Celebrations are in order for the University of Idaho’s own radio station, KUOI. On Oct. 29, KUOI will be turning 79 and to showcase this huge milestone, they are hosting some fun activities for listeners to contribute to and help them celebrate!
They will be doing a special birthday broadcast that lasts 24 hours. Listeners can tune into KUOI 89.3 FM on their radios or visit KUOI.org/radio to help them celebrate their special day.
Additionally, KUOI is currently hosting a poster contest, open to anyone, that will end on Oct. 27. It’s an opportunity for people to unleash their creativity and come up with a new logo and slogan for KUOI. Participants can send entries to [email protected] for a chance to win the contest and get free merch, along with an interview on a radio show of their choice.
Connor Anderson, the music librarian and KUOI employee of three years, will be in the station running much of the content for their birthday broadcast.
“I will be in the station from 12 a.m. to 12 a.m. I think I have, currently, all the open slots between people. I have seven hours myself that I’m going to be playing music,” Anderson said.
Being a long-time employee at KUOI, Anderson praised the station for their values of inclusivity and diversity and how the station has taken the lead in setting up Treefort, a music festival in Boise, for the past two years.
“Leading interviews, setting up interviews, photos, everything,” he said. “Treefort is, like, a solid week. You’re going from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. for concerts that whole week.”
Anderson grew up in Boise, so he has been helping set up Treefort for years and has been to some of the earliest ones.
Along with their hard work setting up Treefort, KUOI works to have a free-format experience with their platform and put out as much live broadcasting as they can.
They play any music, as long as it’s FCC clean before 10 p.m., and are open to any genre.
“I have gone from a song from an artist, early 2000s, all the way back to an artist from 1945. You can go back-to-back with weird songs. I have a show that’s literally dedicated to going into the library, pulling something off the shelf, and play it randomly,” Anderson said. “We went from jazz to ska, to heavy metal.”
KUOI strives to put out great content for their listeners, grow their audience and maintain their standards and values of diversity.
Their staff has a wide variety of people, ranging from an 80-year-old to freshmen in college. They have people who can reach out to anyone and create a feeling and sense of community.
“Everything that we can, we just try to be diverse. We’re trying to appeal to everyone and anybody,” Anderson said.
Brooklynn Jolley can be reached at [email protected]