Editor’s note: This is the first in a series highlighting some of KPFZ’s approximate 65-plus radio personalities.
LAKEPORT — The deep voice of station manager Andy Weiss at the beginning of his Sunday through Thursday 9 to 11p.m. program ‘Karma Kola’, soothes his audience into listening. It’s a spoken word program and Weiss isn’t even on it, except to introduce it.
“I challenge the listeners. It’s for grown-ups. I don’t have solutions, I point directions. It’s a bit unusual,” he said, “not like most of the programs. I deal with humanities, science, theater, writing, movies, spiritual stuff. It’s the overall human condition viewed from East and West. A look through many different prisms. I get the audience excited and wanting to learn more about life. We have fun, too.” He joked in his calm, cool manner, “It’s also a great way for listeners to solve their insomnia; by listening and then falling to sleep while listening.”
The team of Ken Pool, 78, and Scott Nutall, 62, on the ‘Old Okie Workshop and Trading Show’ play off each other. They both say that the focus of their show is fun, yet Pool said, in his thick accent, “We’ll play stupid songs for a month, but I’m political as hell. People are learning things and not realizing it.”
The two meet weekly for breakfast at different restaurants around the lake to go over their program. After discussing their playlist, not much about their meeting is serious except for eating. Pool, originally from the Texas Panhandle started broadcasting on KPFZ with his wife. When she died, he broadcast on his own. “Scott used to call into my show a lot.” They became friends and Pool asked him to be his radio partner.
Scott says of their show, which airs on Saturdays 11 a.m.to noon, “If you know which brick to pull, the building comes down easy. Kenny and I are the brick pullers. One thing really great about Kenny is that he’ll let me do whatever I want. Kenny believes strongly in freedom of speech.”
The small, feisty, Eugenie Steinman from her ‘Radio Jail’ program takes calls from loved ones to inmates at the Lake County Jail. She also reads letters to and from inmates.
“Five years ago,” she said, “I heard about a radio program in Texas and read an article about it dealing with people in jail. I wasn’t crazy about it as they were glorifying jail, but I liked the concept, which, with some changes, became my program, ‘Radio Jail.’
The hurdle in starting her program was to convince the then sheriff, Sheriff Rivero, to get involved in bringing it to the actual jail inmates. “When Brian Martin subsequently became the chief, I had to convince him to allow it into the jail.”
Martin spoke of his hesitation, “I initially had concerns about the program from a facility security standpoint. After speaking with Eugenie and my staff, I learned that the program is beneficial in several ways and there have not been any security issues related to the implementation,” he said, adding that staff finds that making the program available to inmates helps with morale in that it makes them feel connected to their families during their incarceration. “As long as the program continues to be safe and useful, I plan to allow our inmates who have earned the privilege to listen in, to continue to do so,” said Brian.
“One surprising thing about ‘Radio Jail,” said Steinman, “is the audience who doesn’t have anyone in jail, also likes the program. I get a lot of letters. Some prison inmates write to jail friends they’ve left behind as they transferred from jail to prison. They give them encouragement and tell them of the transition. A lot of released inmates also give a shout-out to those still in jail. It’s a big community.”
Station history
Lake County’s local radio station, battled to be born. It was conceived in 1995 in Clearlake Oaks, around a wood burning stove. By 1996, Lake County Community Radio was broadcasting to Kelseyville, Lakeport, Nice and Lucerne as a micropower station. During subsequent years, the micro station battled with powerful Christian non-profit national networks vying for the use of the 88.1 FM radio frequency.
As per KPFZ.org, “While LCCR worked to fundraise enough money to continue the struggle for full-power [the 88.1 frequency], they shut down broadcasting in order to concentrate on fundraising. By good fortune, patience, negotiations, stubbornness, legal maneuvers, and with the help of The National Federation of Community Broadcasters (who lobbied the FCC to give preference to local organizations), LCCR prevailed. And on April 25, 2005, the right to use 88.1 FM was awarded to LCCR to broadcast to the entire county (and to parts of four other northern California counties), almost seven years after the application had been submitted.”
LCCR finally won the long grueling battle. “Yet, we still fight the financial battle to stay on the air,” said Weiss. “We hold regular fundraisers to continue broadcasting.”
KPFZ 88.1 FM, broadcasts 6 a.m.to 1 a.m. daily and can be contacted by phone at: 707.263.3640 or via their website: https://kpfz.org
