“Radio should supply an outlet for emotion and be a vehicle for expression,” declared sophomore John “Nile” Wendorf (BA ’72) in 1970.
It was the height of the Vietnam protest era and Wendorf, general manager of student-run campus radio station KVDU, had recently secured the last noncommercial FM radio frequency in the Denver area.
In 1970, the University of Denver FM radio station KCFR replaced KVDU. In 1984, KCFR became an independent community radio station -- one of two stations that founded the Colorado Public Radio network. Photo courtesy of the DU Archives
During Wendorf’s tenure at the station, KVDU had gone from a station that adhered to a restrictive Top-40 play-list to one dominated by progressive rock — a far cry from the station’s original programming.
When KVDU started operating from the modestly equipped T-8 Building on South York Street in November 1947, the station broadcast campus news, original radio dramas and played classical music and the popular bebop music of the time. As a carrier-current station, however, KVDU could only reach students living on campus.
By the late 1960s, KVDU was comparably equipped to any commercial radio station, according to The Clarion, but it still needed licensing from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to extend the station’s operating power throughout Denver.
Motivated by the belief that “a university like DU needs to be attached to the community around it,” Wendorf took on the challenge of obtaining an FCC license when he became general manager in 1969.
At the same time, students including Bill Feinberg (BA ’72) worked to secure more airtime for progressive rock music from bands such as the Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin and the Doors, while others, including James Levin (BA ’72), expressed concern that the “radical hippie element of DU” had taken over the station.
On April 15, 1970, Wendorf and his supporters beat out their competition — a local church — and the University received a license to broadcast to an area stretching from Colorado Springs, Colo., to Cheyenne, Wyo.
When it came time to affix the FM transmitter on the Mary Reed Building’s tower, the students discovered they needed an additional $2,000. Without hesitation, and without his parents’ knowledge, Wendorf withdrew money from his tuition account to pay for the installation.
The FM station, known as KCFR, started broadcasting on Sept. 17, 1970, with what Wendorf described as avant-garde programming that included rock, jazz, blues, folk and classical. During that same academic year, KVDU was forced to shut down as its student staffers left to work for KCFR.
Wendorf would be the FM station’s only student general manager. After its first year on the air, the University began hiring professionals to run KCFR. Wendorf says he supported the decision because “KCFR wasn’t sustainable as a student-run radio station.”
Feinberg, however, saw it differently, saying the administration had become “uncomfortable with the power that could be harnessed by students in a potentially inappropriate way,” as the on-campus anti-war protest Woodstock West had demonstrated the previous year.
During the transition years, KCFR remained connected to DU, which continued providing funding and facilities.
In 1984, KCFR became an independent community radio station — one of two stations that founded the Colorado Public Radio network.
New student radio stations emerged to follow KVDU and KCFR, starting with KAOS in 1971 and KEGH in 1982. But they struggled with the same problems that plagued the former carrier-current station, and they, too, became defunct.
Technology has helped DU’s current radio station, KVDU, overcome many of the problems its predecessors encountered. Because KVDU broadcasts over the Internet, students living off campus or studying abroad can easily tune in to the station’s hip-hop, pop and indie offerings.
As campus radio was for earlier generations, “KVDU is the student voice of the University of Denver,” says sophomore Eric Peterson, KVDU’s Web developer.