Index to KUAC scrapbook

Pick the year you wish to view.
1962	1963
1964	1965
1966	1967
1968	1969
1970	1971
1972	1973
1974	1975
1976	1977
1978	1979
1980	1981
1982	1983
1984	1985
1986	1987
1988	1989
1990	1991
1992	1993
1994	1995
1996	1997
1998	1999
2000	2001
2002	2003
2004	2005
2006

Welcome to the KUAC on-line scrap book

Right from the beginning KUAC staff began tucking away items that they thought were important for the future to be able to understand the way things were and would become.

As is usually the case everyone assumed that the context would be remembered so that items could be understood.

Many people worked on the physical scrapbook over the years, too many to name (especially when the editors memory is so poor).

What you're about to see is an attempt to translate the physical scrapbook into an electronic one. Unfortunately there are some major gaps in the scrapbook as a lot of the first decade (1962-1972) has been lost. KUAC staff continues to try to find the missing pieces, but after 40 years the chance of finding them seems slim.

This electronic edition is being put together by Jim Schneider, a KUAC employee from 1969 until 1999.
A bit of explanation seems appropriate regarding the structure. Within each year you will find not only the contents of the physical scrapbook but also other material from the archives. For most years you'll find the contents of the physical scarpbook in the "Open Scrapbook to xxxx." Where xxxx is the year. You'll find pictures from annual Festivals and other special events in which KUAC was involved. It might be a Golden Days Parade, a State Fair, a Folk Festival or a significant radio or TV production.

The editor feels free to add comments for clarification and those will be shown in a different font face and color so as to not confuse the viewer.

And let me apologize now for not being able to identify many of the people in the photographs contained herein or the source for some of the news clippings.

I hope you will enjoy this stroll through the past of Alaska's first Public radio station and don't forget to visit the KUAC web site.

Jim Schneider, November 2012

To start with here are some remembrances from Charles Northrip, the first KUAC manager.

The original KUAC-FM transmitter was bought, used, from the University of Washington. It had been KUOW's transmitter
Bob Merritt (of UA's Dept. of Electrical Engineering) spent one Christmas Day (1964, I think) repairing that transmitter to get us back on the air. I mostly held tools and made conversation.
One Sunday evening (in 1967, I think) Charles Davis (UA Music Department) called me at home to say he had just heard a KUAC announcer (Evening Concert) introduce a selection by "Arthur Pops and the Boston Fiedlers."
KUAC was the FIRST broadcast station to receive funding under the Higher Education Act of 1965. We bought a tape duplication system to help with the distribution of several programs we sent out to Alaska Commercial stations (we had no colleague public stations). It also got us a couple of more full-time staff, so that . . .
KUAC was among the original 67 public radio stations that qualified for CPB support.
Alaska Senator Bob Bartlett, BTW, was instrumental in making CPB the Corporation for Public BROADCASTING. The original act was for a Corporation for Public Television. Bartlett took to the Senate floor and supported the amendment to include radio, due to the need for radio in Alaska's rural areas. Jerry Sandler, the NAEB advocate in Washington, D.C., told me that Bartlett's support was crucial to including radio in the act.
KUAC's first syndicated programs were:

Alaska's Opinions -- excerpts from editorials from papers all over Alaska, the idea being to let people in Southeast Know what people in Nome were thinking, etc.
The University of Alaska Radio Forum -- Hosted originally by Bob Olson of the University Relations Department, it featured guest lecturers and occasional debates.
Performance -- Hosted mostly by me it featured recorded live performances by artists from Carlos Montoya to a local Bagpipe Band.

The original student staff (paid $50/month) consisted of Joe Mead and Sanford "Sandy" Kirkland. The EE department provided student engineers, the most notable being Herb Holeman, who later joined me at APBC.
Student announcers were all volunteers, but could enroll in a one-credit practicum in the Department of Speech and Drama.
I had a reel-to-reel recorder installed in my office, which was put into record mode whenever the console microphone was turned on. It let me reviewannouncer performance without having to listen to all the music and other programs. It quicly became known as the "Sneaky Peaky." And, of course, a few would turn on the microphone and turn the pot down, so I DID get all the other programs.
The first additional full-time staffer was Joel Fleming (1965?). Theda Pittman followed him in 1967.
From 1963 through at least 1967 (this continued into the '70s) we produced a six-hour show on Christmas Eve called "Prelude to Christmas." (How times have changed!) It was an amalgam of songs of the season, classical music of the season, humorous bits from the BBC (Basil Boothroid monologues on "Boxing Day"), but always featuring our own production of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." (and after 1969 a production of "The Plot to Overthrow Christmas") David Geesin ran the board and I provided the continuity through the night. At least on one or two occasions we simulcast the show on KFAR.
We produced "A Christmas Carol" in an all-night session, after the station went off the air since we had no production control room. Lee Salisbury narrated and recruited almost all the cast. Robin Fowler (later a Speech Prof) played Scrooge. Sandy Kirkland was one of the ghosts, Joe Mead rattled chains and moaned in the back stairwell of Constitution Hall as well as being Marley. I spent all the next day editing it on an old Magnacorder with a razor blade

KUAC was licensed to the University of Alaska at College, Alaska, in 1962. Thus the call letters K-U-A-C. It was licensed as a Noncommercial Educational Station (the term Public Radio had yet to be invented). Most NCE (now Public Radio) stations were allocated spectrum space at the low end of the FM spectrum. However, in Alaska the military had reserved that space for their use so KUAC was assigned a frequency, 104.7 mHz, that was usually assigned to commercial broadcasters. Many years later the military reserved frequencies were released and KUAC took that opportunity to change to 89.9 mHz and sell the 104.7 allocation to a commercial operator.

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