PUBLIC RADIO STATION KRCU-FM HAS GROWN IN 10 YEARS

It began with old turntables and a small console tucked in a corner of a room of a former apartment building 10 years ago. Today, KRCU is a full-fledged Public Radio affiliate station offering local and network programming 24 hours a day.

It is gearing up for its on-air fund drive, a weeklong effort slated to kick off on Oct. 7.

The goal is to raise $27,500, half the amount the station hopes to raise from listeners in the current fiscal year will end June 30.

The station's management is promising to cancel the fund drive even before it starts if the funding goal is reached in the next several weeks.

The station began in 1976 as a campus station at Southeast Missouri State University. But in 1988 the university began looking to transform KRCU into a fine-arts and National Public Radio affiliate station.

On Nov. 15, 1990, KRCU ushered in Public Radio programming from a former apartment building on Henderson Avenue west of Houck Field House. As a campus station, KRCU had operated from cramped quarters in the basement of Southeast's Grauel Building.

Greg Petrowich was hired as operations director in 1991. He took over as station director a few years later.

Petrowich said KRCU initially operated from the lower floor in the three-story building. Today, the station takes up two floors and the third is used for storage.

At its inception, the station played mostly records. "Now we have 5,000 CDs and the same 300 or so records," he said.

Ten years ago, little of the station's operation was computerized. Today, local programming is recorded and edited on computers.

The station initially broadcast from noon to 10 p.m., and its only network program was National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" news show.

Over the years, the station has expanded both its local and its network programming. Today, it operates 24 hours a day and carries a wide range of network programming as well as a number of local programs.

Petrowich said the station airs 56 hours of local programming each week. A number of the shows is hosted by Southeast faculty members.

When it began as a Public Radio station in 1990, the signal was so weak that few people could hear it outside of Cape Girardeau and some areas of Jackson.

Petrowich said the station operated with 100 watts of powers. Its studio was at the current site, but the satellite dish to receive network programming was at Grauel and the antenna and transmitter were at Academic Hall.

Today, the station has a 230-foot-tall radio transmission tower adjacent to the KRCU building. It began operating with a more powerful transmitter in January 1994, which boosted its power to 6,000 watts.

While that doesn't compare to 100,000-watt commercial stations, the increased power and the transmission tower have allowed the station to reach a larger area.

Petrowich said the station can be heard throughout Cape Girardeau County and surrounding counties extending from Perryville, Mo., to the north to Sikeston, Mo., to the south. It also can be heard in Bollinger County and parts of Southern Illinois, he said.

KRCU plans to increase its power to 6,500 watts and put its antenna on a commercial station's tower, expanding the reach of its signal.

Petrowich said the project would cost about $140,000. The station has applied for a grant to fund 75 percent of the cost.

KRCU operates on a budget of about $400,000 a year, most of that labor and programing costs.

It has a full-time staff of five people, including one person whose job is to raise funds for the station. About 10 to 12 students work part time for the station in any given semester.

Petrowich estimates the budget has more than doubled over the past 10 years.

The university provides $185,000 a year in funding. The rest comes from donations from individuals, corporate underwriting and grants.

The nation's Corporation for Public Broadcasting gives $95,000 a year to the station. In earlier years, the CPB gave as little as $10,000 to KRCU.

But in recent years, funding has been weighted more for rural public radio stations, Petrowich said. Funding also is tied to the amount of private money raised.

Membership drives and corporate underwriting provides the station with about $115,000 a year.

Petrowich said the station has attracted listeners who want to hear a variety of fine music from classical to jazz.