Las Cruces’s community radio station KTAL-LP invited the community into its studio for a fundraiser on Feb. 15. Listeners were encouraged to learn what it takes to make a radio station and the vital role it plays in the Las Cruces community.
The station was filled with merchandise for the fundraiser, and at the entrance a custom guitar created by local artist Georjeanna Feltha was on display. The guitar, created as a commemorative piece for the folk singer Phil Ochs, was donated to the station to be raffled off during the fundraiser.
Visitors were encouraged to look around the station, grab some food, and interact with one another. During the fundraiser, the station was live, giving people the opportunity to watch the making of the program and learn the interworking of it first-hand.
People from all around the city came to support their community radio, a medium that is growing difficult to find in New Mexico. This lack of locally based radio has caused people in smaller communities to have fewer means of engaging with their immediate surroundings.
Doña Ana County Commissioner Shannon Reynolds, who is also one of the founders of KTAL, discussed his concerns about the declining number of community radio stations, news desert, in New Mexico, and what it means for the people caught in them.
“I think the programming desert we have in New Mexico is a real problem for us, and not enough people actually get the message,” Reynolds said. “They need to know what is going on, I mean we have fires up in Alamogordo. You can’t go to the radio station and see what’s happening. You’ve got to try to go to the El Paso News or Albuquerque News to figure out what’s going on in your own community.”
Allison Claire Neal-Wallace, KTAL’s board president, expressed her concerns about people becoming more isolated from their local communities. She discussed the importance of engaging in local communities and becoming more active in them.
“People are getting less and less trusting of their neighbors. We are standing more divided than ever,” Neal-Wallace said. “So, I think now is the time it’s very important for people to come together in community. You know, in your local community is where you find people that you’re going to relate to the most. Because a lot of them are living similar lives, because you live in the same town.”
Guests discussed how this disconnect affected how they integrated into the community and the difficulties they had understanding what was going on around them newswise. Event guest Laura Simon talked about how the radio station assisted her integration into Las Cruces after her move.
When she first moved to Las Cruces, she struggled with finding a source of local news. However, after two years, when scanning her radio for a new station she came across KTAL.
“I noticed there’s no local news on the television for me to wake up and listen to, unless I want to listen to El Paso News,” Simon said. “But KTAL was local, Las Cruces news… They’ve had commissioners on, state representatives on, and it’s a local news station that tells me exactly what’s going on in my new neighborhood.”
Board members discussed how they try to bring the community together through entertainment segments. People can receive a variety of content from interviews to music, which would not be given time on conventional radio stations.
“Frankly, I haven’t listened to radio for a long time. I’ve been listening to streaming services and just looking up artists that I want to listen to.” event guest Chris Bibzak said. “So I’ve just, no pun intended, tuned out of mainstream radio for a long time.
“I think that what I would get out of [community radio] is it seems you get to support yourself,” Said Bibzak. “But it’s less about advertising, and more about communication, music, and like, people authentically sharing things that excite them with a community they care about. I think that’s a pretty sincere and authentic reason to do it.”
With their fundraiser, KTAL-LP was aiming to bring more listeners to the radio. Many people volunteering at the station emphasized the importance of community involvement to keep providing for the Las Cruces community.
“This is kind of where Las Cruces talks to itself…” Neal-Wallace said. “So we do these big events to get people to come in, and get new people to discover the station, and engage [with] the community, have people meet each other. This is a community radio station, so this is a community event.”
Anyone interested in becoming a listener or volunteer can find KTAL at 101.5 FM or tune in online. Their website contains programming schedules and information on how to become involved with the station.
