25 years on the Edge

by joey | April 13, 2017

Whatever happened to those voices on your radio? See what KRUA staffers have pursued since graduation. Asterisks indicate a journalism and public communications graduate.

Glenn Hagberg '87* Event manager, Bayshore Country Club, and DJ, Tunemasters Anchorage

Wolf Kurtz '87 Engineer, Seward Public Radio Seward

Margaret Knowles Pease '89, '97* Sr. Service Support Lead, Nintendo Redmond, Washington

John Raffetto '92* CEO, Raffetto Herman Strategic Communications Seattle, Washington

Suzi Pearson '94*, '04 Executive director, AWAIC women's shelter Anchorage

Sam Trout '98* Freelance illustrator and designer Seattle, Washington

Matt Hopper '03 Singer-songwriter Portland, Oregon / Phoenix, Arizona / Wasilla

Kamala Derry Stiner '03 Nurse and director of VivaVoom Brr-Lesque Anchorage

Zac Clark '05 UAA Concert Board coordinator Anchorage

Neil Torquiano '07* Producer, WJXT-TV Jacksonville, Florida

Audriana Pleas '14* UAA Academic Innovations and eLearning staff member, freelance journalist and DJ Eagle River

Share your KRUA memories with us at seawolf.forever@alaska.edu or Facebook.com/AlumniUAA.

Mixed drinks in the laboratory. Frosted-blue eye shadow. Capes and lasers. No, it's not some glam superhero origin story ... just three among hundreds of shows aired on KRUA since it launched Feb. 14, 1992.

College radio first came to Anchorage in 1987, at 50 watts on the AM dial, and only near the walls of campus buildings. "That was the antenna, the building itself," explained Glenn Hagberg '87, first station manager at Campus Radio KMPS. That's an unofficial name, he noted. "We didn't need call letters. You could hear us shout better than you could on the transmitter."

The reception was weak. Every song came with a low persistent hum. "It was probably helping the students learn the business more than it was entertaining on the other end," he said.

Still, it was a start. "This is just the beginning of something big," he presciently told campus newspaper ACC Accent in 1987.

"[KMPS] was more of an experimental lab," recalled John Raffetto '92, KRUA's first FM manager. "Suddenly the prospect that the entire Anchorage bowl could tune in was electrifying. People really went to work on it."

In their FM quest, ambitious students had the support of community mentor Augie Hiebert, an Alaska media pioneer who spent his 70s encouraging UAA's plucky pink-haired teenagers. He donated equipment and engineers, had his D.C. lawyer help with FCC licensing and calmed local broadcasters anxious over the new addition.

The transition took several years, and delays continued right through to launch day. While Raffetto was experiencing technical difficulties at the Hillside tower, future station manager Suzi Pearson '94 was ill and resting in the office, not at her post in the studio (the engineer, meanwhile, was increasingly anxious to wrap the project, as he'd made Valentine's Day promises to his wife).

Hours behind schedule, Raffetto and Pearson finally connected (this is the era before cell phones) and the station went live. KRUA volunteers, dispatched across the city like sentinels, called in to report they'd turned their dials to The Edge, 88.1. "It was crazy," Pearson laughed. "Suddenly we had a college radio station in Anchorage."

The first song - fitting of the transition - was It's the End of the World as We Know It, by R.E.M. Generations of KRUA students know that tidbit by heart, but they're more likely to tell you a station manager in the '90s went on to date Steven Tyler.

Sam Trout '98 was a junior in high school when KRUA went live. He started volunteering as soon as he graduated from high school. "It was really cool to see that we actually had a scene and to learn about it and to be part of it," he said. To build that scene, station managers assembled zine-like bulletins via Adobe PageMaker while DJs took their shows live to a dance hall in Spenard. "It was definitely one of the best experiences I had, through college and even afterwards," Trout added. "We were a tight family ... so many different personalities involved. It was just an amazing time."

Recent station manager Audriana Pleas '14 dittoed that sentiment. "I can't count how many people I've met through the station," she said. "When you go through KRUA, you have a family forever ... It gives students a chance to try their hands at being a radio personality, with no judgment." Alumni from the past two decades made it a point to stay connected, she said. Now, it's her turn. "She is our spiritual advisor," joked Wright Franklin, current station manager.

At its second birthday, KRUA brought the Violent Femmes to the Egan Center. For year 25, KRUA featured three acts at the Wendy Williamson, including DJ Spencer Lee - aka Spencer Shroyer '09, yet another KRUA grad.

Many volunteers have scrawled their name on the studio wall, and the station left its mark in return (see sidebar). "KRUA launched my career. There is no doubt about it," said Raffetto, who produced radio pieces for U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens' D.C. press office right after college, thanks to Hiebert's help. (Raffetto is now CEO of a bicoastal PR firm based in Seattle.) Pearson, too, credits Hiebert for encouraging her to seek a Master of Public Administration at UAA. (She is now executive director of AWAIC women's shelter in Anchorage.)

"I didn't realize it at the time, but it was the radio station that gave me the relationships and the know-how to go and do great work the minute I got out of college," Raffetto noted. "More than any single class or professor, it was the radio station."

Hagberg, too, can connect the dots from KRUA to career - he's now an event manager in Anchorage, and DJs for his company, Tunemasters. "It's basically my own little radio station to a limited audience," he said.

Like most former KRUA kids, he still tunes in to hear what's new at UAA, as does Raffetto when he's back in Anchorage.

"It's exactly what we had envisioned when we started," he said.

Listen live from anywhere in the world at kruaradio.org.