on an office wall and awards that eventually disappear into a box somewhere between an old station T-shirt and an aircheck you swear you’re going to digitize someday. And then there is the Rockwell Award. For generations of broadcasters who made the pilgrimage to Minnesota for The Conclave, this one meant something different. It wasn’t handed out for winning a ratings book, having a great quarter or surviving another corporate reorganization. The Rockwell recognized something considerably harder to measure: a life spent making radio better and helping other people become better at making it.
Today in Minnesota, at The Last Conclave, that tradition reached its final chapter.
And radio stood up for six of its own.
Herb Hoppe.
Mark Bolke.
Dave Chachi Denes.
Joe Knapp.
Lori Lewis.
Dan Seeman.
The 2026 Rockwell Award recipients.
The final class.
And there could hardly be a more fitting collection of people to close this book.
The Conclave’s official history describes the Rockwell as its highest individual distinction, created in 1989 to honor the legacy of Wisconsin radio owner and operator Mike Rockwell. Its purpose has always gone beyond professional accomplishment. Leadership matters. Mentorship matters. Giving something back to broadcasting matters.
That distinction matters today.
Because this wasn’t simply another awards luncheon.
THIS WAS THE LAST ROCKWELL AWARDS LUNCHEON AT THE CONCLAVE.
Since 1989 Radio Giants Have Carried The Rockwell Home
Look at the names.
Dan Mason.
Fred Jacobs.
Ginny Morris.
Mary Quass.
Duke Wright.
Erica Farber.
Mike McVay.
Joel Denver.
Tom Kay.
Paul Jacobs.
Jaye Albright.
Rich Meyer.
Valerie Geller.
Steve Goldstein.
Art Vuolo Jr.
And go all the way back to the beginning and you’ll find broadcasters whose names helped construct the culture from which The Conclave itself grew.
That’s the neighborhood the six people honored today just moved into.
But perhaps the most important word in the Rockwell definition isn’t achievement.
It’s mentorship.
Because anybody can build a résumé.
The people who change an industry build other people.
They answer the phone.
They take the meeting.
They listen to the aircheck.
They introduce somebody to somebody.
They give a young broadcaster five minutes that turns into a career.
They tell you when you’re good.
More importantly, they tell you when you’re not.
And sometimes they believe in you before you’ve figured out how to believe in yourself.
THAT IS THE CONCLAVE.
And that is the Rockwell.
Herb Hoppe Finally Gets His Rockwell
This one needed to happen.
Herb Hoppe was supposed to receive the Rockwell Award in 2023.
There was no Conclave that year.
So the award waited.
Herb didn’t get the moment then.
Today, The Conclave made certain his name would never be missing from the list.
Hoppe, the late founder of Tri-County Broadcasting in Sauk Rapids, Minnesota, received his Rockwell posthumously as part of the final class.
And if you’re looking for the definition of local radio, start there.
Hoppe came to broadcasting through engineering after attending DeVry Technical School in Chicago and working in television repair. In August 1963, he put AM 800 WVAL on the air in Central Minnesota.
He named it after his wife.
Val.
WVAL.
That’s radio.
The station became Central Minnesota’s first Country and Western outlet, and the operation eventually grew into Tri-County Broadcasting. Hoppe guided the company for more than half a century from its famous Red House headquarters. Tri-County added WHMH in 1979 and continued expanding while remaining rooted in Central Minnesota.
And then there is this detail.
As consolidation swept through American radio and local owners across the country cashed out, Hoppe stayed.
Independent.
Local.
Home.
His obituary describes a broadcaster who believed deeply in the craft of local radio and remained committed to it for 55 years.
You want to know why Herb Hoppe belongs on a Rockwell?
THAT’S WHY.
This industry has spent decades debating the definition of localism.
Herb Hoppe didn’t need a panel to explain it.
He practiced it.
And three years after the award should have been placed in his hands, The Last Conclave finally put his name where it belongs.
Mark Bolke Gets His Rockwell
If you’ve spent enough years around programming, music scheduling or The Conclave, you’ve probably crossed Mark Bolke somewhere along the road.
And if you’re from the Twin Cities, those fingerprints become even easier to find.
Bolke programmed KDWB during the early 1990s and had multiple tours of duty with the legendary Twin Cities brand before moving into the technology side of the industry. His career also included programming and operations roles in Denver, executive work with MusicMaster and years with RCS. He also served as Chairman of The Conclave’s Board.
Think about that résumé for a second.
Programmer.
Music guy.
Technology executive.
Conclave leader.
That’s practically four different eras of radio sitting inside one career.
And that’s what makes Bolke such a fitting Rockwell recipient.
He didn’t merely live through radio’s transition from carts and Selector screens to today’s interconnected digital ecosystem.
HE WORKED INSIDE THE TRANSITION.
And here in Minnesota, where KDWB and The Conclave have been intertwined with generations of radio careers, Mark Bolke receives the organization’s highest honor.
That feels right.
Dave Chachi Denes Gets His Rockwell
Then there is Dave Chachi Denes. One of the nicest guys in the world. In fact, he would give you the shirt off of his back and has been there when, even I needed him most. Thank you, Chachi and we love you!!!
His career began in 1996 at Star 100.7 KFMB in San Diego. He later worked with Rick Dees at KIIS-FM, moved into operations at KBIG and KOST and, at only 28, became Program Director of KBIG in Los Angeles.
Twenty-eight.
Program Director.
Los Angeles.
Some of us were still trying to figure out how to submit vacation requests correctly at 28.
😂
Denes eventually helped create Benztown in 2008 with Andreas Sannemann and Oliver Klenk.
What followed became an international audio operation spanning imaging, production, syndication, voiceover, programming and podcasting, with thousands of affiliations across six continents.
But the Rockwell isn’t merely about scale.
It’s about contribution.
Chachi has spent years championing radio’s creative people — the producers, imaging specialists, voices and behind-the-scenes audio craftspeople whose work makes stations sound bigger than the rooms they’re sitting in.
Radio celebrates the person holding the microphone.
Chachi has spent a career celebrating many of the people who make that microphone sound incredible.
Today radio celebrated him.
Joe Knapp Gets His Rockwell
Joe Knapp may have one of the most wonderfully radio beginnings imaginable.
At 11 years old, he built his own transmitter.
Eventually the FCC suggested that perhaps young Joe might want to familiarize himself with the rules.
😂
Fortunately for radio, he didn’t take that as a suggestion to find another hobby.
Knapp earned his First Class FCC license at 18 and built a career spanning engineering, programming and station construction. In 1983, he helped put Z100 New York on the air alongside Scott Shannon.
Yes.
THAT Z100.
But another project Knapp started while working in Milwaukee would quietly change radio stations around the world.
He wrote software to replace an unreliable card-based music scheduling system.
That project eventually became MusicMaster.
If you have ever stared at a music log wondering why the software decided those two songs belonged three records apart, you may now direct your questions toward today’s Rockwell recipient.
😂
But seriously, think about how many programmers have touched tools descended from the work Knapp began.
How many stations.
How many formats.
How many music logs.
How many songs.
How many listeners.
Radio technology often becomes invisible once everybody depends on it.
Joe Knapp helped build some of that invisible infrastructure.
Today, The Conclave made sure the man wasn’t invisible.
Lori Lewis Gets Her Rockwell
There are people who recognize where radio is going before radio decides it wants to go there.
Lori Lewis was one of them.
Her career started on the air and moved into programming, including an award-winning run as a programmer in Baltimore. But in 2008, when much of radio still treated Facebook as something the intern handled after lunch, Lewis moved aggressively into digital audience development. She created a social strategy role at Midwest Communications, later joined Jacobs Media as its digital and social strategist and subsequently held senior social-media positions with Cumulus Media and Westwood One before launching Lori Lewis Media.
She also spent nine years chairing The Conclave, from 2015 into 2024.
Nine years.
Think about what that means.
Conferences don’t magically appear because somebody orders name badges.
People build them.
People recruit speakers.
People make calls.
People find sponsors.
People solve disasters nobody attending the conference ever knows happened.
People keep the mission alive.
Lori did that while simultaneously trying to drag radio into a digital world that kept changing faster than most companies could schedule a meeting about it.
Now, at The Last Conclave, the organization she helped lead gives her its highest individual honor.
There is some beautiful symmetry in that.
Dan Seeman Gets His Rockwell In His Own Backyard
And then there’s Dan Seeman.
This one is particularly Minnesota.
Seeman’s Twin Cities radio career started as an intern at WLOL 99½, back when the legendary CHR was battling for Minneapolis ears.
From there came nearly three decades across promotions, marketing, sales and management.
KFAN.
K102.
Cities 97.
KOOL 108.
KDWB.
And eventually Hubbard Radio Minneapolis, where he oversees a group including KS95, myTalk 107.1 and 1500 ESPN along with Hubbard’s regional operations.
But here’s the part of Seeman’s résumé that belongs in a Rockwell story.
Community.
Stations under his leadership have earned multiple NAB Crystal Awards, a Service to America Award and Gracie recognition for community service. His own involvement has extended across organizations ranging from the Ronald McDonald House and Pavek Museum of Broadcasting to Minneapolis civic, education and arts groups.
That’s what local radio leadership looks like when the title on the business card actually means something.
And today, in the Twin Cities market where he built his career, Dan Seeman received The Conclave’s highest honor.
Home field.
Final Conclave.
Rockwell Award.
That’s a pretty good radio day.
Six Careers And Almost Every Corner Of Radio
Look at this class again.
Herb Hoppe — ownership and local broadcasting.
Mark Bolke — programming, technology and Conclave leadership.
Dave Chachi Denes — programming, imaging and audio creativity.
Joe Knapp — engineering, programming and music technology.
Lori Lewis — programming, digital transformation and years of Conclave leadership.
Dan Seeman — management, community service and Twin Cities broadcasting.
That’s not accidental.
That’s radio.
Owner.
Programmer.
Engineer.
Creator.
Technologist.
Digital strategist.
Manager.
Mentor.
Community leader.
Six people whose careers took completely different routes through the same crazy business.
And today all six roads led to the same room.
This Is Why The Rockwell Was Different
Since 1989, the Rockwell has represented something The Conclave understood extraordinarily well.
The greatest broadcasters aren’t necessarily the ones whose names the audience knows.
Some are.
Many aren’t.
Some sit behind microphones.
Others sit behind consoles.
Some build companies.
Some build software.
Some build stations.
Some build careers.
And the very best of them?
They build people.
That’s what mentorship does.
Your ratings eventually disappear.
Your market rank changes.
Your title gets replaced.
Your company gets sold.
Your station changes formats.
Somebody remodels the studio and throws your favorite chair into a dumpster.
😂
That’s radio.
But somebody you helped twenty-five years ago remembers.
Somebody you hired remembers.
Somebody you encouraged remembers.
Somebody you introduced to the right person remembers.
Somebody who was ready to leave radio remembers the conversation that made them stay.
THAT’S LEGACY.
And that’s why the Rockwell mattered.
And Today It Hit Different
There was another reality hanging over today’s luncheon.
There won’t be another one of these next year.
The Conclave has gathered broadcasters for nearly half a century. This week’s 45th gathering is its last.
So when those Rockwell names were called today, we weren’t simply adding six people to a list.
We were completing it.
Think about that.
The award began in 1989.
Today, in 2026, its final Conclave class was honored.
Thirty-seven years of Rockwells.
Generations of radio people.
And one final luncheon.
The On The Dial Perspective
I sat there today thinking about something.
Radio spends an enormous amount of time measuring itself.
Ratings.
Revenue.
Cume.
Share.
TSL.
Digital impressions.
Podcast downloads.
Social engagement.
Quarterly earnings.
We can measure damn near everything.
But the Rockwell Award has always tried to recognize the thing that’s hardest to put into a spreadsheet:
WHAT DID YOU LEAVE BEHIND
Not money.
Not ratings.
Not titles.
People.
Ideas.
Opportunities.
Standards.
Relationships.
A better industry than the one you inherited.
That is why today mattered.
Herb Hoppe didn’t simply build stations.
Mark Bolke didn’t simply program them.
Chachi Denes didn’t simply image them.
Joe Knapp didn’t simply build technology for them.
Lori Lewis didn’t simply teach them how to navigate another platform.
Dan Seeman didn’t simply manage them.
THEY CONTRIBUTED TO RADIO
And somewhere along the way, each contributed to the people who make it.
That’s bigger.
That’s the Rockwell.
One Last Time
So here we are.
The Last Conclave.
The final Rockwell Awards.
Herb Hoppe.
Mark Bolke.
Dave Chachi Denes.
Joe Knapp.
Lori Lewis.
Dan Seeman.
Six names added permanently to a tradition that began before smartphones, before streaming, before consolidation, before social media, before podcasts and before most of us could have imagined what radio would become.
The technology changed.
The companies changed.
The dashboards changed.
The studios changed.
The business changed.
But the thing The Conclave understood all along never did.
RADIO IS PEOPLE
People teaching people.
People helping people.
People believing in people.
People opening doors for people.
People passing along what somebody once took the time to teach them.
And today, radio said thank you.
Not with another ratings trophy.
Not with another industry plaque.
With the highest individual honor The Conclave could give.
THE ROCKWELL AWARD
For the last time at The Conclave.
And damn, what a class to bring it home.
Congratulations to the 2026 Conclave Rockwell Award recipients:
HERB HOPPE
MARK BOLKE
DAVE CHACHI DENES
JOE KNAPP
LORI LEWIS
DAN SEEMAN
The final class.
The highest honor.
A lifetime of radio.
And a permanent place in Conclave history.
From all of us at On The Dial — congratulations.
You earned the Rockwell.
And today, radio stood and remembered why.
— Steven Mills
President and Publisher
On The Dial
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