The list of former KDUR-FM disc jockeys, if it actually existed, would be long and colorful. Undoubtedly, some of you reading this were once part of the college radio station’s history.
At 6 p.m. today, KDUR will celebrate 40 years as the voice of Fort Lewis College with a party at Ska Brewing Co.
Maybe this puts some perspective on the achievement: When KDUR officially went on the air (more on that later), the No. 1 song on the Billboard Top 100 was probably Tony Orlando and Dawn’s “He Don’t Love You (Like I Love You).” Incidentally, John Denver’s “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” came just a couple weeks later. (Denver’s son was later a student at FLC, but that’s another story.)
“There’s older college radio stations in the world,” said Bryant Liggett, KDUR station manager. “But ... for a small school, in a small town, for a radio station to stick around this long is huge.”
Liggett was station manager in 2011 when KDUR moved into its new digs in the Media Center in the renovated Student Union. Not long before that, it had boosted its signal to 6,000 watts – a far cry from the original 10.
It hasn’t been just a handful of people carrying the torch for the last four decades, noted Liggett, station manager since April 2009.
“It shows that not only me but thousands of people before me – all the Chris Aalands, the Jack Llewellyns, the Tami Grahams, the Nancy Stoffers – they’ve all done something right,” he said.
OK, not to put a damper on the celebration, but the truth is KDUR’s still a few months away from turning 40. The year’s right, though.
It was actually first called KFLC, when in 1974 the college provided a studio and $3,000 to start the station, according to a timeline assembled by two students with FLC’s Independent. In the fall of that year, student disc jockeys began broadcasting into the cafeteria with two speakers, Jim Vlasich, a driving force behind the station’s formation, told Stoffer in a recent interview aired on KDUR.
Vlasich, who in 1974 was a recent college graduate taking a few classes at FLC, said Durango’s two radio stations at the time were both airing the farm report.
“We had all this great rock and roll, and we couldn’t get it out there,” he told Stoffer. “People didn’t want to touch it.”
Vlasich, Roland Smith and Kraig Hegood are credited with being the founders who got the station its Federal Communications Commission license and officially started KDUR in May 1975. Vlasich got the honor of being the station’s first official voice and playing the first song: “Because of Rain” by jazz/rock flute player Tim Weisberg, who had just performed in Durango.
KDUR, found on the FM dial at 91.9 and 93.9, has certainly grown in 40 years and boasts a mix of the eclectic. It welcomes all types of DJs and music to provide for all listening tastes.
“If something’s on that’s not your cup of tea,” Liggett says, “your cup of tea will be served eventually.”
johnp@durangoherald.com
If you go
A party to celebrate Fort Lewis College radio station KDUR-FM’s 40th birthday will be held at 6 p.m. today at Ska Brewing Co., 225 Girard St., in Bodo Industrial Park.
Admission is free, and souvenir pint glasses will be available. The Rebel Set, a three-piece garage rock band from Phoenix, will provide entertainment.
