SUBSCRIBE NOW
99¢ per month. Save 90%
SUBSCRIBE NOW
99¢ per month. Save 90%

KACU celebrates 30th anniversary

Dan Carpenter
Special to the Reporter-News

For 30 years, KACU has been Abilene's National Public Radio station, broadcasting from the Abilene Christian University campus.

Tuesday, the radio station celebrates its 30th anniversary with a public event from 5:30-7 p.m., at The Mill, 239 Locust St.

Station General Manager Nathan Gibbs said the public is invited to come out, meet the staff and enjoy refreshments.

'We will be serving appetizers and birthday cake, and honoring people who have been listening to the station from the beginning,' he said. 'Mayor Archibald will be on hand to read a proclamation, and we're going to be making some other big announcements, including information about some new podcasts.'

Gibbs has been general manager of the station since 2013; he is only the third general manager the station has had, following in the footsteps of Larry Bradshaw and John Best.

A graduate of ACU, Gibbs also serves as an assistant professor in journalism and mass communications department. He said his grandparents are ACU grads too.

'Some of the biggest changes at KACU have happened since I got here,' said Gibbs. 'We've always been a stable entity, but the changes we've put in place — including changing programming for large blocks during the day, and bringing in more news and talk programming — have helped us consistently improve ratings, and increase the value of our public service.'

Gibbs said he hopes the public has noticed the changes, and sees the new energy and new motivation in the staff as beneficial.

KACU is heard over the air on 89.5 FM and streamed online at kacu.org. Daytime programming includes 'Morning Edition,' 'On Point,' and 'All Things Considered.' Evenings include classical music programming like 'Exploring Music by Billy McGlaughlin' and 'Performance Today.'

'One of the most noticeable changes is that university students produce local newscasts during 'Morning Edition' and 'All Things Considered'', Gibbs said. 'They also promote local events during those shows.'

Locally produced programs on KACU include Dr. Jazz's 'All That Jazz' and 'Nightsounds with Kyle McAlister.' 'The Appetizer,' which airs Saturdays at 8 p.m., is a syndicated program produced in the Abilene area as well.

'Technological changes are always a challenge to keep up with, but our increased support has made it possible to do that,' said Gibbs. 'In addition, we are now able to afford more expensive programming, like 'The Texas Standard,' which airs daily at 10 a.m. This program allows us to get Abilene content out throughout the entire state.'

Gibbs said the next pledge drive for KACU will be Oct. 17-21.
https://www.reporternews.com/story/news/local/2016/10/10/kacu-celebrates-30th-anniversary/92377176/
www.reporternews.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2020-40
115366
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:IN4E6STY56M64YWG73XOVUYHI6ZKLDXE
<urn:uuid:4211c266-6eba-4623-8a99-34a91a035fb9>
2020-09-20T08:40:50Z
151.101.202.62
text/html
sha1:AT6SWIU244EPDZJ2BAL5YADD5JZEWRGR
<urn:uuid:66ce3731-33ab-4dc9-9869-88abf3036f62>
https://www.reporternews.com/story/news/local/2016/10/10/kacu-celebrates-30th-anniversary/92377176/
response
<urn:uuid:a4f69766-6302-4f1d-a12f-38991416407c>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2020-40
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for September 2020
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-206.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.17 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.2-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: http://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/