LANGLEY — Imagine a morning of heavy snow and tuning into a radio station that could tell you what Highway 525 was like and what island roads were closed due to fallen trees.
Imagine tuning in locally to listen to the South Whidbey High School Jazz Ensemble playing live or hearing the latest news from last night’s city council meeting.
Now imagine all of that being lost.
South Whidbey’s work to establish a radio station almost slipped away before it hit its full potential. That is, until a group of committed volunteers started making waves.
“It was unthinkable to throw it away; we were so lucky to get it,” said Judith Walcutt, a community activist and a radio production veteran.
KWPA radio is the only radio station that the South End of Whidbey Island has ever had, and it was recently saved from demise. But now its future looks bright and rosy, thanks to the strength of the island community.
In 2003, KWPA was initiated by Rolf Seitle in order to bring a low-powered FM radio station to the island.
To secure a grant needed to meet the requirements of the Federal Communications Commission, Seitle and Diana Lindsay looked to Whidbey Island Center for the Arts and its non-profit status to act as the home base for accepting federal funding. WICA agreed, and within 18 months the founders were awarded a construction permit and a license for the station.
At that point, WICA board member Michael Nutt and Walcutt joined forces with Lindsay, and the grant-writing process began.
After completing the difficult task of applying to the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program through a long and arduous grant proposal process, WICA won the $54,000 grant and KWPA 103.1 FM was born.
Acting as a liaison between the station and the WICA Board of Directors, Lindsay personally paid for the equipment needed to get on the air; a transmitter and an antennae.
Even so, FCC rules are strict — and it was imperative that KWPA get on the air and at least do the minimal amount of station identification necessary to remain legal.
“It was difficult,” Walcutt recalled. “We didn’t have a place to be so we ended up in the backyard of Lloyd’s Auto Repair in Coupeville.”
They hooked up a five-disc CD player that cycled through the recorded voices of Walcutt and her husband David Ossman, another veteran of radio, just to keep the FCC happy and remain viable.
Meanwhile, WICA had its hands full dealing with the grant and the board of directors became concerned that all the effort wasn’t worth it.
“I said to them, ‘It is,’” recalled Nutt.
Nutt then asked Walcutt to run the station and raise the matching funds needed to keep the grant money.
“The FCC is like this big gorilla that you must answer to,” said Walcutt.
The deadline of March 31 for matching funds was approaching quickly, but supporters rallied at a meeting last month to keep the station. Roughly $4,000 in pledges was donated on the spot, and WICA decided that KWPA indeed was worth it. An application for extension of the deadline was agreed upon.
Now the station has a bright future.
William Bell, marketing director at Whidbey Telecom, has agreed to step up as a volunteer manager of the station. Taking on the business side of things, Bell is using his development acumen to set the agenda for what needs to be done next to keep the station on the air.
“The community is definitley behind the station and we have tons of support for programming and a natural desire to make this happen,” said Bell.
“But the first thing we need to do is to develop a business structure that is compliant with the FCC and the grant.”
Bell sees four key elements that need to be addressed in order to reach some short term goals: a business management plan, programming, technical equipment, and development of funds that would eventually allow for a studio to be built on the South End.
Without equipment and a studio, you can’t build an audience, said Bell. The station needs three Pentium pcs (used or not), one mixing board (12- or 24-track) and a microphone that would work for an FM station.
Bell said the ideal place for the antennae and transmitter would be about 20 feet of land somewhere along Penn Cove in Coupeville.
He is putting the word out now to property owners who would be willing to donate a small area of land for the gear. Otherwise, another alternative: adding the KWPA equipment to an existing antennae.
While Oak Harbor already has a station broadcast out of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, the South End lacks a local radio station.”Just imagine what we can do with our very own radio frequency,” said Walcutt.
“This is a vital community asset with infinite possibilities,” Nutt added.
“When I told the Coupeville Chamber of Commerce about the plan they were immediately excited by the propects,” Bell said. Sports events, public service announcements, emergency alerts, city council meetings and theatrical and musical entertainment all will have the potential to be broadcast to island residents from Coupeville south to Clinton.
KWPA will also have the means to stream live on the Internet with its local, non-commercial, non-corporate agenda.
“I hope that soon, alongside the radio broadcast capability, will be an opportunity to allow people to go to a Website and play the selection of digital MP3 files at their leisure; like Utube. They would have access to live broadcasts from WICA, WCT and musical events like Concerts on the Cove in Coupeville,” Bell said.
Supporters are already thinking of ways to raise the needed funds.
Entertainment artists are calling in their pledges to perform at any fundraising benefits for the station, and organizers have received more than 100 e-mails from residents who want to help.
Anyone with equipment, real estate, expertise or funds to donate to the radio station can call Bell at 360-678-8417 or e-mail william.bell@mac.com, or Walcutt at oworld@whidbey.com. Checks can also be sent directly to WICA with attention to: “KWPA Radio” at Whidbey Island Center for the Arts, PO Box 52, Langley, WA, 98260.
Patricia Duff can be reached at 221-5300 or pduff@southwhidbeyrecord.com.
