There was a time when students were able to take a radio class at Wichita State; FM Radio just came out and it was the late 1930s and early 1940s.

In 1942, speech professor Forrest Whan decided to apply for a license to have an FM radio station associated with the university and KMUW 89.1 FM, also known as Public Radio station, was born.

A few years later KMUW made its first broadcast. It was April 26, 1949, and ever since then KMUW has been a non-commercial educational radio station.

“FM was relatively new and in the late 40’s was when the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] set aside part of their FM spectrum for the non-commercial, educational type-station,” Director of radio and General Manager of KMUW Mark McCain said.

“He applied for a license from the FCC and we were the first of a class of stations that were allowed to broadcast with a 10-watt transmitter, he said. There were a number of stations that got that around their times, but I think we can claim to be the first that was granted that license.

The license sets certain responsibilities for KMUW to operate, McCain said. WSU must provide money to operate the station. Between 20 percent and 25 percent of KMUW’s funding comes from the university and 12 percent comes from a federal grant.

“We raise about 60 percent overall from members and underwriters, businesses who contribute to the station,” McCain said.

Any KMUW employee is considered an employee of the University, McCain said. He said the station has 15 full-time employees, a few part-time employees and some students that are employed.

“We are a 24/7 radio station and our format is primarily news and information that includes international, national, state and local news,” McCain said, “We have about five hours of locally programmed music nonstop every evening.”

Originally hired as a graduate intern while working toward a master’s degree at WSU Fletcher Powell started working at the station doing production work and on-air announcing.

“I moved into feature reporting and I guess they liked me enough that they hired me as a news producer and reporter after I graduated,” Powell said.

Powell is now a producer and the host of the news program, “All Things Considered.”

“I like that no two days are exactly the same. One day, it’s Wichita baseball history, another day it’s scientific breakthroughs in synthetic human skin, another day it’s how to make a killer pasta dish,” Powell said.