of joking about how hugely pregnant I was,”
she recalled. After her successful years at
KRTS, Lindley was hired as station manager at
the Birmingham, AL, NPR station WBHM.
“The Birmingham metro area is 1.1 million
people and we have 90,000-100,000 listeners.
We’re part of the university, off the beaten path
and we don’t have people walking in off the
street...not at all like Marfa.” In Marfa, she
said, the connection with the communities was
closer. “People would come through from Van
Horn on their drive to the doctor in Alpine. Or
a woman who got new dogs would bring her
dogs by to introduce them. I think the differ-
ence is that it made people feel more connected
in a rural area. I think it’s changed the charac-
ter of life out there ... it’s been this unifying
force for the region.”
Rachel recalls learning how to do new and
unexpected jobs in the early days. “I learned
light engineering: got a screwdriver and
switched out the satellite receivers. Drew Stuart
had already run an automation system, and he
gave me a two-day tutorial. That was certainly
not something I learned in journalism school.”
On April 9, 2011, on her way home for
lunch, Lindley alerted KRTS to the most
destructive wildfire in Texas history. She had
seen black smoke coming from the rockhouse
two miles west of downtown Marfa. The blaze
lasted three weeks, traveling from Marfa to Fort
Davis. Although the fire interrupted the sta-
tion’s spring membership drive, KRTS main-
tained coverage. In the end that drive turned
out to be the most successful ever, raising more
than $85,000.
Megan Wilde Dumitrescu of Alpine also
interned at KRTS during its first summer. She
had visited Marfa frequently from Austin, often
seeing the late Marfa curmudgeon Tigie
Lancaster. "I think it was spring 2005 when I
went with Tigie to a mule and donkey beauty
competition in Fort Davis and ran into some
people with microphones and headphones who
were trying to start a public radio station. While
I was a grad student in journalism at UT, I
heard they'd started a station and asked if I
could intern." The summer of 2006 turned out
to be a rocky start for the station. The FCC took
it off the air for nearly a year while FCC hurdles
in licensing, including with Mexico, were
cleared. Megan recalls Michael setting up an
online feed, and "working on editing Fort Davis
historian Lonn Taylor's show," but then her
brief internship ended. Megan later returned to
Marfa Public Radio to produce Nature Notes
for the Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute.
"I found out I was pregnant with Matilda right
after I started the job, and then had her just after
I'd finished up a year's worth of episodes. So the
soundtrack to Matilda's in-utero life was a lot of
bird and frog calls and Dallas Baxter's voice."
Megan and her husband, who teaches digital art
at Sul Ross University, still live in Alpine.
Ray Hendryx, who recently announced he is
moving to Kansas after 44 years operating
commercial station KVLF in Alpine, praised
KRTS. In a quote for a story in the New York
Times he said, “I have mixed emotions about
using taxpayers’ money for public radio, but if
ever there was a case for public radio, NPR is
it. They are providing a definite need to an area
that doesn’t have much.”
Drew Stuart’s journalistic background
included two years at the Desert Mountain Times
but no radio experience; he was Michael’s first
hire. He lived in Marfa or Alpine until he
bought land in Hudspeth County. He now edits
the family-owned Hudspeth County Herald in Bell
City after the death of previous editor Mary
Lynch. “We had to learn on the fly,” Stuart
recalled. “For quite some time, except for the
NPR programming, it was just my CD collec-
tion – a lot of country music, old-time folk
music, Townes Van Zandt, Willie Nelson – I
think somebody suggested calling the station
KRVZ because we played so much Townes
Van Zandt. We didn’t really have a music
library, just me and Tom. You couldn’t have
somebody there to load things. Occasionally
we made goofs and put music that was not
FCC - legal on the air. We had to learn quick-
ly.” Stuart remembers “lots of flat tires from
having to drive up into the Davis Mountains to
check on the transmitter ... at one point I got
stranded up there for several hours.” Michael
recently rehired Stuart to write Nature Notes –
the program that volunteer Dallas Baxter has
read since the first days of KRTS. “I’m pleased
to be doing that,” Stuart said. “I’ll be writing
the text and Dallas will still be the voice. That’s
probably the longest-running original program
the station has.”
Last year KRTS won six regional Edward
R. Murrow awards. Special recognition was
given to reporter Lorne Matalon for his cover-
age of borderland cultural stories. Borderland
stories is a subject KRTS manager Tom
Michael plans to pursue further, as well as the
“particularly American story” of income
inequality. Within the Small-Market Awards
Category KRTS captured top honors in
Newscast, Breaking News, News Series, Hard
News Reporting (all to Matalon), Use of Sound
(News Director Michael), and Website.
Michael said the KRTS side of the station’s
budget is currently $425,000, of which the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting gives
roughly $115,000. According to The Current,
which covers public media, fewer than 15,000
people live in the six-county original broadcast
area. Current plans include increased service to
the south and possible efforts to expand
Spanish programming. The next KRTS Fund
Drive is scheduled from Oct. 19 through Oct.
26, 2014. KRTS 93.5 Marfa. KRTP 91.7 Alpine.
KDKY 91.5 Marathon.
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Fourth Quarter 2014
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