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KCPR Radio History, 1978-1979
If you were on the KCPR staff during Cal Poly's 1977-78 academic year, please add details: just a paragraph or two about your time at KCPR will help us fill in the gaps. Details about you might fit better on your personal page. Also see the Audio and 
photo gallery pages for this year. (If the information you're adding isn't just for this year, consider putting it on another page and adding a reference from this page.)
Executive Staff
- General Manager: Chuck Schwynoch
- Program Director: Russ Sharer
- News Co-Directors: Paula Chambers & Tim Tomastik
- Chief Engineer: Mark Wurfl
- Production Director: Frank Thomas
- Music Director: Donna Pangburn
- Sports Director:
- Operations Director: Bob DeAragon
- Traffic Director:
- Special Programs:
- Faculty Advisor:
Staff
*Format: The Music
*Format: The Breaks
*Format: Pacific Concert
We changed the hours of Pacific Concert from 3:00 to 6:00 weekday afternoons to 5:00 to 7:00. There was a break at 6:00 for a 15 minute newscast. We also felt this change would be appreciated by our rock and roll listeners; we thought they would like the extra two hours in the afternoon, and we also thought that the numbers of rock and roll fans fell off during the dinner time hours of 5:00 to 7:00. While there is no confirmation of whether we were right or wrong in our thinking, at least we did have our logical reasons for changing Pacific Concert.
*Format: Special Music Programs
We also had a number of special music programs. If a particular DJ proposed a show with a specific format, such as jazz, country, or Christian, we usually accommodated them.
*Our Goals
Get lots of listeners to listen to the Broadcast Journalism students learn their craft.
*Little Orphan Amy II
The original production of Little Orphan Amy was in Spring quarter of 1977. Fond memories of LOA gave a small group of us the desire to want to produce an original radio comedy/drama. Frank Thomas, Paula Chambers, and Chuck Schwynoch got the ball rolling near the end of Winter Quarter 1979. For expediency with our workload of school, jobs, and KCPR management duties, we decided to resurrect LOA rather than create a completely new program. We started with the original LOA scripts, as that gave us a basic plot framework, and characters that already existed, and rewrote them. And so LOA II was born.
Technical note: In both versions of LOA we let fly with the swear words, and then spliced in tape from a reel of tone created by the engineering staff just for this purpose. Eventually, both the desire to push the envelope, as well as some laziness, led to a unique editing technique: Instead of cutting out the center of the offensive word and replacing it with an inch or two of the tone tape, the tape was simply cut in the middle of the word, and some of the tone tape was spliced in. Sometimes, several seconds of tone was used. When heard on air, when an offensive word was uttered, it was sort of like entering a small time warp; time stopped while a tone played, and then the action resumed exactly where it had left off. Well, we thought it was creative. Quiz: What special frequency was the tone? Hint: The engineers chose it to have a particular effect if a listener was on a long distance telephone call when the tone came over his speakers.
LOA II historical notes (life imitates art):
Personal note 1:
Personal note 2: LOA, both I and II, were great fun with great people. While attending a KCPR reunion in 2000, Frank and I were quite amazed to learn that the kids were rerunning LOA II. They had found the tapes, and were re-airing them. Never in our wildest dreams did we ever think that LOA II would have a life beyond our time.
Historical quiz: While LOA spawned LOA II, what spawned LOA?
Answer:
*Newsday
*Awards
*Almost Controversy
One person came close to being fired for their on-air antics. And it was for their behavior as a newscaster, not as a DJ. The News Directors went to bat for them, and no action was taken against the miscreant (who probably never even knew how close they came to being fired). That person went on to a long, successful career as a professional broadcaster.
*Actual Controversy I
A slight problem developed when Chief Engineer Mark Wurfl nearly resigned. Mark was overworked and severely underpaid. FCC regulations required that the Chief Engineer be a paid position. As a nearly-starving student Mark needed a job that actually paid him enough to feed himself and keep a roof over his head. The amount of time he spent keeping KCPR on the air prevented Mark from holding another job. Mark reached a point where he either needed a different job that paid normal wages, or the Chief Engineer position needed to provide a higher wage.
The resulting front page article caused quite a ruckus in the Cal Poly administration. Zuke was pissed about the public airing of internal station business. But, the fallout resulted in the school suddenly finding enough funds to retain our Chief Engineer. Funny how that leaked rumor led to the desired outcome.
*Actual Controversy II
*The Auction
Paula Chambers took charge of the fund-raising auction. It was a rousing success. According to recent information from Rick -DeBruhl it was the third annual auction. At the time it seemed like it was a long-running tradition and we were hell-bent on continuing it as a successful fund-raising event.
Links: HomePage KcprHistory Audio
