Garrison Keillor to Say So Long to Lake Wobegon

Garrison Keillor, the creator and host of A Prairie Home Companion, says he is retiring next year.

Keillor has hinted at retirement before, but this time he’s serious, the Associated Press reports. He has set up sometime-guest host Chris Thile to take over as host after Keillor’s last show in July 2016. Thile, who is a member of the bands Punch Brothers and Nickel Creek, will carry on the show’s musical heritage.

Keillor has hosted A Prairie Home Companion since 1974, with 4 million listeners tuning in every week. He will start a farewell tour, “America the Beautiful,” next week.

This may not in fact be his last encounter with the fictional Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon; he says he’s working on a screenplay about a young man returning to the town after his father’s death. He previously brought Wobegon in a slightly different format to the silver screen in 2006’s A Prairie Home Companion, which focused on the last day of a radio show.

In Keillor’s words, “That’s the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and all the children are above average.”

Read Next: TIME’s 1985 Cover Story on Keillor