Prairie Public has been broadcasting original and PBS television programs since 1964, but on this date in 1981, Prairie Public added radio when KCND 90.5 FM in Bismarck began broadcasting. And from the start, it was a member station of National Public Radio, which had been established ten year earlier.
But KCND was not the start of public radio in North Dakota. Engineering departments at the universities in both Grand Forks and Fargo experimented with radio way back in the early 1920s. The North Dakota Agricultural College—now NDSU—appears to have licensed a station about a year before UND, in October of 1922. That license was allowed to expire in 1926, and the college didn’t get back into broadcasting until the '50s. In the meantime, they did produce some programming, including informational “Farm Flashes.”
UND’s operation of a station has been nearly continuous since KFJM went on the air in October of 1923. Early programming emphasis was on music, with live broadcasts of UND musicians. The University Band closed the very first broadcast with a foxtrot. In 1925, live performances of dinner hour orchestras at the downtown Frederick and Dacotah Hotels were carried over phone lines to the studio for broadcast across the city.
Fast forward to the 1980s, and a growing Prairie Public radio network. Transmitters were added in Dickinson, Minot, and Williston. The fledgling network was known as Prairie Public Radio, but in 1999 Prairie Public partnered with UND and NDSU to form a statewide network called North Dakota Public Radio. Although many listeners still call Prairie Public by those old monikers, the network, now fully operated only by Prairie Public is known simply as … Prairie Public.
Today, Prairie Public’s radio signals reach almost all of North Dakota. And with the evolution of digital, Prairie Public’s radio streams and podcasts can be heard all around the world.
Of course, it wouldn’t have been possible if not for the support of public radio listeners and advocates. So we’re taking this Dakota Datebook opportunity, on the 40th anniversary of that first flipped switch, to say (can we say it enough?) a big THANK YOU.
Dakota Datebook by Marie Offutt
