UNK TODAY
4 | Saturday, August 24, 2024
NOW ON THE AIRWAVES Stephanie Sandlin,
understands how noncom- mercial radio can provide a creative outlet, a broader range of music while still preparing students for a career in media. “In the commercial for- mats, the music on the Bill- board Top 40 gets played a lot,” she said. “But there’s a lot of music out there that’s not getting much airtime. We can touch people and show the relevance of the medium of radio. We can show that art still has a place in noncommercial radio and we can expose au- diences to music and ideas that might be heard mostly on digital platforms.” With a local emphasis. Moving forward, Sandlin expects to find a place in the community for KLPR-FM. “We want to be inclusive of the community,” she said. “We think that would be a good, healthy thing for the community as a whole, to have KLPR be receptive to a lot things in the community and to have our students learn about opportunities to do remote broadcasts from fairs or farmers’ mar- kets. We want to go out and represent the station and be very public while balancing both the campus and the community.”
stands how these two ele- ments can help serve not only the students on cam- pus, but the entire listening area. “That makes for a unique radio station where we can carve out our own niche in the community and have our own unique service,” Sandlin said. Growing up the in the Pa- cific Northwest gave Sand- lin a firm foundation in Americana music. She most recently managed The Trail 88.1 FM at Delta State Uni- versity in Cleveland, Mis- sissippi, a four-year public institution with a student population of 2,700. In Mississippi, Sandlin found fertile ground for her love of the blues — and 78 rpm records. “I like authenticity in mu- sic,” she said. “Music is life, music is a human expres- sion of art. It’s fascinating when you can go back to a type of music before it was a corporate entity, something to make money off of. In the 1920s and 1930s and 1940s, before the music indus- try exists as it does today, there were more authentic expressions of music.” As a young adult, Sandlin gravitated toward the blues. She listened to the music of Robert Johnson as a starting point. “Funny thing, now I’m not a big fan of Robert John- son,” she said. “I’d rather listen to Son House, Skip James, J.D. Short — the cats that are off the grid, but are just as interesting. Getting into those 78 rpm records allows you to touch the his- tory, to touch those artists and to actually feel the era of the music that they lived in.” The recordings made between 1898 and the late 1950s revolved at 78 revo-
a lot of different audiences, provide the best outcomes, honor the alumni that have been part of KLPR for many years and create those edu- cational outcomes that will continue to provide great success for the industry and benefit the commu- nity.” After spending only a short amount of time in Ke- arney, Sandlin made several observations. “People say that if you’re 21 or 22 years old, radio doesn’t mean anything,” she said. “One of the wonderful things about this market — and I’ve only been here for several weeks, so please forgive me — there are radio clusters here in town that have local people doing lo- cal radio. It still serves the population.” Whether it’s broadcasts of weather warnings, local sports or music, the radio community in central Ne- braska works hard to serve its audience. “Here local radio is thriv- ing, it’s active and there is still an industry, along with many opportunities for our students to find success,” Sandlin noted. And while most commer- cial radio stations keep to a very tight play list, Sandlin
RICK BROWN rick@yardlightmedia.com new manager of KLPR-FM, combines weirdness and education
KEARNEY — Weirdness and education — Stephanie Sandlin hopes to combine these two elements on the airwaves at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. She arrived on campus about three weeks ago to find the studios of KLPR- FM, 91.1, in need of atten- tion. Renovation of the Cal- vin T. Ryan Library and the Mitchell Broadcast Center had left the sound of the campus radio station in tact, but the construction of the classrooms, offices and stu- dios required Sandlin to im- mediately dig in and prepare for the educational part of KLPR. “I’m a ‘creative brain’ type of person,” she said during an interview in the main broadcast studio of the radio station. “I enjoy shaping the next generation of broadcasters by allowing them to see a little bit dif- ferent aspect of radio. Com- mercial radio is very much about being able to gener- ate advertising and have as much success in the ratings as possible. In educational radio, we can be a little bit weird; we can also educate students and prepare them for the next step in the in- dustry, and teach them what it’s like out there. I like to combine that little bit of weirdness and a whole lot of education.” The instructor under-
RICK BROWN , YARD LIGHT MEDIA “We want to be inclusive of the community,” said Stephanie Sandlin, the new manager of KLPR-FM and new faculty member at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Sandlin plans to switch the student radio station to a format of Americana music and to focus on giving students relevant experience in the field of radio broadcasting.
lutions per minute. Made of brittle material, the records easily broke if mishandled. “It’s like dealing with a dish plate that if you look at it wrong, it cracks,” Sandlin said. She owns many boxes of original 78 rpm recordings. “I enjoy the history of these recordings,” Sand- lin said. “I see the blues as an authentic expression of the human experience where you can touch and understand that. Getting to live in the Mississippi Delta, I got to walk my feet in the dirt of some of those same blues artists. It was very special to be able to do that.” As the manager of the student radio station on the University of Nebraska at Kearney campus, Sandlin plans to focus on Ameri- cana music. She also plans to bring together students, faculty, former students and broadcast professionals to
form an advisory committee. “We’re going to bring all of them to the table and start talking about how KLPR can serve the various internal publics with our students and how we serve our external publics, which will be the broadcast in- dustry and our community here in Kearney,” she said. “We want to bring a multi- pronged aspect to how we can make the station serve
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