KTOO packs a half century of programming into a six-hour 50-Fest anniversary celebration

Showcasing everything KTOO has done in 50 years of public broadcasting during a six-hour celebration was a bit of a squeeze — especially later in the evening as people packed into the venue to hear some of Juneau’s most popular dance bands — but in addition to a decades-wide span of music attendees at the event got exposure to station offerings including interviews, theater readings and a live rendition of a promotional jingle.

“The impetus behind our event tonight was to create something as eclectic as you get from all of KTOO’s public media services,” Justin Shoman, KTOO’s president and general manager, told the audience at the beginning of Saturday night’s event held mostly at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center.

A total of 10 musical performances were staged by 20 local musicians, with the interludes featuring various presentations focusing on the history of the station that made its radio broadcasting debut on Jan. 27, 1974. The venue was also filled with photos and other memorabilia showing the station’s growth over 50 years into television, two additional music-oriented radio stations, and a move to its current location adjacent to the JACC.

“It’s become sort of the arts campus part of town, really, between the State Museum, KTOO, the JACC that in now, and also now the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council managing Centennial Hall,” said Andy Kline, a longtime KTOO employee who hosted the first half of the evening that focused primarily on acoustic music and the station’s community-oriented programming.

Kline, who originally joined KTOO in 1991 as a “Morning Edition” host and became involved in the founding of the outlet’s music-oriented sister station KXLL, is also a host of the weekday program “Juneau Afternoon.” During 50-Fest he invoked the spirit of that show with two interviews of people affiliated with the station’s history, including a discussion about the town’s “arts campus” with Abel Ryan, a board member of the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council.

The other interview was with Callie Conerton, daughter of Jeff Brown, who became a local legend in four decades of various work at KTOO before retiring in 2018. His daughter said perhaps his biggest contribution was getting other residents involved with the station.

“It’s all about volunteers,” she said. “There’s people living in this town who share jazz, or when they come and share their love of folk music. I remember the blue songs from when I was younger and all those harmonies. So it’s about bringing people together through through love of music.”

Kline, sharing his own memories as well as asking others about theirs, said Brown “had a real commitment to bringing kids into the studio (with) ‘We Like Kids.”

“The show went national,” Kline said. “The syndication was an incredible high point.”

But beyond the national attention was how the show had local kids “connecting with the community in a really deep way,” Kline said.

“You’re talking about some of the kids that are now running this town, and run restaurants, and are on the Assembly, and doing all kinds of amazing things in this town,” he said. “And they got a sense of what their connection to civic responsibility and things like that were with public radio.”

Another tidbit of KTOO’s spoken-word programming was featured during a reading of David Ives’ one-act “Words, Words, Words” by three members of Juneau Ghost Light Theatre, preceded by a live rendition of JGLT’s radio jingle by Taylor Vidic, a local musician and promoter who was the primary organizer of 50-Fest.

“For a lot of years the hallmark and the pillar of radio was about having theater on the air,” Kline said. “Theater of the mind is what radio was called often in doing all that work. That was something that maybe was a little bit lost in some years.”

The night’s second set of concerts turned up the volume and intensity of the music — with a bigger and younger crowd to match — with dance-oriented performances by five bands, with KXLL DJ Kyle Paw serving as the emcee.

The KTOO building itself was used for only one performance — a “dinner break” show in the main studio by George Kuhar and Dan Kirkwood between two multi-set music shows at the JACC — although a trio of food trucks were in the parking lot where attendees clustered at points during the night.

• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.