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Spring 2024

Radio

Spring 2017

Anna King ’00

Growing up in the foothills of Mount Rainier, Anna King ’00 figured she’d end up either a veterinarian or a writer. Her family ran a small cattle farm in Roy, and she loved animals.

King participated in 4-H projects, raising animals but also giving presentations that taught her to communicate with an audience. When a TV reporter from the Seattle area paid a visit to her high school class, she remembers thinking, “This person is so smart, so edgy, so inspiring.”

The Honors College alumna worked for several newspapers in the Puget Sound area, including the Puyallup Herald. She figured … » More …

Dan Maher
Spring 2017

Dan Maher ’78

Everywhere you go on the Palouse, there’s Dan Maher ’78. He’s playing at the Co-op in Moscow, the farmers’ markets in Pullman and Moscow, on Terrell Mall on the WSU campus—if there’s acoustic live music, Dan Maher, his guitar, and his guide dog can’t be far.

But, says Maher, the music scene is nothing like what it once was. “When I was a student here in the early ’70s there was a guitar every 30 feet. Everybody played guitar! We used to go to the basement of the K-House and jam every night.”

 

Even if you’ve never seen Maher play live, you may have … » More …

Winter 2002

A common reader: Trouble in Dusty Gulch

I really should be more worried about this. It’s my living, after all. For 20 years I’ve been presenting a kind of music so wildly varied in time (seven centuries and more), in style (Morris dances, Joplin rags, Mahlerian stairways to heaven, Copland cowboy ballets), and in instrumentation (shawms and zithers along with the violins and cellos), that the term “classical” is as inadequate in describing it all as calling the United States of America, Dusty Gulch, Nevada, just to avoid the complexities. But we call the music Dusty Gulch anyway, and there’s trouble in Dusty Gulch. Always has been, to tell you the truth.

… » More …

Summer 2004

Harrison National Public Radio pioneer

Whether plinking on the piano or pounding out scripts for public radio on his manual typewriter, Burton D. “Burt” Harrison enjoyed life to the fullest. During 27 years on the Washington State University communications faculty, including 17 as manager of KWSU Radio, he figured significantly in the formation and development of public broadcasting. Moreover, he exerted a positive influence on scores of students pursuing careers in broadcast journalism.

Harrison, 87, died January 22, 2004, in Centralia. Dee, his wife of 63 years, preceded him September 4, 2003.

To help finance his education at Kansas State Teachers College, the Atchison native played honky-tonk piano in nightclubs … » More …

Summer 2005

Happy 25th, KZUU!

It was a rock ‘n’ roll idea in a Bee Gees world.

In 1977, a time of flared pants and patchwork shirts, a small group of determined students at Washington State University wanted a voice that could reach beyond campus. They wanted an outlet that wasn’t commercial, one that didn’t play Billboard’s top hits, and one that wouldn’t dream of playing ABBA or Wings.

KZUU-FM was born of the idea that there was a world of good music out there, and no one was hearing it. “We were influenced by a lot of other radio stations at a lot of other universities,” says Jon Etherton … » More …