File photo courtesy the Colorado Daily Carter Johnson works in the KAIR studios in its early years.

The University of Colorado at Boulder was quieter in the 1970s than you might think. It was one of the few large universities in the United States that lacked a radio station.

That was until students got motivated to build radio studios in the basement of the University Memorial Center in 1979. Twenty-five years later, the facilities are still home to CU’s student-operated radio programming, now heard along the Front Range as KVCU Radio 1190 AM.

“The University and the students had always shown an interest in having their own radio station,” said David McIntosh, chairman of the student union’s programming board in the late 1970s who helped establish the Access In Radio Board, or AIRBoard. “The wealth of cultural resources that exist in the Boulder community had to be shared with a larger audience.

“The University thought a student- run radio station would be too hippie, too radical,” said McIntosh, now the owner of Boulder Phone Installers. “So, the students decided to go ahead with it and make it happen.”

Students voted in 1978 for a fee increase to bring radio to campus. From that fund, $100,000 was used to create studios in the UMC basement. KAIR-FM soon began providing news, music and entertainment primarily to dormitories through a “carrier current” system in which audio was fed to a transmitter that introduced an AM signal into a dorm’s electrical system. The electrical system could then function as an antenna for radios in and near the building.

Michael Deragisch, now the employer relations coordinator for CU’s Career Services office, was KAIR’s first general manager and spent hours crawling through the University’s underground tunnels to install transmitters in each of the 24 residence halls.

“We started functioning like a full-time, big-city radio station,” he said.

Former station manager John Quigley (MA '02) urges new master's students to get broadcast experience at KVCU. He is now a CU Foundation development officer.

The station, which broadcast from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. seven days a week, played rock ‘n’ roll and programs on topics from sex to religion.

“There were three newscasts a day, then later two,” Deragisch said. “They covered local, national and international news.

“Live broadcasts were a regular feature of KAIR. They included Conference on World Affairs lectures, International Women’s Week presentations and home women’s basketball games. Students did live radio drama and late-night talk radio.”

Advising the students was a young assistant professor named Steve Jones, now assistant dean of the School.

Bronson Hilliard, now managing editor of the Colorado Daily, worked at the station in the mid- 1980s. He said Deragisch deserves a lot of credit for creating from scratch a framework for students to take on the responsibility of operating the station.

“It seemed so improvised. The equipment was begged, borrowed and stolen. Michael was heroic in how he would throw together a newscast using dumb, dreamy-eyed college kids,” Hilliard said.

Several up-and-coming bands played in the studios, Deragisch said, including Elvis Costello and REM.

While KAIR did play a lot of music, news was a focus for the station.

“Students learned from the seat of their pants how to do journalism,” Deragisch said. “A lot of our reporters are still in the news.”

Sports journalists Chris Fowler (’85) and Jim Gray (’81) of ESPN, and Sports Illustrated senior writer Rick Reilly (’81) all reported for KAIR.

Assistant Professor Lee Hood (MA ’97, Ph.D. ’01) was one of the students who helped build the studios in the summer and fall of 1979.

“It’s been really gratifying for me to see that what we started has kept going,” Hood said, noting that the list of those working at the radio station also includes a gaggle of noted folks from the Denver- Boulder area, including Colorado state Sen. Jack Pommer of Boulder, reporter Brian Maas (’80) of KCNC-Channel 4, longtime KOA radio journalist Karen Trinidad (’80), former Boulder Women’s Press Club President Roz Brown, former KMGH-Channel 7 reporter Julie Hayden, former KUSA-Channel 9 producer Sherry (Bahcall) Tuffield (’79) and Derek Wilson, now in free-lance production after a long Denver TV production career.

“They started at this dinky little radio station, and many went on to be leaders in the field,” Deragisch said.

KAIR became KUCB in 1987. Tim Wieland (’91), news director at KCNC-Channel 4, said he couldn’t say enough good things about CU’s campus radio.

“I really credit my success in this career to my experience at KUCB,” he said. “Managing a news staff there fueled my passion for journalism.”

He said he learned things at KUCB that he couldn’t have learned in a classroom, such as learning to live with on-air deadlines.

In 1998, Jacor Broadcasting, which was soon to be acquired by Clear Channel Communications, donated the 1190 AM radio transmitter that had been used by KBCO-AM to the University. It allowed the station to move from the carrier current to an AM signal. KUCB-FM then became KVCUAM.

A search is on for a general manager of the station. Details are on the School’s Web site: www.colorado.edu/journalism.