Crimson and Gold Connection; Tim Metcalf

Welcome to Crimson & Gold Connection, I am Dustin Traiber. I begin today's Crimson & Gold connection on a sad note, as many listeners are aware KRPS General Manager Missy Kelly passed away on Thursday, March 16 after a brief but courageous battle with cancer. Missy had just turned 50 on February 1st. She was the longest tenure general manager in the history of KRPS. She was a huge fan of the Kansas City Royals. Missy and her husband Chris Kelly, rarely a misty pit state basketball game. She was a huge Disney fan and loved her 4 house cats. Missy poured her heart and soul into KRPS and she will be greatly missed. Of course Missy's passing brings into question the future of KRPS. And that brings us to today's guest. A voice many longtime listeners will remember former KRPS program director and current interim general manager Tim Metcalf. Tim, welcome today. Thank you Dustin. I appreciate it. You left in 2013 from KRPS and moved on to other adventures and will tell us a little about what you've been doing over the years. First of all, I want to say that my thoughts go out to Missy's family and friends and of

course her family here at Pittsburgh State and at KRPS. As for myself, I spent the past few years in marketing and in television advertising sales. So I've moved on but still kept a foot in my passion that I have which is broadcasting. And unfortunately Missy's passing kind of happened at the time where we were already short staffed. Some of you may have heard my voice on the air now in the mornings, Michael Karin has moved on to a different position. And so now I'm kind of doing everything right now. So when you found out that Missy's passing you volunteered to help us out. Correct. The stations always meant a lot to me and I was really sad, very sad to hear about Missy's passing. But knowing the station as well as I did, I worked here for about 13 years. I thought perhaps there was some way that I could step in and help out. I mean, the staff here at KRPS, regardless of the era, has always been small but mighty from the front office administrative staff to the professional broadcasters, to students

to the volunteer staff. But I think the station has been under some good leadership under Missy's tenure and hopefully we can continue that. Sure, this is one of the smallest, this is the smallest radio staff I've ever worked for. So it does take a lot of work behind the scenes and that made you a great candidate to be at our interim and possibly full time in the future. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens with that as I said, everyone always wears a lot of hats around a radio station, an operation like this. And you've taken on some additional roles yourself and you sound great and you're serving the listeners of KRPS very well doing so. And as the acting general manager, certainly appreciate what everyone is doing here to keep things rolling and keep the station on the air 168 hours a week. Oh, yeah. Basically, when you first came in, you're like, how can I help? And I said, you just learn you're part of it. Right.

And we'll probably get you back on the air at least for a little while until we do Phil Michael's spot. In the meantime, I'm really trying to give you your space because there is a lot of things that you have to learn because I mean, I sure don't know a thing, but with the general manager, there's so many legal things, FCC rules, public radio rules and things that you've dealt with, maybe slightly a little bit over the 13 years, but you're definitely going to know a lot of this more than I will. Right, right. Well, we'll come up into it. Well, we're in the spring already. So it's time for a spring fundraiser once you've encouraged folks, obviously, to continue to support KRPS. It's still a great radio station that it's always been and will continue to be. So there's the coordination of that that needs to happen. That falls mostly on my shoulders and as well as the rest of the staff you included. There are some CPB grants that need to be taken care of in pretty short order in order to keep KRPS funding where it needs to be. And as always, listeners becoming members and supporting KRPS are the single largest source of revenue that the station has.

So it's really important that members continue to support what they enjoy listening to. You've only been here for a week. So obviously that is the planning stages of our membership campaign. When can we expect to do that? And are we going to do the pre-campaign? And that helps a lot. It does. When we do that pre-campaign and we're asking people to go ahead and call before we actually get on the air and do all this live stuff asking over and over and over. If you can, I mean, anybody that can help now, right, it's just a nice general reminder. You know, folks get really relaxed listening to the radio and listening to what KRPS offers in. And maybe sometimes they forget what all it takes to keep the station going. So yeah, we will be doing a pre-campaign over the next couple of weeks. And we plan to do an abbreviated membership campaign toward the end of April. So stay tuned for that. But in the end room, go ahead and make that phone call during business hours and make your pledge or go online and do it there. 620-235-4288 is the business number.

Nkrps.org, you can go there and find out more information on becoming a member. And that really saves us time and money because we don't have to mail out things to our current members. A lot of members just tend to wait until we do that campaign do it now because it really does help us out and helps you as the listener because that keeps KRPS on the air. Exactly. KRPS, as long-time listeners and members know, KRPS has always been kind of a lean machine when it comes to fundraising for exactly what the station needs to keep sounding the way that they want it to sound. So when you're thinking about making that maybe that first-time pledge to KRPS or continuing your support of KRPS, keep that in mind that we don't ask for any more than we need. It's absolutely what keeps the station going. So make your pledge. Tim, is there anything else you want to add before we end our segment here? Well, Dustin, it's kind of a bittersweet opportunity for me to be back in the hallways of KRPS, as I said earlier, that Missy will be missed by not only her family but the KRPS and the Pitt State family.

And I just hope that I can live up to the leadership that she has established here at KRPS and continue to do justice to this great community service entity that this public radio station has become over the past nearly 30 years now. So again, I want to say thanks to just for the opportunity of being here and thanks to you for having me on Crimson and Gold Connection. Well, I want to thank you because I've only been here for less than a year. So having somebody that's been here for 13 plus years, along with Matt and Bryna, I mean, you guys have all done a wonderful job over the years, keep us on the air. So I want to thank you for all that you're doing and we'll be doing here at KRPS. Thank you, Tim Metcalf, for coming in here and speaking with us on Crimson and Gold Connection. Thank you.