Back in 1972, radio station KOPN was founded to serve the Columbia, Missouri area. The station was licensed for broadcast early the next year and now – over 50 years later – the community radio station that wasn’t expected to survive is still going strong.
In 2022, the KOPN Oral History Project captured memories from the station’s founders, former staff and long-time programmers. This podcast episode draws from those oral histories to tell a history of the station.
An history about the life and times of Columbia, Missouri’s community radio station, KOPN.
Radio station KOPN is real and can be streamed here.
Thanks for listening to this podcast about the history of the 24th state. Catch more podcast episodes at MoCurious.com.
In 1973, the Doobie, Allman and Isley Brothers all had popular records. Richard Nixon started his second term as America’s president. Also that year, a community radio station in Columbia, Missouri got a license to broadcast at 89.5fm.
In 2022 and 2023 – in the run-up to the 50th anniversary of KOPN, I organized current station volunteers to conduct oral histories with former and long-time station staff and programmers. These full oral histories live here.
For 13 weeks in early 2023, I hosted a live radio show on KOPN that drew from these oral histories, mined the station’s deep and wide archives and queried a live, in-studio guest about the week’s theme. I called the show KOPN: The First 50 Years. That’s a lot of work to put in to a one-hour show, so the shows live on as a predictably title podcast KOPN: The First 50 Years.
My goal with this podcast (and the KOPN Oral History Project broadly) is to preserve the story of our community radio station and give the listener (that’s you!) an idea of what it was like in the early, heady years after KOPN’s 1973 founding.
Episode 9 features excerpts from a 2022 oral history with long-time KOPN programmer Carol Goodnick. Also, featured on the podcast is an in-studio interview with current KOPN programmer and University of Missouri Journalism School student Tadeo Ruiz and music from the KOPN archives. It sounds like the former Columbia band, Swoop…
Episode 8 explores how women have created their own space on KOPN over the past 50 years. The 59 minute episode includes an oral history excerpt from Vic Day’s April 2022 interview with Margie Sable, archival excerpts of Margie’s show, The Brazen Hussy and 1979 Women’s Weekend, and a live interview with station programmers Corri Flaker Fraser and Luna Hawk. Music on the episode is 1976 archival jazz from former St. Louis jazzers Jasmine and madrigrals from Lyn Wolz.
Episode 7 features KOPN archival selections from longtime KOPN volunteer and Columbia community activist Wynna Faye Elbert talking about Columbia’s Black history. Bringing things into the present, the episode also includes a selection from Trevor Harris’ March 2023 interview with Worley Street Roundtable team members Verna Laboy and David Aguayo. The podcast concludes with a second excerpt from the KOPN archives: a selection from Lynn Harris’ 1976 interview with Maya Angelou.
Episode 6 features an oral history with former KOPN program director, Butch Burrell and his son and former children’s programmer, Eli Burrell. The episode also features an interview with former KOPN children’s radio producer, Christine Gardener and music from KOPN-adjacent artists Rhonda Vincent and Taj Mahal.
Episode 5 features oral history form lee Ruth plus poetry from the Chez Coffeehouse and archival recordings from Lee Ruth and Cathy Barton.
Episode 4 is about the ways the folk music found a radio home at KOPN.
Episode 3 features an interview with area fiddler and author Howard Marshall and KOPN programmer Margot McMillan, archival material from the Boone County Fair Fiddle Contest, Dear KOPN letters and more.
Episode 2 features an oral history with former KOPN children’s programmer Christine Gardener and current programmer Jackie Casteel, archival material from Inside Radio featuring Eli Burrell and Brother Blue plus live in-studio guests, including Ann Mehr, Sarah Catlin and Dante Dupuy.
Episode 1 looks at KOPN’s history with prison issues and features oral histories with James Robnett and Jim Austin, an archival feature about Renz Women’s Prison and guests Peggy Placier and December Harmon.
The Recollection Agency 