It is a voice, conceived of and brought into being by the community.

When the switch was flipped one Sunday afternoon 20 years ago, the cheers of a small but dedicated group of radio pioneers flew out into the clear skies over the Lower Columbia River.

At 5 p.m. April 17, 1983 a toast was raised to KMUN, broadcasting at 91.9 FM for the first time.

Today, the volunteers and staff, many of whom have been with the station since the beginning, raise their glasses again to mark this significant milestone.

Predictably, much has changed after 20 years on the air. But many of the original ideas are only now maturing.

As one volunteer who was there before Day 1 said, “It’s just beginning to happen …”

The words “excitement” and “energy” pepper stories told by KMUN’s founders, but the station’s early history does not reveal itself in any kind of clear progression.

It started as an idea to give a voice to the community and create an alternative to the region’s commercial radio, which left listeners such as Jim Wilkins wanting.

“When I moved here 27 years ago, there was no jazz, there was no classical, there was no folk, all of which I enjoy,” said Wilkins, who gave advice, support and money to the first efforts and has been involved ever since.

Moving the idea to the airwaves was no easy task. It would take years and require the volunteers who undertook it to pass over stumbling blocks, including their own skepticism.

Rebecca Rubens, one of the station’s earliest torch bearers, remembers filing a licensing application with the Federal Communications Commission that was “like doing your taxes 20 times over.”

One early vision saw KMUN as a repeater for Portland community radio station KBOO with some local programming added in, said Jim Casterline, who served on the station’s original and current board of directors.

But the cost of bringing KBOO’s signal down the Columbia River was prohibitively high. So the task of creating a full menu of radio programming fell to the local community.

“It was very exciting because here we were, able to totally conceive of a radio station … just from scratch,” said Doug Sweet, who was station manager at KMUN from December 1983 until July 2001.

KMUN had a do-it-yourself ethic from the beginning and many people involved were learning how to run a radio station as they did it.

“It’s interesting because we didn’t really have any idea what we were doing,” Casterline said.

The nascent KMUN got help from KBOO in the form of equipment, expertise and its first station manager, Harriet Baskas.

In 1982, the station moved into its first home – a tiny broadcast studio and office “high atop the Gunderson Building,” as the programmers were fond of announcing during the early days.

When KMUN went on the air in 1983, there were not enough trained programmers to cover all the airtime, Sweet said. The station would broadcast in the morning and then go off the air while more volunteers were trained on the broadcasting equipment. KMUN partnered with Clatsop Community College in 1989 to offer a course in community radio that continues today.

The content in the station’s first five-or-so years was largely local product, Sweet said. But there was a good deal of prerecorded national and international programming, as well.

“We would play all kinds of stuff,” Sweet said. “We had Radio Moscow for a while.”

Submitted photo

Early community radio supporters, including first station manager Harriet Baskas, top, stand by KMUN’s transmitter pole erected on Megler Mountain two decades ago.The half-hour music programs, documentaries and other variety programs were sent from Moscow and were supposed to be returned.

“But we never did,” Sweet said. “In fact for years and years that was our major source of reel-to-reel recording tape. … We had a hand in bankrupting the Soviet Union.”

Celebration set for SaturdayKMUN community radio is having a 20th Anniversary Celebration from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday at its studios in the Tillicum House.

The celebration and open house will include live Celtic and classical music by Jeffrey Reynolds, tours of the studios, and an opportunity to meet KMUN programmers, board members and volunteers.

The station is also putting out a gourmet spread of treats donated by area restaurants.

KMUN Vital statistics:

Dial position: 91.9 FM, 90.1 FM, 89.5 FM

Address: 1445 Exchange St., Astoria

Phone: 325-0010

Web site: www.kmun.org

Membership, as of April 16: 1,433

Based on an April 1 survey: KMUN is the most listened-to station in the area, tied with KAST FM; the typical KMUN listener is 50-something, female, college-educated and earns $40,000 a year; the station has an average of 2,500 listeners between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. weekdays; 5,100 people tune in to KMUN daily.

Dates in KMUN’s history:

November, 1980: Application for broadcast license submitted to Federal Communications Commission

February, 1982: KMUN moves into its first home, “high atop the Gunderson Building.”

April 17, 1983: First broadcast

April, 1986: KMUN adds new translators to reach Southwest Washington, Cannon Beach and the Lower Nehalem Valley

June, 1987: The station moves to its current home, the Tillicum House, 1445 Exchange St.

December, 1995: “Morning Classics” is voted favorite program by members

2001: Transmitter on Megler Mountain is upgraded; station began airing 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week

January, 2003: KMUN launches Community Journalism Initiative

SOURCE: KMUN KMUN eventually outgrew the Gunderson Building. It needed a place to put a satellite dish to receive content from National Public Radio. Thanks to a $76,000 donation from Tillamook County listener and benefactor Helen Patti in 1987, KMUN was able to buy the Tillicum House, a creaky Victorian tucked in against a lush hillside on Exchange Street.

Sweet said a big volunteer effort was needed to transform the house – which had been a doctor’s office and a restaurant – into a radio station.

Volunteers are the heart of community radio and KMUN is no exception.

“Lots of things are done by people who care about the station and don’t mind not getting paid,” said Victoria Stoppiello, who is temporarily sharing the job of station manager with Lisa Smith.

New managerThe “diligent” and “energetic” Smith, who began as station manager in February, has launched new initiatives at KMUN to beef up its local news production, increase the strength and breadth of its signal and ensure its long-term financial stability.

Smith – continuing the necessary KMUN tradition of securing grants and other funding sources – rounded up $65,000 to launch a “Community Journalism Initiative.” She hired John Morrow and Joanne Rideout to host NPR’s morning and evening news broadcasts, respectively, and brought Elizabeth Wynne Johnson on board as a full-time news reporter.

A small newsroom was built at the Tillicum House in place of a rotting porch and KMUN now subscribes to the Associated Press news wire.

In a letter to a charitable foundation, Smith wrote, the objective of KMUN’s news department is “to ensure that rural listeners … receive high-quality on-air reporting and analysis of local issues, a service that has been unavailable and sorely needed in our area for some time.”

While the station has had a smattering of local news and public affairs programming in the past, “Lisa has put the thing on a different level,” said Wilkins, who hosts a new local-issues talk show called “Friday.”

In the forefrontGinny Z. Berson, vice president and director of services at the Oakland, Calif.-based National Federation of Community Broadcasters, commended KMUN’s local news effort.

“I think that there’s a growing understanding among community radio stations that what will distinguish them, now that there’s satellite radio and Internet radio, … is local content,” she said. “KMUN, in this instance, is really in the vanguard among a lot of rural stations.”

LORI ASSA – The Daily Astorian

Reporter Elizabeth Wynne Johnson, working in a digitally-equipped production studio, joined KMUN as part of the radio station’s “Community Journalism Initiative,” which seeks to produce “high-quality on-air reporting and analysis of local issues.” The station is putting together a second production studio that will increase its capacity to create local news programming.To “institutionalize” the news operation, Smith said the station needs to raise its membership and increase its annual budget. She’s helped the station’s general fund grow by more than $50,000 in a little more than a year.

Smith, who has a management degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, has also launched a long-term “Campaign for the Future,” which has as an ambitious goal of raising $75,000 in the next two years.

The first $12,000 raised will go to match an FCC grant to build a more powerful transmitter in Tillamook County, as part of an effort to extend KMUN’s reach. Eventually, the station would like to add a studio in Tillamook County so that radio programs could be produced there.

Smith would also like to retire some $35,000 in outstanding debt, left over from upgrades to KMUN’s main transmitter on Megler Mountain in Washington. The remaining money would go into the Tillicum House, which will need ongoing repairs and maintenance.

Smith has made one somewhat controversial shift of the station’s programming. She successfully advocated for moving NPR’s “Morning Edition” from its predawn slot to 7 a.m. This pushed the music program “Morning Classics” – voted KMUN’s most popular show by listeners in 1995 – out of that slot. But stalwart listeners can still get their “dawn concerts,” beginning at 5 a.m. and again at 8 a.m.

“I realized that classical music is hallowed ground for members and supporters,” Smith said, adding that the move, “has not gone unnoticed by lovers of classical music.”

Casterline, a classical music fan, noted that the strong results of the station’s last pledge drive indicated that listeners liked the news at 7 a.m.

KMUN, like most radio stations, will probably always have its critics.

But Wilkins disputes the notion held by some long-time community members that KMUN has a left-leaning political agenda. He said that some people involved have strong political views, but that they are not reflected in the station itself.

“I think we try to promote the community we live in,” he said. “I don’t ever recall any kind of political agenda. We just wanted a cool station with some cool tunes.”