SIOUX CENTER, Iowa (AP) - Growing up in the Sioux Center area, Brandon Huisman would fall asleep at night listening to radio station KDCR.
The next morning, he’d hear Bible trivia on the same station, located at 88.5 on the FM dial.
With a lifetime of listening to the Dordt University-operated station, it was tough for Huisman, now Dordt’s vice president for enrollment and marketing, when the university decided to shut down the station after 53 years of broadcasting Christian music, Dordt athletic contests, fine arts and chapel services and local church services.
“Our listeners have been faithful listeners over the years,” Huisman told the Sioux City Journal. “We’re deeply connected to the station and realize many of our listeners are as well.”
After a yearlong review of the station’s future, Dordt announced its decision last month, citing ongoing operational costs and limited donor support. The university had been looking at the station’s costs for four or five years.
“We tried a number of different things,” Huisman said.
The station’s final day will be May 14. The following day, it will return to the air as K-LOVE, a contemporary Christian music station that bought the station’s frequency.
While that leaves the station’s mission intact to a lesser degree, KDCR staff and listeners must move on without a station that was, as was the case with Huisman, a part of their lives.
“Most people have been accepting. There’s certainly a level of disappointment,” Huisman said.
Many Dordt alums who went into radio careers got their start at KDCR. Many others who didn’t get into the business found the station to be a great place to work to help pay their way through school.
“For me, the radio station was a part of Dordt University,” said Aaron Medberry, a senior worship arts major from Rochester, Minnesota, who has worked at the station for two years.
He’s not planning on a career in radio, but the voice work and audio editing and engineering skills he learned at the station will help him in the future, he said. He was disappointed to learn that future students won’t have that same chance.
“I was fully under the impression after graduating that the station would continue operating,” Medberry said.
Like many other technologies, terrestrial radio is feeling the threat from the digital age.
Huisman said the online Dordt Media Network continues to grow with livestreaming of sports and other university events. It’s been especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many people were forced to stay home and access information in new ways. The online network allows the university to reach alums and supporters outside KDCR’s 45-60-mile listening radius.
“We will maintain our Dordt Media Network online,” Huisman said.
The media network, which will take up residence in the KDCR building, likely will continue to expand, offering more athletic and arts broadcasts in the future. The network also could be an outlet for communications students to gain experience producing and airing weekend sports and news broadcasts and developing podcasts.
It will be a different way of getting Dordt’s Christian-themed message out. Medberry said many students enjoyed KDCR. Laughing, he said other students didn’t even know Dordt had a radio station.
He’s glad he was able to be part of a tradition stretching back to 1968.
“I feel proud that I got to be a part of KDCR before it closed down,” Medberry said. “It’s a privilege and an honor to be part of a team that worked so hard to make KDCR such a worthwhile station.”
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