Photo courtesy of KSUA archives.
KSUA staff and supporters gather in this undated photograph taken sometime after 1993, when the station moved to its present frequency of 91.5 FM.

By Kristin Summerlin

For 40 years, KSUA has been more than just a student radio station. It’s been a hotbed of creativity, a launchpad for careers and a community hub that has touched the lives of countless UAF students.

From its beginnings as a small, low-power AM station, KSUA evolved first into a full-fledged FM commercial broadcaster and then into a noncommercial public station. In each of its incarnations, the station has given students a place to find their voice while learning the ins and outs of media production. But more than that, it has been a place where students take risks, make mistakes and discover lifelong passions.

The early years

Is there anybody out there? – Pink Floyd

Is anybody listening? – Every college DJ ever

If you were a DJ at KMPS, KSUA’s progressive rock precursor in the 1970s, the answer was a solid, “Maybe.” As a carrier current station, KMPS used the existing electrical wiring in the dorms as broadcast antennas. Only people with AM radios inside or near the buildings could hear it.

All that changed on Sept. 6, 1984, when the newly reorganized station burst onto the commercial airwaves as KSUA-FM 103.9, playing Steely Dan’s “FM (No Static at All).” Suddenly it seemed almost everybody in Fairbanks was listening. Within a year, KSUA had become the most popular adult station in Fairbanks — a feat almost unheard of in college radio.

Veteran Fairbanks radio personality Jerry Evans was KSUA’s program director at the time of the transition. He remembers that Fairbanks was primed for something new.

“Back then, in the early ’80s, Fairbanks still felt isolated,” he said. “It wasn’t too much earlier that movie releases would take a year to get to the theater up here, right? There weren’t a lot of entertainment options back then. And Fairbanks was just such an open, wild place. So there was that small window of time that was perfect for a college radio station to be the number one adult station in its market.”

Evans and his broadcast partner, Glen Anderson, built a following with their on-air antics, huge dance parties and — especially — new music.

“The listener vibe was almost as eclectic as the music we were playing,” Evans said. “We would have the guys in the trucks, the office workers, the dry-cabin dwellers in Ester, obviously. They were listening, and a lot of the younger, hipper high school kids too. So many people were just locked into Casey Kasem’s Top 40 — which, I became involved in that world later, so I'm not dissing it — but you know, that was the teenybopper stuff, the sugarcoated things that most of them listened to before they discovered there was so much great, different music out there.”

Evans noted that the station achieved its top ranking at the same time they were playing bands people had never heard of.

“The people that were tuning in because we were the ones playing John Cougar and Bruce Springsteen and the Stones, they were getting turned on to the new music — The Clash, the Police and REM,” he said.

“If it was nothing but Sex Pistols or The Damned, then most people wouldn’t listen,” he said. “But if you feed those in occasionally, they go, ‘Oh, I like that! That's not weird punk music with safety pins in your neck. It's basically rock and roll.’”

Springboard to a career

Evans, who today works as public relations manager for the nonprofit visitor agency Explore Fairbanks, remembers the shift to a more professional sound as the audience grew.

“Before, there weren’t a lot of rules,” he said. “We didn’t care what was played because you couldn’t hear it unless you were right there. No one was listening at that time anyway. They were all in class.”

But after the switch to open-air commercial radio, Evans said, “You wanted to make it tight, professional sounding. That was at a time when a lot of the students at KSUA were also taking audio production and media classes and taking it more seriously because we wanted this to be a springboard to a career, as opposed to just playing music.”

Carla Browning ’93 turned her KSUA experience into an eight-year TV news career at KTVF, eventually becoming news director. She returned to UAF, where she worked in University Relations for two decades and now serves as UAF’s onboarding and engagement manager.

Browning remembered getting her start at KSUA. “I walked in and said I’d like to be the news director,” she said. “I was scared to death of the microphone. I was very shy, but I was interested in news.” She helped with station promotions, such as the Golden Days Parade float and the Tanana Valley State Fair booth.

She said KSUA gave students the opportunity to get broadcasting experience, gain confidence and “try to do things you couldn’t do at a bigger school, where you’d have to wait your turn.”

Browning said public radio has always played an important role in rural Alaska, and the college station feeds directly into that network.

“There’s a long history of people relying on community radio, both for day-to-day news and in emergencies,” she said. “This was good training for working at those small stations, where one person has to do everything. You have to know all the parts and pieces to keep it running.”

And radio was good training for TV news, she said. “Without audio, pictures don’t mean a lot.”

Post-pipeline, the Fairbanks economy declined, and in the early ’90s more radio stations entered the market. KSUA’s ad revenues declined, and, in March 1993, a wage dispute forced the station’s closure and reorganization.

Ch-ch-ch-changes: New format, new frequency, new technology

On Dec. 2, 1993, KSUA came back as a nonprofit educational station, staffed by volunteer DJs under the direction of paid student staff, with new equipment. The station reopened with the last song played before the closure: Pearl Jam’s “Alive.” And soon it moved down the dial to its present noncommercial frequency, 91.5.

Jeremy Smith ’12, longtime host of tech show “General Protection Fault,” worked and volunteered at KSUA from the mid-’90s to 2020. He helped the station transition from manual operations to digital streaming, navigating through vinyl, CDs and mini-discs.

“I was there when they first started, with no automation, no way to fill in overnights. If nobody was there, nothing was on the air,” Smith said.

“Now it's all automated. You can do it remote. I could upload my show to an FTP. We could broadcast this phone interview. The quality is good enough.”

Smith, now director of communications technology at a company that helps nonprofit groups obtain grants, sees the campus radio station as a lab where students can experiment, learn and refine their broadcasting skills in a low-stakes environment.

“The last thing you want to do is put someone who’s brand new on the air on a Top 40 station, right? Because they may or may not sync, or they can say something wrong on the air. And that would then directly cost you money, cost you advertisers,” he said.

“There’s no way to train for that other than college radio. You get to find out what you’re actually like on the air. Do you get nervous when a microphone is put in front of you? Will you freeze up if you have nothing to say?”

Despite his role in the transition to automation, Smith has a deep appreciation for the physical experience of running a radio station.

“Are you dedicated enough to go, maybe at 40 below, find a place to park on campus, trod into the station, see if the door’s unlocked? Hopefully you can get in,” he said.

“Being in an actual physical radio station gives it a realness and legitimacy that doesn’t exist if you just do it on your own. It means you thought about it. You did more than just put your phone on the table and record. You're saying, ‘I’m showing up. I’ve got a co-host. We have our microphones. We’re set up. We're taking phone calls, playing requests. Yeah, I can do this. And I have like-minded people around me who want to do this.’”

KSUA today: Innovation and excellence

Today, KSUA features between 25 and 35 shows at any one time, all of them hosted by volunteer DJs: students, faculty, community members. It is still preparing students for careers — in new fields like podcasting and voice acting.

KSUA exists to “give people a voice,” according to Kjrsten Schindler, current program director.

“We try to put on the airwaves what commercial stations wouldn't,” she said. “Anybody can have a show. Do you want to do a talk show? Like ‘The Comic Panel’ — they review comics. Do you want to do full music? ‘Metamorphosis’ plays all vinyl. ‘Brushing My Teeth to Merzbow’ is just noise music. Or do you want to talk about your life story? Whatever gives people the medium to express what they’re really passionate about.”

Schindler said the station also promotes independent and Alaska Native artists: “Local people, people from Anchorage, people who just send us stuff. We play anything that we deem is cool.”

Moody Pierce, the current general manager, has been involved with KSUA since they were in high school. Inspired by their grandfather’s memories of classic radio serials like “The Lone Ranger,” Pierce created “Robotic Radio,” a story about the musings of a robot discovering humanity through radio waves. The show combined scripted content with music relevant to the narrative and helped Pierce develop their editing skills.

“I had to add filters to the robot character’s voice,” Pierce said. “It was fun, and it gave me a lot of experience I probably wouldn’t have got otherwise. It gave me a chance to experiment and learn something new, and, over time, I built up a lot of editing knowledge.”

Pierce emphasized the importance of student radio as a space for trial and error, niche programming and opportunities for voice acting.

“A lot of people who start a radio show are just dabbling, but then they find out that it’s actually really fun, and it gets them into podcasting,” they said. “We also have live productions. A lot of people get voice acting experience that way.”

For instance, Schindler created “Aschenstiefel,” a radio play that reimagines the Cinderella story. The project, which began as a writing assignment, has grown into a full-length production with voice actors and commissioned artwork. It’s set to premiere on YouTube and Spotify by the end of the year.

While KSUA can no longer lay claim to being the most popular adult station in Fairbanks, Pierce noted that the station has maintained excellence in serving its more niche market. In 2013, KSUA won the Best College Radio Woodie award from mtvU, beating competitors from across the nation. Through the decades, KSUA has brought home more than 100 Goldies from the Alaska Broadcasters Association, including six last year.

And the station’s audience is no longer limited to whoever might be in the dorms or even in Fairbanks. Nowadays, Schindler said, listeners tune in to KSUA’s livestream from all over the world.