If you’ve spent any time listening to KSUT Public Radio, chances are very good you’ve heard Stasia Lanier, who’s been with the station for 30 years and will sign off March 2 when she retires.

She leaves behind a legacy that includes not only a longtime on-air presence, but also, according to the station’s website, helping grow KSUT into a regional media organization.

Originally from New York, Lanier moved to Durango in October 1992 and began working at the station in April 1993, when she signed on as office manager.

“I had an East Coast upbringing, and I always thought I would move to Vermont,” she said. “I did a cross-country trip after college. And every place I visited, I loved.”

After 12 years in California, Lanier moved to Durango and began thinking about the future.

“That was a huge snow year for us. So I skied and was trying to figure out what I was going to do,” she said. “I had worked for a music software company, kind of a music tech company, for 10 years. I didn’t think I’d find anything exactly like that, but I was hoping to find something with a cool culture and a community-oriented organization.”

So she got the job at KSUT and began to fill in the gaps in marketing and promotion at the station. Then she started doing Music Blends on the air, and within about the first six months of working at the station, she took on the role of music director as well, helping to get the station on artists’ and record labels’ radars by developing relationships in the industry.

“It was a small organization and very small at the time. And there were just needs, and I was asked to get on the air. I loved music, but I was terrified,” she said. “That was difficult, but I ended up eventually calming down, and really enjoying that part of it. I became music director because they didn’t really have anybody working with record labels or the industry to get music or to get artists to come in and play.”

One of the music industry companies she worked with was Songlines, an independent marketing and promotion company that markets and promotes new music.

Sean Coakley, who has led the company for just about as long as Lanier has been at KSUT, said Songlines looks for stations like KSUT that are willing to support new music.

“It was so easy to connect with Stasia because she has marvelous taste and we almost agreed on everything,” he said.

The remarkable thing about Lanier is the breadth of things she’s done at KSUT – from being station manager, music director, digital content editor, and managing the Four Corners social media and a lot of the website content for the last several years, said Tami Graham, KSUT’s executive director.

Graham has worked with Lanier at the station for about the last nine years, but first met her when they worked together on Durango Acoustic Music, which was Durango Society of cultural and Performing Arts, in the 1990s.

“We were both on that board and presented for five, six, seven years dozens of great artists together,” she said. “She did all the promotional materials and posters for those early shows, and I did the booking and we just worked really well together back then.”

They worked so well together, Graham said, that when she had the opportunity to be involved with KSUT again, knowing Lanier was there, it had an impact in her decision to take the position.

“I just loved working with her – you know how it is when you work with someone, it just clicks,” she said.

Graham said Lanier’s knowledge of music – and the music industry – coupled with her commitment to bringing bands into the station to perform, have helped develop KSUT’s unique sound.

“Her doggedness in getting musicians to come do a KSUT session, it’s like a dog with a bone – she will not let it go until there’s an absolute no or something from some national-name artist. She’ll just keep working it and working it until they say yes, and if they don’t, she’s given it every last effort,” she said. “She’s so knowledgeable about music, and the industry and our listenership and the kind of music our listeners love. She’s really curated the sound of KSUT Four Corners for decades. She’s like the heart and soul of KSUT now.”

Thirty years of work is a long time, and to try to pin down specific highlights is tough, Lanier said, but if she had to choose, there are a few she’d go with, including the transition of the station in Ignacio into its new building – the Eddie Box Jr. Media Center – and all that encompassed, as well as the station taking over the Four Corners Folk Festival and Pagosa Folk ‘N Bluegrass music festivals in 2019.

“We ran a successful capital campaign with great support from our local communities, great support from the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, who did a matching grant and now in this beautiful state-of-the-art facility after many years in a tiny, very humble space where we accomplished a lot, but the new building definitely enhances opportunities in the work that we do,” she said.

The personal engagement she’s developed with listeners over the years through the music is something Lanier said she treasures, and the enduring power of public radio in the community is something to be valued.

“We serve such an amazing region, and the communities in our broadcast area are just extraordinary in so many ways. I feel like there’s a role for public radio to play and contribute. And I feel like KSUT does that well, but I also think that the communities are really open for it,” she said. “In recent years, a lot of radio stations have gone away, but I think that public radio has maintained or increased support because people really value local public radio.”

With the highlights come challenges as well – from fundraising to COVID-19, which Lanier said the station got through successfully by pivoting to expand its service with local news and making sure people were informed about the COVID-19 pandemic in a local fashion.

“Challenges for nonprofits is always fundraising,” she said, adding that the station has been pretty successful at it. “And in the last 10 years or so, we’ve seen significant growth, with our membership with our business underwriting. The capital campaign bringing us to this new building conquered a lot of the challenges, which was not enough space – we had one tiny little production room. But moving into our new facility really lifted a lot of those challenges.”

And now that she’s about to enter a world of not having to set an alarm clock every morning, Lanier said her plans are for more fun, less stress, more time outdoors, traveling and spending time with family.

She also hopes to continue to contribute to the community in some way and is looking forward to having an open schedule.

“It’s really an honor and a pleasure to have worked for KSUT and connected with people through our community. And so I’m so super grateful,” she said. “I could not be more grateful for having had this experience and getting to live here. I had no idea that this would be where I would end up, but I couldn’t be happier that it is.”

katie@durangoherald.com