Underwriting on KAXE is Easy and Fun!

By Stephanie Rose

They [the ubiquitous they, you know?] are saying that times are tough out there. When things are tight, keep in mind that KAXE is prit-near the greatest value around!

As you know, underwriting on 91.7 KAXE identifies your business, services, and products as supporting independent community radio. Your underwriting announcements can reach so much further than commercial advertising. KAXE’s listeners tune into the station because they want to hear the top-quality music and diverse programming. And they want to hear what you have to offer! And they really, really want to support the folks who support KAXE!

Underwriting puts your business in the spotlight with strong, well-defined market segment of community radio listeners.

Underwriting increases positive awareness of your business within Grand Rapids, Bemidji, Brainerd, and their surrounding areas. KAXE’s signal covers about a 100-mile radius!

And we have options, folks! You can position your announcements during programs that appeal to the market segment that you are trying to reach. You can identify your business with a particular style of music or personality found only on 91.7 KAXE. And we can rotate several different messages so that folks can discover everything your business has to offer. And we’re here to help you figure out the best way to spread the word.

KAXE’s typical listeners are college graduates ages 35 and older. Community and public radio listeners are 88 percent more likely to buy products and services from companies that support community and public radio. A recent underwriting study by NPR and Jacobs Media showed that 95 percent of listener respondents had taken action as a result of hearing sponsor credits. Eighty percent have a higher opinion of companies that support public radio, and 75 percent would prefer doing business with such sponsors! These are great big, solid numbers to have on your side – especially when people are thinking about a little bit of belt-tightening.

If you, or your sister-in-law, or your next-door neighbors are trying to spread the word about what your business has to offer, call us! KAXE wants to help.

Potlucks are Good

By Jennifer Poenix

On Saturday night, some KAXE staff and friends gathered together to say goodbye to the StoryCorps facilitators that were here for four weeks. We had a potluck dinner at KAXE's studios.

We had a great assortment of food including venison curry, Mad Dog pizza, peach pie, and lots more. I brought a fruit salad, consisting of pineapple, green grapes, apples, bananas, and oranges mixed with peach pie filling. It's the easiest fruit salad ever (well, not if you mix a can of fruit cocktail with Cool Whip). You can use whatever fruit you want and it turns out great.

Men have a whole different way of looking at potlucks. Right before we left for the potluck Saturday night, my husband Jeff* asked me, "So, are we bringing anything?" Yes, we are. We're bringing fruit salad. It's a potluck. Sunday afternoon, I got the leftover fruit salad out of the fridge to eat with lunch. "How did we get this?" Jeff excitedly asked. "Um..I made it for the potluck," I replied. "Oh, you brought this? This was really good!"

I like potlucks because you never know what you're going to get. I guess you could say life is like a potluck. If I could choose my last meal on Earth, I would choose potluck.

*seen on the left in this photo from the 2007 Green Cheese picnic. He didn't know what we brought to that one either. Root beer cake. We brought root beer cake, which wasn't as yummy as it sounds.

AMPERS—A Brief History and a New Subsidiary

By Maggie Montgomery

The man in that photo is Jim Gullickson. “Gully” is president of AMPERS (which also calls itself “Independent Public Radio”) and general manager of KMSU in Mankato.

91.7 KAXE is one of 12 member stations of AMPERS, the Association of MN Public Educational Radio Stations. One of KAXE’s founders, Rich McClear, was one of the organization’s original board members.

According to a personal history of AMPERS written by founding member and current manager of the University of MN’s Radio K in the Twin Cities, Andy Marlow, the AMPERS stations originally came together to address issues related to unfair distribution of NTIA money in Minnesota. In the early ‘70s, the MN Higher Education Coordinating Board (HECB) was channeling all federal funds for public radio infrastructure improvements to MPR (then called MER—Minnesota Educational Radio) and Twin Cities Public Television (TCPT).

Several other stations statewide were pulled together as an advisory board to the HECB in an attempt to address this inequity, but the effort eventually failed because MER and TCPT refused to participate.

The group continued to meet in order to address MER’s monopoly on NTIA funds for radio in MN. Eventually the group found other common interests, formalized, and became AMPERS.

Andy’s history addresses an interesting facet of Northern Community Radio’s history: “Early on, we worked hard to differentiate ourselves from Minnesota Public Radio. Few people knew we existed as an organization. There was a lot of anger at MPR's behavior, particularly attempts to take over some of our stations by MPR (those included KUOM, KUMD, KMSU and others), MPR's efforts to prevent KAXE and KFAI from being licensed, and MPR's devious "theft" of the name Minnesota Public Radio from Rich McClear's effort to establish a station in Grand Rapids. The not-for-profit corporation created by McClear and his community supporters was originally incorporated as Minnesota Public Radio. Bill Kling of Minnesota Educational Radio and Marion Watson of KUOM convinced McClear to give up the name so it could be used generically by all public stations in Minnesota. McClear changed the name of the corporation to Northern Community Radio. Less than three months later, Kling changed to name Minnesota Educational Radio to Minnesota Public Radio.”

Andy, who is retiring from Radio K in early 2009, described several phases in AMPERS history. He does not describe the most recent phase—AMPERS has changed its name to Independent Public Radio. The stations are working together on a joint underwriting project that has led to the formation of a for-profit subsidiary called Independent Community Media, or ICM.

ICM was envisioned as a marketing and ad agency run for the benefit of AMPERS/IPR stations. It was formed because IPR’s joint underwriting ventures were so strong that they jeopardized the organization’s nonprofit status. Through ICM, potential underwriters can contract with any AMPERS/IPR station or stations. ICM can also make ad placements for other media. At the end of the year, all profits are distributed to the AMPERS/IPR stations. Jim Lowe is the vice president of statewide underwriting for ICM. If your business is interested in marketing through ICM, his phone number is 651/293-0077.

The concept is brand new! All of the AMPERS/IPR member stations will be monitoring ICM to see how the concept works in the coming months.

Let's hear it for radio! by Linda Johnson

Again. Let's hear it for radio. KAXE radio! Butt-widening staring at blinding computer screens not required.

Radio allows, perhaps even promotes multi-sensing and accomplishment. Wood stacked. Dishes washed. Chickens fed. Diapers changed. Seeds planted. Weeds pulled. Trees pruned. Gutters cleared. Weights lifted. Checkbooks balanced--well, maybe a stretch. Vegetables canned. Supper prepped. Floors swept. Children tickled. Fences mended. Sweaters knitted. Dances danced. Gifts wrapped. Apples peeled. Cookies baked. Dogs scratched. Bread kneaded. Cards played. Snow shoveled.

Life. Body, mind, spirit. Stimulated. Experienced. Not a comatose stare. I choose to listen to nature, silence, or radio at will. And move. Ooops! Gotta go. Linda n Beej

Turn Off The News! by Michael Goldberg

A lot of people are walking around shocked by the election polling news, as reported this morning 9/19 by NPR, feeling worse and more scared by the day. But here's the thing about these polls that are called "news":
To be polled, you have to answer your land line phone. Only about half of people in their 20's even have one.
To qualify as a respondent, you have to be a "likely voter", which pollsters have always determined in the past as people who've voted before. They're trying to adjust their technique, but at best they're really just experimenting.
Over-all, the daily polling only means that, as of that day or hour, about everyone who voted for Bush favors McCain, and everyone who voted for Kerry favors Obama as our first community organizer President.

The Obama campaign is going to own the ground on Election Day. In most cities in America, people are riding buses part of each day with registration cards, signing people up. Not only the on-line, but the phone banking and door knocking is going great, and is highly organized, often under the local supervision of experienced organizers who have been at key locations for 5 - 18 months. There's no way the pollsters nor the pundits can keep up.

They might be missing the story, too. Retailers are selling baby onesies with slogans on them like My Momma's for Obama and Barak-a-bye Baby. A Mommy group I know of lined up their babies, each in his'her own Obama-ware, and took a photo, so those children would grow up knowing they'd been part of the 2008 election. Imagine anyone having done that in any past presidential election. And who buys onesies? People young enough to have babies in diapers. And of course young people, like African Americans and the poor, have had the lowest voting rates.

In the 2000 election, 76% of the eligible population was registered, and of those, two-thirds, or 51.3% of the total, showed up or were allowed to vote at the polls. It was close. So in 2004, registration went up to 79%, and turn out was 69% of those -- the newly registered voted. Still only represented 55.3% of the total.

So here's my advice for the next few weeks. QUIT FOLLOWING THE POLLS, and in fact, turn off the news when that's what's on. Instead, spend time with young adults. Show up every day, and then again on Election Day. And then, keep showing up every day. It's not like President Obama is going to make things OK. Like he says, it's not about him -- it's about us.

Sustaining Phenology

By Stephanie Rose

Phenology n. The scientific study of periodic biological phenomena, such as flowering, breeding, and migration, in relation to climatic conditions.

On Tuesday night, folks at KAXE kicked off a year-long celebration of the Phenology [that’s the study of biological and rhythmic events of nature as they relate to climate] Show’s 25th Anniversary. Lots of very nice people came to enjoy snacks, an enormous cake, and a live Phenology Plus show at 6:00, hosted by John Latimer and lots of his friends. “Time flies,” said Latimer. “It feels like I’ve only been doing this for 18 or 19 years!”

Some highlights of the evening for me included hugs from young Zane Poenix, watching volunteer DJ the DJ distribute name tags to our guests [the catch: most people didn’t use their actual names], Connie Vincent’s delicious [hot, hot, hot!] pistachio-habanero wraps

Publish Post

, and, of course, visiting with lots of Phenology fans the whole time. Phenology has touched lots and lots of lives over its 25 years.

To help sustain and advance the Phenology program in honor of its 25th anniversary, we’re trying to raise $25,000. The funds we raise will go toward KAXE’s purple martin house and rain garden, supplies for Phenology’s 12 classrooms, and help with more outreach programs. If KAXE’s Phenology has touched your life, we hope you’ll consider contributing to the Phenology Fund. $25, $250, $1,000 or any amount that you choose would be lots of help, and really appreciated by many, many people. There are pledge forms here, or you can call to find out more.

We’ll help keep Phenology near the front of your mind by having more celebrations all through this year. And don’t miss The Phenology Show Tuesday mornings starting at 6:50 and Phenology Plus Tuesday evenings at 6:00.

Yeah Yeah Yeah

By Jennifer Poenix

I’m 27, and I like the Beatles. If you have heard me host "On the River" on KAXE, you have probably heard a Beatles tune or two.

“But Jennifer,” you may be saying, “you weren’t even born yet when the Beatles were a band. You didn’t experience them in the 60’s.” Yeah, I’ve heard that before.

When I was young, I didn’t know that the Beatles had been one of the most popular bands of all time (if not the most). I just liked their songs.

When I was in 9th grade, The Beatles Anthology aired on ABC in three parts. (They promoted it by calling themselves “A Beatles C.”) I was mesmerized and turned into a total Beatles geek. I bought books, t-shirts, and scoured antique stores for records or any other collectibles I could find. I wrote discographies in a Mead 5-Star notebook. I was constantly doodling the Beatles drum in school. I quoted A Hard Day’s Night.

As I approached high school graduation, my aunt asked me where I would go if I could go anywhere in the world. My immediate answer? Liverpool. Little did I know that she was actually planning to take me there! We went, and it was amazing.

My son Zane is almost two, and while I haven’t exactly forced the Beatles on him, he does say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” quite a bit, and I’ve also taught him how to shake his head and say “wooooo!” It just goes to show that even though a person might not have been around when Beatlemania was prevalent, they can still be a fan.