Sacramento State's KSSU celebrates 35 years of giving students a voice ...Middle East

There are at least 400 college radio stations still around, including Sacramento State's student-run station, KSSU.

As college radio stations continue to navigate an increasingly digital media landscape, KSSU students and alumni are celebrating 35 years of the station — and looking ahead to its future.

The station, based in the university's student union, continues to stream online and provide students with an opportunity to experiment, learn and connect with their campus community.

For student DJ Hana Cardozo, who made her KSSU debut a year ago under the name "DJ Day Lily," the station has become much more than a weekly radio show.

"It's kind of reduced some social anxiety for me in a lot of ways, and this is definitely a main place where I would meet a lot of people with similar interests and actually get along with," Cardozo said. "I'd say that out of any kind of activity on campus that I've ever been a part of, this is pretty much the place that I feel like I've come into my own."

Cardozo hosts weekly shows with Cloud 10 and said her first experiences at KSSU helped turn her interest in music into a passion.

"It wasn't so much of a passion as much as just music was, but then when I had my first show, worked a lot of my events, it really solidified as a passion for me," she said. "And I've made a lot of my greatest friendships at KSSU."

KSSU's anniversary is also a chance to look back at how difficult it was to get the station on the air in the first place.

Thirty-five years ago, a group of about 50 students spent two years working to get approval to launch a campus radio station.

Among the co-founders were Jim Bolt and Chris Prosio, who remember facing plenty of skepticism along the way.

"The librarians would come out and try to shush us," Bolt said. "And we said, 'Well, we have a radio station here, right?' "

Bolt said the students viewed those challenges as a test of whether they would stick with the project.

"And so we viewed that as a test of our mettle," he said. "The administration was trying to see, could they make it miserable for us? Will they stick it out? And the answer was, thankfully, yes."

Prosio said the experience taught the founders lessons that extended well beyond radio.

"It's a culmination of a lot of hard work and for a lot of the, what we call the OG founders, we kind of came of age in doing this," Prosio said. "We learned a lot of life lessons, including being tenacious."

That determination helped keep KSSU going through major changes in the way people consume media. The station began streaming online in 2005, which Bolt said was relatively early at the time.

A place to experiment

For KSSU advisor and full-time Sacramento State faculty member Hector Hernandez, the station's value goes beyond broadcasting. He said college radio provides students with a rare opportunity to experiment and make mistakes in a supportive environment.

"It's extremely important because it's a space that's fleeting from us now," Hernandez said.

"We're losing the type of spaces where we can just be free and experiment and have fun and kind of mess up in a space where if we mess up, it's okay, as long as we learn from that experience," he said. "And that's kind of what college radio is."

Ahead of Thursday's anniversary celebration, Cardozo helped Hernandez and KSSU student station manager Luna Diaz Contreras sort through photographs, fliers and other memorabilia documenting the station's history.

Diaz Contreras said the collection offers a glimpse into the many students who have relied on KSSU as a place to express themselves.

"The first one on top of that stack is from a disabled student, so a student with disabilities talking about how KSSU is the one place that they're comfortable to be and it's like their community and that they want it to do more," Diaz Contreras said.

"They want the school to support more, they want it to be better and it's just a giant stack of different people's perspectives, different people's lives, different students and how much they care and how much they're willing to express that care, as well," she added. "That's the part that when I look through it, I'm like, these are individual lives here, these are individual moments."

35 years — and counting

For Cardozo, the anniversary represents the continuation of something started by students decades before her. She took a moment to thank Bolt for helping create the station she now calls home.

"Thank you so much, Jim," Cardozo said. "This is still going strong and it has changed the lives of so many people."

Cardozo said KSSU continues to attract new generations of students looking for a place where they can be heard.

"This organization has been sought out by multiple generations. It's still being sought out for generations to come," she said. "And this is a place that people could come together, voice everything they're interested in, actually be seen for it."

KSSU's 35th anniversary celebration continues Thursday with alumni shows throughout the day, followed by a Grammy-themed awards ceremony and banquet in the evening.

Bolt, who traveled from Colorado for the anniversary, and Prosio also planned to host a "Get off My Lawn" show, a chance for the station's original generation of students to return to the microphone, reminisce and reflect on 35 years of KSSU.

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