Western Iowa Tech Community College to put students on the air with new radio station

Jack Stahle doesn’t listen to the radio much. The Western Iowa Tech Community College student said there are few options on the air that play music he likes — mainly heavy metal, or how he described it, “the heaviest music that you can think of.”

As part of his studies in the Sioux City community college’s video and media production program, Stahle said he has developed a radio show that fits his interests.

“My show is called ‘The Screaming Idiot,’ and basically I play anything and everything metal,” Stahle said.

Up until this semester, the second-year student’s show has only been available for listening through streaming, but with a rare opening and grant funding to help make it happen, his and other students’ work will be broadcast in and beyond Sioux City on KWSR FM 94.3.

Chris Mansfield, program coordinator for audio/video production, broadcast and journalism, said students are excited for the show to go on the air, which is expected to happen by the end of September according to a news release.

“They’re going to be plank owners on KWSR,” Mansfield said. “There’s the old saying, you know, ‘you can only do things the first time once,’ and so there’s going to be a whole bunch of first times here, being on the air this semester.”

Comet Radio, the student-run radio station, has been in operation as a streaming station for nearly 15 years, Mansfield said, but a move like this has always been just over the horizon. He’s told his classes in the past that the streaming station would follow Federal Communications Commission rules as to what can be aired on public radio.

Applications to become a low power FM radio station, however, only open every decade, and the last time they were available Mansfield said the program wasn’t ready to take the step.

When Mansfield was notified in the fall of 2023 by the general manager of Siouxland Public Media KWIT-KOJI, an NPR-affiliated radio station that broadcasts from the community college campus, that applications were open, he said that was “the starting pistol” that got the college program running toward its goal.

After receiving approval for the new station from the Federal Communications Commission in the spring of 2024, Mansfield said they got to work figuring out what they’d need and how the space needed to be renovated before they could start broadcasting. Students had a hand in the planning and construction work, especially those in the audio engineering program.

Evan Amundson, a fellow second-year student in the video and media production program, said he pushed for the incorporation of an FM radio station into Comet Radio and is ready to hit the ground running. He’s currently learning about what and what not to do in radio and already has a shift under his belt going over weather, news and other topics in between tunes.

“I think it’s cool that I can show off my talents to anyone that wants to hear it,” Amundson said.

Campus is the primary audience for the station, Mansfield said, with the community taking second place, but he always tells students that this will be the only station they’ll work at where they get to choose what they want to play. Students are writing the scripts and picking the songs from a music library with as many as 50,000 tracks, as well as available CDs and vinyl records.

“Being able to offer that to the community is just something (that’s) really cool that I think, being able to do as a college student, not only is going to look really good on your resume …  just being able to do that in general is fun,” Stahle said. “It’s interesting, it’s cool, it’s a great conversation starter.”

Mansfield agreed, saying the skills and experiences students will gain from their participation in the station will supply them with “a lot of tools in their toolbox.” Sioux City will gain its first new radio station in over a decade as well, and with an average 90% placement rate for program graduates, Mansfield said they will be in a great spot to go wherever they want.

“Some of these kids may never work in radio again, after they take their classes for this, they might go into work in television, or they might go into work in advertising or something like that,” Mansfield said. “But the skills that they learn, the skills that they are able to employ in a radio environment are something that apply all over the place, and it’s just one of those things that they will absolutely use for the rest of their professional career.”