Happy 60th, KANU! Part Two

this tuesday a new and more and gowns for you hear the best in music and music added that today npr presenting we continue celebrating ten and use sixty years on the air i'm kay macintyre we'll revisit some cayenne new shows past and present and hear from any of the people on the air and behind the scenes that have helped bring k n u and kansas public radio to life over the years it's hard to in this book and have been broadcasting at the university of kansas last week we went back to the earliest days of paying you including the j hob school of the air and make a huge sports network if you missed that program you can find it archived at our web site at pr that hate you dai ichi you know when kate and you first sign on the air in september nineteen fifty two it was only for a few hours each day we didn't broadcast at all on saturdays unless there was a cave football or basketball game or other special events by nineteen fifty five k n u with on the air seven days a week from one to

eleven pm morning broadcast began in nineteen sixty in those days and you didn't start our day as we do now with morning edition in fact there was no morning edition and no national public radio npr got it start in nineteen seventy one with cayenne you as a charter member that relationship would dramatically change the way kay and you delivered news programming in nineteen sixty eight just tell you well different things were we were not in an are connected to any network tom doyle was director of engineering aka and you in the nineteen seventies he now serves on kansas public radio's advisory board and seventy one npr came along and that was the first time we were actually interconnected and then we went on to curry live the watergate hearings that stuff so that really i always thought was a turning point a pivotal point in the

history of the station part of that everything we did was look we produce to be pretty much all things considered debuted on npr and kplu on march third nineteen seventy one in nineteen seventy three all things considered hit the road for the first time with three days of broadcast originating from aka new studios at the end of that week all things considered host susan stamberg spoke at a rededication ceremony forte and you know i like the word rededication and i like what we're doing here today education is a factor a casting like we'll work to harden here too much smoke too many cigarettes and we get to riled up a mistake so a little bit too ecstatic about successes we spend too many hours for two little pay honing polishing and telephoning in reading researching taping lugging around equipment squinting other buttons and needles and razor blades and sticky pieces of tape in

wire service copy wires suppliers of family familiar to most of your also soldering irons all of this just to produce a few evanescent moments which go out from our studios and hovering near and then i'm gone live well to inform of course and to divide the alliance partly i think it's it go it's the fulfillment that comes from being hurt sharing an idea of the workings of information of some passages of music people in engineering it's a fascination of technology perfectly calibrated systems which can transmit sound impact latest percent or whole they were making some kind of a difference but some thirty seconds of what we do we'll speak to a listener's mo i'm or hard workout and somehow expand his eu members and maybe changes like their offense

and it's a little bit pretentious to the party i think it's true that dedication part and today to this rededication we're saying it's worth it and will do it more and better and worse and harder because it's worth it i we need to raise thirty nine years later susan stamberg returned to lawrence where she spoke at the university of kansas leed center and remembered her nineteen seventy three thousand i was as you've heard how hosting npr's flagship and only program in those days all things considered and for the very first time we took the show on the road and when you think we came right here to lawrence and very kindly i was put up in the university president's guest cottage and i was asked to sign the guest book well of course happy to do that i wrote susan stamberg national public radio a

network of seventy public radio stations across the country non commercial we have about seventy seventy thousand probably listeners i went on and on what's happening that i had to explain who we were and then i thought i'll see who else has ever stayed here and i turned back and cage and on the page two words aaron copeland with the advent of npr is all things considered in nineteen seventy one k n u ramped up our own news programming in nineteen seventy two katie and you hired our first news director university of kansas graduate student named bill red line now with debbie atm you the npr affiliate in washington dc at the time of the station really wasn't prepared for her move the curve on him one of the main studios where we were going to be doing our newscasts woes the pipe organ and they're really not much

else of the bench for the urine and little else i'm so ugly the assembled disassembled the pipe organ and laughter then so we had something to sell on your newscasts for those early days while they actually constructed a studio or we could do a newscast loud sitting on the announcers lap in the studio it was a task setting up a new apartment because we were starting from scratch we didn't want to duplicate what was already being done and done rather well of kalw amman certainly i'm lawrence journal world and so we've kind of turned our focus to state her political moves the state capital being close by and they kept it was something that we could cover it was something that the was not getting full time broadcast reporting recently about full time radio broadcast reporting at that point

so we're started by a parade elections and eventually moved on to more regular coverage of the legislature and the governor's office and the other executive branch offices and that seemed to work pretty well it was a subject of their interest in the number of people in a sense of course the university was tied him so closely with the situation and they get it that it had a ready audience in lawrence the nineteen seventies were an exciting time aka new not just because the news department was just getting off the ground but because of the news itself again bill redmon it was a very interesting time and large over all of course vietnam war was still underway in the early part of it and there were huge demonstrations at one point the student union burned down the other was a piling up for bill hall the governor troops and i covered

all that along with the rest of the news folks work at a new i'm not alone that work and again you know that the experience that you don't always get besides all things considered page news may news program in the nineteen seventies was an hour long show called k n u almanac described as a pleasant at noon our package of in depth news whether public affairs our features conversation commentary and lunchtime camaraderie when cayenne you're hired darrell brogdon as our new program director one of his first recommendations dropped a venue almanac and pick up npr is morning edition well it was a big change that we met in nineteen eighty three because when i came here in eighty two we broadcast classical music every morning until known and only we did a news program and then we did a jazz program and then we did another don't want all things considered at four and morning edition and on the air for about a year at that time and

was incredibly successful and iowa's was attracting large audiences and our audience in the early morning was very very small at that time and then we looked at the numbers and realize that there's a bubble burst successful public radio show that his drawing large audiences and what we're doing isn't sold maybe we need to adjust radio you're always adjusting to what the audience is telling you that one and so there was a big big change i i have a thick stack of this was before the internet before emails and i i fight that may still have it i had a thick file of angry letters from people who were very unhappy with the fact that there was no more classical music in the morning people telling me that i would rot in

hell for making this change so yeah that was a for the first big programming change i made at the coming year was to get to bring morning edition on and a prairie home companion howard hill was stationed director when those two programs joined our lineup and the decision was made to retire the noon news program k n u almanac at just thirty years younger richer people expected a losing game but they don't tune in for another big change in the nineteen seventies was hiring a full time reporter at the state capital one of the first people to hold that job was jim mclean who can't aka and you as a student intern in nineteen eighty that hired to lead the statehouse bureau and eventually became news director we're still particular are established as a and m a minute presence at the statehouse mean we were there with the associated press united press international which has since gone out of business in stark has the story

i mean there were the state house press corps has been about the next nothing but in those days in new york a lot of competition and will this be the koran among reporters who are covering that be so at that point you know publicly owned kplu specifically was trying to break into the club and i don't want another element of excitement to the job as if the job was an exciting enough there was always that added danger inherent in doing live radio tim mcclean remembers one particular broadcast in the nineteen eighties when morning edition was hosted by frank seeley and a ten minute segment in the show that we try to cover with walking through every morning and you say that that job fell to me at the statehouse and i i'd windup governor current come by our bureau in the state house to do a live interview if you can believe this we give the governor to come and wipe it six forty in the morning to do an interview with you but he agreed to do it and it was now

february or something like that and we had a really heavy snow the night before and you know it i managed to get into work and opened the bureau in and was ready for the governor and so that the appointed time came for the interview to start in the cover wasn't there and yet in a week billboard of the factory gives interviews so far ike is in laurence in and even the local hosting an evil hypnotist a tattoo after quasi exactly getting to the government so there's a fight in our little ink filling time and that i hear you know somebody at that at that day in those days are or aren't getting the bureau is on the reforms the house just outside the house chambers up a set of stairs and i usually clogging up the stairs to the office incomes are current whose hollywood for carjacking and all that had gotten stuck in the snow really got out of the car and walk one way and fortunately wants to get to the statehouse who had come in a couple minutes past the appointed time was still they're ready

to do the interview and i was so glad to see in prison not a maternal that really know no sooner had gotten seated there next to me and one of the controls well you know i ask you a question and of course you were sort of rough and could barely give birth at a question scientists and papa mike potter back up and buy items again those images that are flush with me just like it was yesterday but a little like about how times have changed though in trying to establish ourselves of the state doesn't oppose a big crew getting to govern to come on to do a live interview with janusz really governor anywhere these days who would agree to something like that united's six forty five national public radio would continue to dramatically shaped the way clay and you produced news and public affairs programming in nineteen ninety four k n u was one of five organizations chosen by npr to participate in a national public election project broadcasting an extensive series of debates featuring a panel of voters hello and welcome mind

mccain statehouse bureau chief for kansas public radio on november eighth kansans will have to choose between two men who want to be the state's next governor democrat jim slattery who was so the second district of kansas in the us congress for the last twelve years all republican secretary of state bill graves who's held that office since nineteen eighty six as part of the kansas public radio on election project we recently brought both candidates together to discuss the campaign's major issues with a group of flies undecided voters the event was moderated by kbr managing editor vance high near the first question came from andy anderson who is concerned about how the two candidates plan to pay for their elaborate economic and social programs once in office very good question first first of all the proposals that i have made in the area of education can be funded out of existing state resources and the growth in state revenues i made a commitment to stay and a favorite number of us election project one that was

before facebook before a white beauty interact and tyner was at katyn you from nineteen ninety to nineteen ninety six and the public had begun at that point to truly become engaged and truly become unaware of what was going on in and they were political wife and it was a pure the idea that we could reinvigorate the process by bringing the community and citizens into the process again and try to get them engaged of that that there would be a sort of synergistic effect and there were accord for fire stations around the country and k in kansas public radio was selected because we had a reputation for going beneath the surface with the news coverage and we had a very good relationship with npr we that have a lot of stories in for station in our our side very well known for are doing high quality product for national public radio so we were selected to be part of the process and tyner says the nineteen ninety four pilot project was

intended to determine how the next election would be covered cayenne you participated again in the election project in nineteen ninety six i also remembers another big issue from his time as cayenne use news director we did a pretty significant amount of coverage on the abortion controversy and if you rewind the clock that many years you can remember that the abortion controversy in this country was about as bad as it has ever been people think the culture wars are bad now well in kansas especially done in wichita things were about as divisive and violent as they could get you really had a pressure cooker our hands and i'm pretty proud of how kansas public radio covered that story we get a national call in program was syndicated around the country and had a number of prominent guests and oh we won several awards for coverage i think the rehearsal out of it is that we really had to walk a very fine line to be

objective journalist which i think we were so i say objective journalists out of my stuff because nobody knew what we thought about the subject but we did a very good job of making sure that the questions we're asking an important at once and that be the book was well served by coverage in rap speaking better informed i like to think maybe even got to the point of beginning to consider more than one side of the story it's tighter was a great teacher of writing and using sound in pieces steve lickteig hosted morning edition akshay g n u in the nineteen nineties and ask questions the right way robin hilton taught me a lot about the stuff you darrell brogdon taught me a lot about just as radio about how to be a better morning edition host you know for promoting and all the sort of little particulars of love a radio hour that you know this would make this required to be a host and an annuity that stuff the stuff so

i ever live broadcast the mayor is driving me to the middle of americans we're on a one mile stretch of black tom they're dead ends at the exact center of the forty eight states as a picnic shelter nearby a long abandoned us in a restaurant style that's an excerpt of the bleep eyes features story reasons to live which aired on k n u thousand players now their senior supervising producer of weekend all things considered and national public radio in two thousand k n u received a grant from the kansas health foundation and set out to expand our news coverage in a very specific way kansas kids a prescription for change focused on children's health issues the first installment of kansas kids by kbr is bryan thompson hit the airwaves is doing in

terms of children's health well as is so often the jews who loses both good and then the kansas health foundation and katie are later expanded the focus of this series to include adult health issues as well health and politics continue to be an important part of k pr as news coverage in our sixtieth year broadcasting kbr news director jay shafer i think our governing philosophy is as hard as we try and as much as we would like to we cannot be all things to all people at all times c have to decide with limited resources relatively small size staff what's the most good that we can do what are the stories that we can effectively tell that are important to the majority of the people in our audience i think as a governing principle for us it's it's do we spend time on this story that affects a small constituency order we tackle bigger and oftentimes more complicated topics that speak to everyone or most everyone in our

audience so i think that that's kind of the philosophy that we live and die by him and it was a philosophy that was in place before i came here in nineteen eighty five so i'm kind of carrying on are trying to carry on this of the same philosophy of trying to tackle the big issues of the day that affect all kansans along with news kal neil has always been committed to music programming is especially classical music and dance for many years jazz a cayenne you meant just one thing dick right the stoic roy director of tea and you read your services as most jazz buffs know charlie parker was a leader of the so called bopper and hailed by many as one of the greatest figures in the history of jazz in the fall of nineteen forty parker was playing with a gym and shan band and traveled with a group on a tour through missouri kansas and oklahoma the weekend of november the thirtieth the band found itself in wichita

kansas with some free time a lot a lot of the higher density a news music library and he writes in love of jazz his organizational skills and his extensive record collection made him a perfect fit for k n u one time i had the honor of going to his house into his basement and looking his record collection marc wortman was a producer aka i knew in the nineteen seventies it was it was first of all it was a labyrinth i don't remember how many recordings he had but he had it was largely jazz but there was an awful lot of other things as well opera and whatnot but it did the the va the cases were stacked from the floor to the ceiling very neatly arranged and there were

tens of thousands of recordings there one of those reporting a nineteen eighty three album the connection saxophonist and premieres studio musician gary foster buster dedicated this on saturday ten am to his friend dick right who adapted it as a theme song for the jazz scene although he didn't write was probably best known as the host of the jazz scene saturday mornings he also played an important role in k a news evening jazz programming in nineteen seventy three jazz in the night debuted on cayenne you co hosted by dick right and program director gary severs i was drawn rather quickly to the artists who have shaped my life seem to know what i was doing that spoke to my heart barbara moore delivers the woods would you

can also reveal was my hiding place than recreation more permanent forum for you we have this little kid getting through a grim childhood alone in his room playing his record talking to himself about the little kid grew up to be me alone in the studio with my collection of twenty five thousand factories talking to myself about that i always knew radio was my call a grand prize that first got my first car testing portion he sleeps thirty seven years the first words spoken in that class not spoken by mr peretz were the essence of review is money the essence money that is why i moved to non commercial radio the essence of radio is companionship precisely the companionship of someone with a passion

windows believes and wants to share that is what drew me to it and you do educational radio then public radio again producer mr klugman when gary left the station we put on a year a little a soiree for him we called it the shivers shivering and one of the things i said at the time was that gary knew so much about jazz recordings he could take one look at the label and tell you what the artist had for breakfast and that wasn't that far from the truth he knew so much about jazz and appreciated it so much and fortunately for the rest of us was able to articulate that passion and that knowledge in a way that many people can't in nineteen eighty one just in the night and answer bobby hammond was named full time jazz director aka daniel a position he held until his sudden death in nineteen ninety

six in this archived audio but ham and snuck away from its fair share of decay and you interviewed jazz great woody herman's backstage at the lawrence opera house with a man has been called her recently on our station is a big band survivor service self renewing giant of big band jazz and the times small group jazz band that i've always found here you work as a soloist and as well as vocalist jackson woody herman i had mostly wooded said i looked of iowa cop part of the set and really the station that men cover for him for about an hour but it seems the situation was so many of the big bands these days it doesn't look like there's a face in the van over thirty years old well my bands and really these guys are comparable nation's first band i ever heard that in the late thirties so i don't think of it as being an unusual source that when approached a bandleader begins to look like that plant that three

of the damn boy and you know it's very obvious that there is a big difference in age and the band one of the listeners to bother him and jazz in the knight program was a university of kansas student named bobick williams kate and use current jazz director long before i had any idea i would either be doing radio or be doing radio kansas public radio i sort of listing two k n u in the mid seventies when i was a student here at the university of kansas i come here and discover jack's had a roommate to play piano specifically trumpet answer getting into jazz and didn't know much about and they said we should listen to tan you get right on on a sunday morning to the jasper like during the week and i started doing that and i love that enough that not a poor student i became a student member ok and you know i think it was ten dollars and answered phones are in a thunderous which

is when i met dick right for the first time and that got him and i hosted most nights are jasmine i think maybe in the seventies there were two or three hosts you eventually be the host i would call up and make requests and stuff and i didn't know very much at an issue a down beat something up five star so called political settlement will manage the project that sell playful in the nineteen eighties local programs like jazz and the night and the chants mean we're joined by blues in the night with kyle nowhere and the vintage and so with michel martin manahan those django reinhardt playing his own composition bouncing around record nineteen thirty seven good morning i'm michael moore and this is a vintage air show doing the show

today on the european gypsy guitarist django reinhardt with their lawyers were more exotic characters and they're in jazz history before war to avert i would say probably before the fifties the nineteen eighties bryan another changing cayenne use jazz programming live at the jazz house a weekly broadcast of top notch performers from what was then a private club in downtown lawrence the very first live at the jazz has featured a kansas city sound of savings and in this broadcast from november nineteen eighty two those books stan getz janet shannon who of ellison and barney kessel came and claiming we had legendary jazz players come in practice a bit in that show again katie our

program director darrell brogdon went on the air at ten o'clock on saturday night for italy broadcasting two am everybody else was listening but those rules are interesting podcast i'd learned one thing i learned from from doing live at the jazz house is that apparently nobody ever tells jazz musicians anything because week in and week out these star performers would arrive at the jazz house for sound check and their management hadn't told him anything about us about the fact that we were going to be there broadcasting it so i always knew the first thing i was going to have to do when the performers arrive was explained to them who we were what we were doing and sometimes those were were pretty conversation skids an ensemble political me anything common at them or my and that's a reasonable reaction to to being in the dark like that but

and i always knew that there was usually the first conversation i was going to have a jazz else on saturday afternoon were suddenly single there've been many changes in the world of jazz since k n u began broadcasting in nineteen fifty two that kansas public radio's commitment to jazz programming has remained strong over the years again jazz director but then williams you know jazz is ever changing and so the way that the we do to have radio here k pr it's changing as well are the music changed since the time that the right was going to radio change this time bob graham it's also even changing since i've i've been and so i think there's there's probably a broader spectrum of what we play in terms of bringing in more world rhythms you've got young artists it are not playing hip hop but clearly have those elements but one thing i think is because it was really we try to play all respective historically of the music which means that it's not very often i will still go back and play something out of the nineteen twenties or nineteen

thirties while still playing the music of the day and the things that are the danger in between and i know for myself i strive and david bassett who am i recommend strongly we hire you to hire a permanent replacement for dick after his death we were just kind of scrambling for a while there when an arms davis guinness will appoint new releases like it i'm pretty sure we play a higher percentage of new releases why know we do then when i was started here nearly thirty years ago i think a part of that is a dedication to this is a vibrant music now we have to focus on on the music now but you know we're still we play some don't have singers with big bands we have pretty adventuresome stuff we're pretty conservative stuff on but i think focus on on a new music and new releases and wear dresses going is probably more pronounced than what it was that what it was twenty or thirty four years ago about there's a lot of similarities oh we're still strongly committed to play

the boston area musicians that was true you know and it was alive and bob was a life we focus strongly on highlighting the music of people who played her on a regular basis and on highlighting people who are coming to the kansas city lawrence topeka manhattan area below to preview upcoming appearances so we do those things and there are some things that are different one eye chart listed at anew we didn't have overnight radio when i started a new wooden over my radio not to mention i was the first prisoner over iranian or three years ago the cost factor of staffing now overnight live announcers was just prohibitive but at the same time a satellite automation technology made it possible for success to carry on my jazz and we've done that and it would've been used as easy to put other things in there and we've stuck with jazz and pretty remarkable because jazz programming around the country has really been has been greatly slifer eliminated at the station a crustacean a crustacean rather

alarming to people like me who are dedicated to jazz and jazz radio but we've been able to a have a strong a jazz component over the years and i think it's because we've had a strong jazz support from the audience of course by mike williams wears two hats that kansas public radio in addition to being our jazz director he's also the host of trail mix our sunday folk music program trail mix traces its roots no pun intended that's around nineteen seventy when noted guitarist dan cray airy hosted a program called bluegrass bluegrass music began in nineteen forty five with bill monroe's bluegrass boys lester flatt earl scruggs and shelby was these four men coming from a traditional country an old time string band music and vetted by a happy accident the distinctive sound of winter and row himself contributed repertoire bill monroe would appear on k a n u in nineteen eighty four by then mike allen and rick death go where the host of a program called the flint

hills special here they are introducing bill monroe in a live broadcast from lawrence this independence day is not often in the history of music and thirty have such an unusual musical style it's formulated people all over the world begin to recognize that musical style something completely different and brand new in the world that we have tonight for some accident of history with us amanda denise invented the style of music a longtime member of the company's recall a member of the grand ole opry since nineteen thirty nine and the father of bluegrass ninety to have them present has to build a ha ha ha ha live broadcasts have also played an important part of play and use classical music programming through the years from our earliest days k n u has carried many university an

area concerts a tradition that since the nineteen eighties include broadcasting cain said oh no no it's by a pipe in two thousand won kansas public radio began broadcasting this sunflower music festival from washburn university in topeka here's an excerpt from that two thousand one broadcast the sunflower music festival orchestra performing der garten hoax igor stravinsky since moving into our new studios in two thousand free

kansas public radio has increased our number of live in house performances the debut performance from like a pr live performance studio with the new year ensemble of kansas city performing september twenty third two thousand three they're introduced here by ben music director rachael hunter when so happy this morning to have with this plot musicians were part of the near ensemble in power performance studio this is actually the very first live broadcast my wonderful new building in a wonderful new performance studio and rachel hunter and they welcome this morning to mark a likud she she plays the violin robert year ago at the piano robert is actually played live on npr before alex east shallow end time neighbor bass clarinet mlb combining here and therefore little taste of the concerts this week and what the morning till four of you the morning so this despite an suv this is robert garry got the piano and let's hear that music

again that was the debut broadcast from a k pr live performance studio about a month after we moved into our new building in two thousand three which the hunter retired in two thousand ten after twenty six years as music director e k n u when i first started the control board had parts you know which he turned the dial and you would have something up in you but something down now when they're called leaders as they slide up inside out when i started we had cards which essentially were eight track tapes that would play in certain announcements there

was a short feature you know a three minute teacher might be aired on a cart they track are at some point we had to set players that at some point it was decided they would broadcast quality like the cards once it the gps current music director is marc edwards the station has had an amazing history of serving the arts community through classical music and not only through the recorded classical music and we have a vast library but also through our live performance in our great live performance studio so i'm thrilled to you know make more connections in the end make more people aware that this is an auction additionally one of the things that we have to consider as we move forward is that the world is becoming digital and so the next great challenge for us a kansas public radio with housing our music library which is a good thirty or forty thousand cds is to have hope

move all of that into the digital age and so that's of our great challenge and something to look for two is we're move ahead from the earliest days of cayenne you specially programs have always been part of our lineup net shows that don't fit into the broader categories of classical music jazz or news k n u has fewer especially programs now than we did in the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties but they continue to be part of our programming today shows like the retro cocktail hour and at night on the town ones that show that hadn't fourteen year run on k at new was that good time radio reveal hosted by rachael hunter life and liberty half the time radio yet the storyteller that was a

fun show and she brought people on who were artists in this area he needed to be needed to have an outlet permitted people needed to hear the howard hell let's take a news station director from nineteen seventy six to nineteen ninety five and she wanted to do the show and she had the energy source of the house votes to a good time radio was good it was fun to play one of the regulars skits on the good time radio reveal and another of cayenne use specialty shows was the imagination workshop or as it's now known right between the ears the imagination workshop started out in nineteen eighty three producing radio dramas in acadia new studios at a live audience in nineteen eighty five and within a few years had switched to an all comedy format in nineteen ninety five the

imagination workshop was visited by a crew from the cbs news program sixty minutes so i was at the time of a lot of the republican revolution when newt gingrich was sort of leading the church was the contract with america and one of the things they were proposing to do a zero on funding for public broadcasting so sixty and at that time the show was on national public radio we had a relationship for about ten years with with npr with eight picked up the show and sixty minutes was doing morley safer actually was doing a piece about funding for public broadcasting and somehow on national public radio hooked him up with us and they were looking for weird unique types of shows that that exists in the public radio area so they'd end they sell a crew of camera crew on a producer who came to watch the shows and that tape just tape the audience slims of really were experienced as they were on

stage with us and we can remember coming right up to the actors and shoving cameras in their faces and stuff like that and the audience always love that of course we did a couple sketches about broadcasting president nbc is well he is saying that in a beautiful day for a neighbor my neighbor so glad to see again which you know i have bad news to a neighbor you ever get bad news mr rogers just gets really quiet means state you like magic boys and girls men in washington due yesterday yesterday they made all mr rogers say that poison now that the famine in washington have taken away his funding mr rogers has to move out of the neighborhood that's why mr rogers has to drink this medicine in you

say called forty five boys and girls and other specialty so that had a long run on k n u was the american past by calder pickett it debuted in nineteen seventy three and won a prestigious peabody award in nineteen seventy four in this excerpt from its first year he lays out the idea behind the american past an oral history so that would cover everything from the vietnam war to louis armstrong in its thirty two years on the air what do you see when you visit a museum statues of presidents in general well yes but there's a huge forty acre museum of the northern vermont with a bill in full well it's another four carriages and plows themselves or blue mason jars ball in her car and my mother used to fill in the summer when all kinds of prisoners erin those museums i have a collection of colored handbills

of movies in the thirties and my daughter's tell me i should make a museum item i could do part one of this trip down cayenne use memory lane began last week with some of the technical problems the station had in our early years so maybe it's appropriate that we end with some of the challenges we've met in later years kate and use tower collapsed in nineteen fifty before we even took the air but to be an act of vandalism strong winds not the tower down in nineteen sixty and in december nineteen eighty two the tower collapsed once again again not to be an act of vandalism station director howard now i got a call from her abroad allows homeowners in the bathrobe and daryl said can you come out of the transmitter right away there's been considerable damage yesterday early bird right and and jason burt kcur in kansas city alone as

a shorter but souls usable tower that we put up and then the construction crew hired knocked it down and and there were many words said between staff members that shouldn't be repeated on the air so there's a period of about five months when we're operating at really severely reduced power i think he could sort of your senses through just to the civil rights of thousands well it's very nice to be able to say hello and welcome to the jets even though we're late but i think it's a miracle that we're on here so if you are hearing a sunny place and i don't know if anybody is simply because you would not know we were going to be able to be back out here today and we are back thanks to the work of a lot of people especially the katy new engineers and to a wonderful sister station in kansas city kcur was so kind to loan was a tower so we could get by gandhi or least though with partial part and people who worked to help us get the tower up in turn

up and so we created a series of spots featuring the k a new wells which were basically three announcers here with her voice has speeded up and wound up doing a whole series of spots the key a new wells usually talking about these t shirts that said this guy survived a week without k n u or something to that that's right aka a new tower came down a fourth time in september nineteen ninety this time on purpose the tower was moved one third mile to the west to make room for the leed center for the performing arts at the university of kansas a disaster struck then in nineteen ninety one when lightning hit polk auditorium next door to the k n u studios and home to our

development department many of cayenne use archival tapes and photos were destroyed in that fire npr's steve liked i was the local host of morning edition at the time he covered the story along with news director rob helm was able to make my way over to the quay a new building that was there at the time the mud hut and down that they had evacuated the building but then they determined it was ok for a handful of people to be indicating a new building we went out and grabbed it had a tape recorder is an out and out sound of every interview howard hill is he's re watched hope burning and we talk to bystanders and we got a spokesperson from the fire department and all the things that you do and we came back in and cobble together a story that we broke into programming with that was it and in fact rob reiner rob works around two floors up above the right now he's worked for npr music and was to talk about that day because he has hardly any memory of it whatsoever and i have these vivid memories of and he's does remember me being

there it's like no we really a little time the next disaster to hit play and you was not physical but finance sell again former station director howard hell in my last visit kenya we ran a deficit and you can do that the shootings and so the chancellor wisely so that you got to be replaced and so he took the very kindly transferred me over university relations where i feel like that a thousand pound weight lifted off my shoulders as a new supervisors possibility of all howard hell step down in nineteen nineties seven jared campbell was appointed interim general manager she became permanent general manager of kansas public radio in june nineteen ninety eight and there are you know there were some definite financial things that had to be an tightened up and we did that and it just really i kind our belts and watch her spending and try to increase our

fundraising made a plea to our membership or underwriters and they they responded here just slowly but surely i think as everyone knows even their own household if you just start with that that the small think you're turning the thermostat down or whatever it is that that eventually it really it didn't take all that long for our of our financial picture the kind of turnaround that there were some hard hard choices here are some things that i am that including people that we had that unfortunately we had to cut back on but i think it was the membership and that pride in getting that really responded and they realized that had this is public radio and this is not a home a government radio or you know university totally supported radio it's it's me and so that really kicked in and that that made the difference within a few years kansas public radio was up for another challenge this time a welcome one on august fourteenth two thousand three k pr move from our original building the mud

hut to new facilities on the north edge of the k u campus laura lorson who was used to walk into work with the local host of morning edition at the time my my primary concern was well i'd be able to get there with enough time to a construct my newscast for morning edition to be made sure everything is coming in the way it should see nature sounds the way chitty have me not be completely out of bread from running around and being nervous and e is it all going to come in the way we think it's going to cause on the first day you never quite know the move into new broadcasting hall was a big step forward for kansas public radio but the matt had holds many memories for k n u staff past and present bill kurtis was a stigma announcer aka new in the late nineteen fifties and early sixties he's now the evening news anchor at the cbs affiliate in chicago and producer of many crime a news documentary shows very romantic

that had a critical wall that were built with the use of portals looking for them and also building throughout the flight they're found and there was a large studio und macht to control of sorts and upstairs why we have an announce booth and it was great because it's almost like a trap air traffic power you could miriam who both studio that once the colors were bright and cheerful and it was funky as you it would expect the radio studio to be from the old school says because it seems like a part of our past that's really easy to not like because it's so small and it was creative and it was a really great space but we made it to do in the same way that there are lots of facilities

on the k tempest that i really love because they're not quite right i love it warts and all it's because we have to make do and we did make do being on the year during a pledge drive and her and someone flush the toilet live on the year when this that no the air conditioning going off in the middle of the summer for unexplained reasons when this that no leaky roofs know dullness that what else can find a parking place stable miss that what else know the mud hut was no great history behind that building and that's where it belongs in history our new facilities are very visible find a big changes aka i knew that many changes have been going on behind the scenes as well steve kincaid is kbr is director of engineering i would say in a sense became you became katie knew was a nineteen fifty two more has

happened since the year two thousand then happened in radio in those first fifty years special occasion you because starting about two dozen we began planning to leave the mud hut katie's home for those first fifty years and we built this building and dr things that were also beginning to happen in radio you are starting to see more automation as the cost of labor increased automation and radio took a larger role because now you can run your station overnight and this also coincide with a rule change with the sec and luge run and then that allowed stations to run in what's called unintended know so you'd be began the seed or more influence and automation you began to see new types of equipment come out and all these kinds of things were happening at the same time

or worse r and move into this building so we're planning this that the building planning all the new equipment for the building this building isn't just virtually nothing in a lot i mean it's all digital audio the studios are connected interconnected be a fiber how to go to that and to our tower toward transmitter on fiber that we also you have satellite uplink with it a reader we uplink our dear reader we uplink gets public radio's main channel the you know the music program and also put a kbr to those go out to outlying stations which didn't exist prior to two thousand so that we have you know a network of stations now we have multiple program streams and we you know with hd and the whole invention each tear it up from the j hob school of the air to high definition radio play and you had seen many changes over the past sixty years but one thing hasn't changed our commitment to excellence in radio programming as

we look to keep ers future we hearken back to this statement from an old katie a new program died by bruce linton former head of the radio tv film department at the university of kansas for programming i'm an educational radio station has more of them cultural entertainment it must expel him a listener's awareness of his world not merely confirm of present awareness and it was bringing home woody may not even the lawmakers is not merely serviceable i am already developed this i hope you've enjoyed this trip and cayenne use memory lane as we celebrate sixty years on the air i'm kate mcintyre many thanks to charlie smith and j schafer for their help with this program kbr present is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas