About Midday Connection
Midday Connection is a live 54-minute radio program designed to encourage women, with a focus on growing the whole person: body, mind and soul. Hosted by Anita Lustrea and Melinda Schmidt, the program brings listeners relevant content about marriage, parenting, the workplace, finances and issues that affect their spiritual lives. Midday is a community of women growing together.
Hosts
Anita Lustrea is originally from Blue Hill, a beautiful oceanside town in coastal Maine. She grew up as a pastor’s kid in the north woods of Maine and always had a deep longing for spiritual things along with a desire to reach out to others. Anita attended Ben Lippen High School as a resident student. From there, she went on to major in Bible and Theology at Moody Bible Institute. Upon graduation, she traveled for a year with a Christian singing group. Before coming back to Chicago to work full-time with Moody Radio in 1984, she was a youth director to a small inner city youth group in Kansas City, Kan.
Anita’s first role for Moody Radio was music director. Later, she became Friday Sing producer and Sunday Praise host. Hosting Midday Connection has been her favorite position. Anita is a sought after speaker for women’s conferences and retreats and loves meeting Midday listeners face to face. In October, 2010, Anita’s first book, What Women Tell Me, releases from Zondervan. Anita, along with her husband, Mike, and son, John, live in the Chicago suburbs where you can often find Anita drinking a venti tea at her local Starbucks.
To learn more about Anita and her speaking schedule, please visit her website.
Melinda Schmidt grew up in Wheaton, Ill., listening to Moody Radio’s flagship station, WMBI FM. As a kid, she was eager to grab the mic of the family’s Wallensak tape machine to record make-believe news broadcasts and imaginary radio shows. Early tapes have her announcing the arrival of “the Beagles”—otherwise known as "the Beatles"—to America. A career in broadcasting appears to have been inevitable! Melinda is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and holds a B.S. in Broadcasting-Bible from Calvary Bible College.
She has served with Moody Radio since 1980 in various hosting capacities. Married with two young adult children, Melinda lives outside Chicago, loves reading, developing her creative interests and hopes to be a life-long learner.
To learn more about Melinda and her speaking schedule, please visit her website.
Producer
Lori Neff is the Senior Producer for the award-winning national radio program, Midday Connection. Lori grew up in a small town in Ohio, spending more time outside in nature than inside. She is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute. Her interests include art (looking at it and creating it), music, literature, humanitarian aid efforts, cooking, gardening, coffee, traveling, thinking, learning and spending time with her husband, John.