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About Us

Our Vision:

WKMS is a beacon for growing regional culture as a part of Murray State University’s public service investment in our communities through thoughtful journalism, conversation, music and arts.

Our Mission:

Inspire and empower a diverse audience as a trusted and essential resource for news, culture and community by promoting student success and regional growth as an impactful element of the brand and educational mission of Murray State University.

The Three Pillars: News, Culture, Community

News:

Objective 1: WKMS works to fill a need in the regional news landscape, on the air and online, in a meaningful way.

Strategy 1: Engage in solutions-based reporting that sheds light on important issues that impact lives, and share human stories of our region and its people that highlight the good in our community.

Objective 2: WKMS fosters growth in knowledge, critical inquiry and innovative thinking in our community, student population and faculty. (S.I. III - Advance Knowledge to Benefit Society)

Strategy 2: Cover the social, environmental, political, economic, health-based, and cultural concerns in our service region. (S.I. IV: Support regional economic development)

Objective 3: WKMS serves as a hub for real-world student experiential learning.

Strategy 3a: Teach paid student interns each semester in journalistic best practices and give them opportunities to share their work regionally, statewide and even nationally. (S.I. III - Action 3 - mentoring students)

Strategy 3b: Generate and aggregate stories and podcasts to be shared in classrooms to tie real-world current events into learning on almost every topic.

Objective 4: WKMS reports with integrity, accuracy and value to the public.

Strategy 4: Develop, maintain and improve an editorial policy with guidance from an editorial board and using NPR best practices.

Culture:

Objective 1: WKMS offers cultural experiences that enhance the music landscape in our region, and introduces students, staff and community members to new horizons and enriches their lives.

Strategy 1: Serve as a source of music discovery in genres not easily accessible elsewhere on the radio, from classical to bluegrass to jazz to alternative to world music and beyond. (S.I. IV, Action 7: Regional cultural hub)

Objective 2: WKMS showcases local musicians and artists.

Strategy 2: Share local artists’ music, theatrical talents, literary works and artistic skills with the region and the broader world. (S.I. IV, Action 7: Regional cultural hub)

Objective 3: WKMS shares the voices and talents of people of our region.

Strategy 3: Highlight the expertise of Murray State faculty, staff and students and the wider community – encouraging robust intellectual conversation and the retention of academic talent and thought in our community. (S.I. III, Action 1: Increase support for faculty engaged in scholarly activity)

Community:

Objective 1: WKMS is a community gathering place on-air and online; a place where all people are welcome. (S.I. IV: Quality of Life)

Strategy 1a: Build relationships in the service region so that listeners, WKMS members, alumni, students, faculty and the community at large feel more connected to each other, the community, and the educational mission of Murray State.

Strategy 1b: Grow the WKMS membership of contributing listeners each year (S.I. IV, Action 1: Grow fundraising from private sources)

Objective 2: WKMS seeks to actively engage in the community through on-air outreach and in-person events.

Strategy 2: Partner with local arts organizations across the region to meet listeners where they are. (S.I. IV, Action 7: Cultural Hub)

Objective 3: WKMS gives back to the communities we serve.

Strategy 3: Develop strategies and concrete ways to engage in philanthropy projects with organizations that serve those in need, and spread the message of area non-profits through special programming and participation in community events.

Objective 4: WKMS will focus on one of the cornerstones of public radio - a mission to serve all people: a diverse audience of inquisitive listeners including people of all socioeconomic backgrounds, generations, political persuasions, geographic locations, interests and taste. (S.I. II Action 10: recruit and retain underrepresented minority students, faculty & staff).

Strategy 4a: Share diverse and underrepresented voices in our region through intentional efforts and partnerships that highlight diversity and inclusiveness in the station’s journalistic and programming endeavors. Work diligently to tell everyone’s stories and partner with diverse organizations to learn from our peers in all backgrounds.

Strategy 4b: Bring global perspectives to our region including world music and news, while highlighting international community members and students who call our region home. (S.I. II, Action 8: Internationalization of campus).

Attached are the WKMS Strategic Plan and Editorial Policy documents, approved March 15, 2023 by the Strategic Planning Committee, WKMS Station Manager, Dean of the Arthur J. Bauernfeind College of Business and the Provost.

Background:

WKMS signed on May 11, 1970 as a non-commercial, educational FM station licensed to Murray State University.

The station now broadcasts in analog FM stereo and HD Digital on 91.3 MHz, with 100,000 watts analog and 1,000 watts digital, from antennas nearly 600 feet above average terrain, and streams these signals at www.wkms.org. The station also operates translators 92.5 FM Paducah, 93.1 FM Madisonville, KY and 99.5 FM Murray, KY for classical music. In 2010 WKMS installed repeater services 90.9 FM WKMD and WKMD HD1, HD2 and HD3,  Madisonville, KY, as well as 89.5 FM WKMT for Fulton, KY, Martin and Union City, TN. 

The station offers 3 independent channels of programming on its digital signal: HD-1 simulcasts programming on analog 91.3 FM while HD-2 offers classical music programming 24 hours a day. HD-3 provides WKMS Music, a 24 hour music discovery AAA stream. WKMS has put its HD-2 signal on translators 92.5 FM, 93.1 FM and 99.5 FM. WKMS' HD-3 offerings are also available on 102.9 FM in Madisonville.  WKMS has emergency auxiliary transmitters at its tower on the site of the former Mont, Kentucky in Land Between the Lakes, and at its studios on the 8th floor of Price Doyle Fine Arts Center, Murray State University.

WKMS is authorized to receive annual Community Service Grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). The station demonstrates through annual audits that it has significant funding from its listening communities to qualify for these grants. This funding from listening communities includes: appropriations from Murray State University, contributions from listeners, and investments from individual, business and organizational underwriters.

WKMS conducts fundraisers annually to encourage continuing and new contributions from listeners. These fundraisers include direct mailings, contacting known "member contributors" by phone for convenient renewals, providing a secure online giving page at wkms.org, and on-air campaigns. For the past decade nearly 2,000 listeners contribute annually.  The station continues to work to grow this number of listeners with programming updates and reviews.

WKMS broadcasts programming from National Public Radio, American Public Media, PRX, the BBC, the Associated Press, independent producers from around the nation and from producers who are either on staff or volunteers. WKMS News is a contributing correspondent with the Kentucky Public Radio News Exchange and a partner in funding the Kentucky Capitol Bureau.

As shown on the WKMS coverage map available at this website, our terrestrial listening communities are throughout southernmost Illinois, far western Kentucky, and northwest Tennessee. We also have listeners throughout the world who seek www.wkms.org for "home-away-from-home" listening experiences.

 

Grant Funding for WKMS Activities Over the Years

WKMS has been a member of the collaborative reporting project called "The Ohio Valley ReSource." This reporting partnership received seed funding funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has also support this work along with the Solutions Journalism Project. Seven public media organizations including WKMS also are fiscal partners. This project is covering the economic transition of the broadly defined Ohio Valley, including Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio.

WKMS has also launched a podcast called "Middle of Everywhere" born from PRX's Project Catapult. The podcast is focused on demystifying rural life by telling big stories from the small places we call home. This project was funded by PRX through a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

WKMS and the Kentucky Public Radio Network (AKPRS) is a strong partnership seeded by support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, that has expanded on its collaborative journalism efforts including the joint support for a state government reporter, content sharing, statewide mid-day newscasts, a digital network interconnect, a statewide underwriting sales person and a membership program project. 

Former WKMS Station Manager Chad Lampe was selected as a member of the Public Radio Incubation Lab in 2019, funded through NPR to allow for a 16-week intensive fellowship, utilizing design thinking methodology to prototype concepts for public radio stations to "work better together to advance station membership revenue."

In 2008 Murray State University made a $116,000 commitment to provide local matching funds for a construction funding assistance proposal to the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program which was granted.  This over $330,000 grant built the repeater stations for Madisonville and Fulton.

Previous Grant Projects:

After upgrading to 100,000 watts with a $150,000 grant from the Health Education and Welfare Department of the United States, WKMS has participated in several subsequent national grant activities. Both the Paducah and Paris translators were installed with matching grants from the Public Telecommunications Facilities Funding Program of the U.S. Department of Commerce. In 1981 the Kentucky Humanities Council provided funding for the station to produce an hour long drama, "The Land Between." Producer Sheila Rue received a $17,000 grant from the Kentucky Humanities Council in 1982 for her series "Crossroads."

Former Station Manager Kate Lochte was included in the two year CPB "Next Generation Project," training managers in business leadership practices. Producer Margaret Hunt received a CPB production grant for her series "Classical Classroom." In 1996 News Director Vince Medlock produced a series called "Straight Dope," about teen substance abuse with funding from the Benton Foundation of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The same funding sources supported independent producer Constance Alexander's year-long exploration of end of life issues in a series of reports called "Promises to Keep" in 1998, a project which included myriad activities with the Department of Nursing at Murray State University.

Alexander had earlier produced a series for WKMS titled "Connecting People and Place" with extensive oral history interviews with former residents of Land Between the Rivers. Lochte and Program Director Mark Welch participated in a three year long CPB project researching public service for rural audiences in conjunction with the National Federation of Community Broadcasters which began in 2001. In 2003 WKMS earned a CPB Rural Service Initiative Grant to upgrade its membership database systems. In 2004 WKMS Chief Engineer Allen Fowler's preparation of an application for an $85,000 matching grant from CPB for a new digital transmission system was funded the station leveraged listener dollars to complete the work in 2005.

 

WKMS Facilities

The WKMS tower is near the site of the former community of Mont, Kentucky between the Golden Pond Visitor's Center in Land Between the Lakes and Grand Rivers, Kentucky. At the top of the 500' tower there's a 10 bay FM antenna manufactured by ERI in Evansville, IN. Mounted just above them is a device called a Staticat which works to deflect lightning strikes. Down the center of the tower is a sealed copper tube called the transmission line. This line connects the antenna to two Harris 20K transmitters, primary and auxiliary, inside a concrete block building secured within a locked security enclosure.

Midway down the tower is the WKMS auxiliary antenna connected by a flexible transmission cable to the transmitters. The two separate antennas and two transmitters provide redundancy in emergencies. Also there's a "dummy load" power receptacle inside the transmitter building, which allows testing of the transmitters when there are line and antenna problems. This allows maximum efficiency in recovering from interruptions to the system such as power surges, lightning strikes, etc.

Further down the tower is the microwave receive antenna, which is calibrated to capture the studio transmitter link signal from the microwave send antenna atop Price Doyle Fine Arts tower at 15th and Olive Streets in Murray. The signal from the main studio travels from the microwave receive antenna down into the transmitter, then travels up the tower via the transmission line to the FM antenna for broadcast at 91.3 FM with 100,000 watts of power.

In addition to WKMS equipment, the tower hosts broadcast equipment belonging to Kentucky Early Warning System (KEWS) Kentucky Fish and Wildlife, Kentucky State Police, the U.S. Forestry Service and Satellink Paging.

Murray State University has a working agreement with KEWS whereby KEWS provides WKMS a transmission signal to the Murray Studios for phone telemetry, including all of the remote monitoring required to keep the system within parameters set for each broadcast station by the Federal Communications Commission, and KEWS has space for its equipment in an area of the 8th Floor of the Price Doyle Tower as well as in the transmitter hut at LBL.

KEWS also shares the cost of HVAC repairs and tower painting at the LBL site. The U.S. Forestry service provides landscape clearance to maintain the WKMS tower guy wire paths and anchors without threat of invasive damage from vegetation. The U.S. Forestry service also assists in maintaining the gravel road access and occasional security matters.

Pennyrile Electric of Trigg County provides the lines to the WKMS tower site and responds to emergencies there. Frequently the source of power interruption is an event of some sort at the TVA Lyon County substation, during which Pennyrile summons TVA crews and follows up after their repair to assure WKMS restored service at its remote location.

WKMS rents space from Kentucky Educational Television for its translator that improves reception for parts of Paducah. The tower is within the Department of Emergency Services compound on Coleman Road.  WKMS built a tower and owns it on land granted by easement from the Kentucky Community and Technical College system on campus at Madisonville Community College.  Public safety equipment for city of Madisonville and Hopkins county law enforcement agencies are on this tower as well as transmission equipment for 90.9 FM.

 

WKMS Physical Plant - Murray State Campus

Wrapped around the south end of the 8th Floor of Price Doyle Tower on campus at Murray State, WKMS includes offices for producers, administration, development and membership. There are three studios; a large multi-purpose room for the music library and news production; an office for the web and operations director including operations computer terminals, and equipment racks, and the studio auxiliary transmitter; and a workshop shared by engineering staff for WKMS and MSU TV 11.

 

 

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