from the KZUM vault: a team of volunteers in the 1980s
[Editor’s note: HN contributor Casey Welsch wrote this guest column to support 89.3 FM KZUM’s Soundbackers Union, a fundraising drive running now through Friday at 1 p.m. Give to Nebraska’s only community radio station online at kzum.org or via phone by calling 402.474.5086 ext. 1. See more info here.]
by Casey Welsch, aka Polar Bear
I was sitting on the armrest of my dad’s combine harvester, him at the controls, as we cut back and forth through fields of milo in perfectly straight lines.
I loved riding in the combine, watching the complex gears and belts work together in a frightful dance of blades and rotors that hacked through the thick crop smoother than a razor through stubble. My dad could run the machine almost on reflex, barely having to think about the tedious task he’d done countless times before.
The combine didn’t have a tape player, so we listened to the radio. Dad would switch back and forth between AM and FM, listening to KRVN 880 out of Lexington for the ag markets, and KUTT 99.5 out of Fairbury for Garth Brooks and George Strait and all our favorites of the day. I’d sing along with Brooks’ “Longneck Bottle,” thinking it was about Pepsi.
On this specific day when I was 9 years old, I remember more than the country music I loved so well at the time. I remember a man talking, telling a story about a long-dead historical figure. That man on the radio was the great American broadcaster Paul Harvey, and the program was his famous “The Rest of the Story.” He would tell stories about people who played supporting roles in history, never revealing their names until the end of the program, leaving it up to the listener to guess who he was talking about.
On this day, Harvey’s subject ended up being Mary Todd Lincoln, Abe’s wife, and I had no idea who she was at the time, but I spent the whole four minutes enthralled at that story, shouting out dozens of guesses at the radio. That was the first day I noticed radio for what it was, and Paul Harvey for who he was. I asked my dad about it and he said Paul Harvey was one of the most well-known and respected people in the country, that millions of people listened to him every day. I could hear why.
That day, Paul Harvey planted a seed that has grown like a field of milo in me ever since. I wanted to be him, and still do: I want to be a master storyteller, an advocate for the common man and a calm, deep voice of reason in an ever-churning world of bad news.
You don’t hear many Paul Harveys on the air anymore. The commercial and public airwaves are clogged with profit-focused, corporately controlled broadcasters who do little to enrich the lives of their listeners and everything to fill the pockets of their advertisers and underwriters. But there is an alternative: community radio.
Community radio operates in defiance of the big media conglomerates and all their money, choosing instead to get back to the art of radio and broadcasting’s original purpose: to connect people with each other and their communities. And it takes a large pool of local volunteers to do that.
Yes, it’s unpaid volunteers that keep community radio alive. The stations of course have a few paid employees to keep things running smoothly in the trenches, but everything on the air is crafted and curated by people who do it because they have a commitment to the art of radio. Every piece of music is hand-picked by true lovers of the art. Every news segment is community-focused, reported and interpreted by regular people who live in the community it affects. Every feature is locally produced, and you’ll find no stronger advocate or outlet for local music than community radio — other than Hear Nebraska, perhaps.
There are scarcely 200 community radio stations operating in the United States today. There is only one in Nebraska: KZUM 89.3 broadcasting out of Lincoln to most of Lancaster county, streaming worldwide on kzum.org. KZUM has a 35-year history of community-powered broadcasting and is powered by more than 100 volunteers who give their time freely each week to play the music they love for an audience who craves it. Volunteers produce shows on a variety of local topics ranging from the environment to food to health to pets to women’s issues to local government and beyond, all staffed by volunteers who care deeply about their chosen topics.
Full disclosure, I’m one of them.
It’s KZUM that broadcasts Hear Nebraska’s own weekly radio show, Hear Nebraska FM, and they don’t tell us what to do. We have full control of our weekly program, what we play, who we book for live performances and what we talk about. It’s their love of local music and the community of Nebraska that allows us to put our love of the same on the airwaves. And we thank them for it.
Many of the volunteers on KZUM have been producing their programs for years, some for decades, a select few since the station’s founding in 1978. Not one of them would give up what they do for the world, and not one would accept a penny for their time. They do it because they love it. However, physically operating a community radio station is not free.
Licensing a radio station isn’t cheap, neither is transmitting it, or renting studio space, or paying the electric bill, or streaming it worldwide, or paying the small full-time staff to schedule it, maintain the transmitters and manage the budget. KZUM, like all community radio stations, does receive some of its funding from the federal government, but it only amounts to about a third of the station’s annual operating budget.
KZUM is community-funded by pledges and donations from its loyal listeners and supporters, thousands of citizens strong. Even so, the costs of radio are rising with the costs of everything else, and KZUM needs to grow this support base to continue to broadcast, the alternative being they pull the plug and go off the air for good.
This isn’t an empty threat, either. The costs are real, the threat of not meeting those costs is likewise real. But hopefully the community KZUM works so hard to support and enrich will rise to the call of supporting KZUM in turn.
KZUM is smack in the middle of its summer fundraiser, and this time around, they’ve got a different kind of incentive to donate. Rather than pledging money to become a member supporter of the station, from now until 1 p.m. Friday, donations of $35 or more will enroll people in the brand new Soundbacker’s Union, an exclusive club of community radio-loving people who love KZUM for its most precious commodity, the volunteer-produced original programming.
The Soundbacker’s Union is a unique fraternity, and apart from offering members exclusive, personally made Soundbacker swag, it also offers members exclusive monthly chances to win music from KZUM’s extensive vault, compiled over decades of curation, as well as free tickets to KZUM partnered shows and events. It will also offer regular discounts to these events for all members. $35 is the minimum donation to become an official Soundbacker, but KZUM will accept any dollar amount from anyone who just wants to support community radio. You can call into any KZUM program night or day to donate at 402.474.5086 ext. 1, or you can donate online at kzum.org using the extremely simple online process. There are several donation levels, each with its own incentive, and more information is available here.
KZUM, and community radio in general, will be there for the community as long as the community remains there for them. So please consider donating. And in Clear Channel’s world, KZUM and others like it are the only stations keeping the art of radio alive and thriving. So consider the art of radio. Consider the community of radio. Consider the enchantment and inspiration a young boy felt as he sat in a combine with his dad, listening to radio as it once was, and still is on KZUM. With the community’s support, KZUM will persist for decades to come, and so will the art of radio. And with that, now you know…
the rest of the story.
R.I.P. Paul Harvey 1918-2009
Casey Welsch is a contributor to Hear Nebraska and the host of Hear Nebraska FM on 89.3 KZUM, Thursday evenings 6-7. He also hosts his own show on KZUM called Play That Funky Music White Boy, Wednesday nights from 11-midnight, and encourages you to listen and donate. You can contact him at casey.welsch@gmail.com.