KAXE's summer member drive is going on now and we're revisiting people who have played a big role in KAXE's history. Listeners can play a role in KAXE history by becoming a member now.
GRAND RAPIDS — Gail Otteson was in Hackensack when she first heard of a new kind of radio: KAXE in Grand Rapids.
“I was with this group of friends, we were having lunch somewhere and working on his house and somebody said, ‘Let's turn on the radio,'" Otteson said. "We start [turning] the dial and we just heard the kind of music we were not hearing anywhere on the radio and said, 'Maybe this is it.' And I haven't changed the dial since, except to listen to the Twins games."
Michael Goldberg, who had just moved to Hackensack as well, heard about the station from Otteson.
“She said, 'Listen to this,' and she turned on the radio and it was B.B. King on the radio. Unheard of. And we knew that something really, really important had happened in distant Grand Rapids,” Goldberg said.
Goldberg became inspired, and one day while listening to the radio station, he called them and said he would really like to come work for KAXE. The station staff told him there was a staff meeting Thursday, and he should stop on by. Boom: he got a job and a lifetime connection.
The year was 1978 and Goldberg was brought on as the outreach community coordinator.
Goldberg said, “They wanted to have people on the ground at the edges of the coverage area. They said, ‘OK, well, tell people about it.’ I immediately told my buddy Scott Hall that he should get involved.”
Goldberg eventually hired Hall to work for KAXE in the '80s.
Goldberg added that people born in the '80s and '90s who grew up listening to KAXE may not realize how lucky they were to already have it here.
“Many of those people have grown up to become volunteers and even staff of the station. And that's pretty cool. I feel kind of proud of it,” Goldberg said.
Not everyone believed in the dream of a rural station like KAXE. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting passed the first time the station applied for qualification. “[They] said no, we’re not doing rural radio stations for gophers," he added.
Otteson said they made a lot of decisions in their life based on having access to KAXE. They moved to Grand Rapids from Hackensack to be more involved with the station. They eventually moved to New York City for four years but came back to have more access to KAXE. They’ve been here ever since and are still involved with the station.
From staff member to music host to board member, Otteson has always been struck by how KAXE opens its doors — giving community members the chance to train as on-air hosts and tap into an incredible library of music.
In the '70s, Otteson and Goldberg hosted the sign-on shift at 6 a.m. They would go to the noisy teletype machine hidden in a closet and get the news and weather to share on the air.
“Our routine was to stop at a gas station, buy some doughnuts, buy the newspaper, come in here, look at interesting things in the newspaper — like funny, silly stuff — and pull music that would go with that," Otteson said.
They said reading the bridge scores was very popular.
“I don't think we can ever minimize the opportunity for people to come in off the street and get involved in community radio," she added. "It's an extremely rare opportunity to learn a new skill and to share your love of music and to meet so many people through this station as well."
She also added how important the sense of community that KAXE provides, and how important the local news is.
“Just the other night, we were discussing a couple of local things, and I thought, 'Oh, we're going to go to get some information.' I Googled something and I got this whole AI sort of rundown of what the internet knew about what's happening," Otteson said. "But then I went to KAXE site, and the two top stories were both the issues that we had just been discussing, so it's my go-to news source for local news."
Otteson can understand circumstances are different for everyone depending on how much they can financially support KAXE. For their family, members since been 1978, each year they try to give a little bit more. Then when an emergency like rescinded funds occurs, they ask how else they can help.
“I think we can meet this emergency and help KAXE stay on the air. It's so important to all of us in so many different ways,” Otteson said.
Help KAXE reach their $50,000 goal for the summer member drive by donating now.
