By Melanie J. Knox, Page Editor
KACU-FM, the public radio station run by ACU, will begin to air a new show, A Prairie Home Companion, with a sneak preview on Oct. 12 at 5:00 p.m.
A Prairie Home Companion is the number one program in public radio in the United States, carried on over 500 radio stations, and it is the most requested show KACU has had, said John Best, general manager.
The program includes original comedy sketches, sound effects, musical guests, and stories from the town “that time forgot and decades cannot improve,” host Garrison Keillor said in his signature monologue, “The News from Lake Wobegon.”
Best said that KACU had been unable to air the program previously because of the substantial cost of the program in conjunction with the membership to Public Radio International, through which the program is available.
A group of local Abilene businesspeople have agreed to be underwriters for the show.
“It will be a tremendous boon to Abilene and the Big Country to have as a part of the offerings we give to the public,” Best said. “It is one of the funniest and most well-done programs on all of public radio, produced and written by one of the major storytellers and writers in the United States, Garrison Keillor.”
Keillor currently is the host for A Prairie Home Companion and a daily five-minute radio program, The Writer’s Almanac. He is a frequent contributor to Time magazine, the author of 13 books and has won many awards for his work in broadcasting and literary works.
In addition to airing A Prairie Home Companion, KACU will now have the opportunity to air other shows offered through Public Radio International as well, such as the Pittsburg Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, and From the Top, the fastest growing classical music show in the United States, which features the next generation of professional musicians and begins Saturday at 1:00.
Information on programming times is available on the web at www.kacu.org, and more information on A Prairie Home Companion is available as well at http://prairiehome.org/.
KACU does not market to the student body on campus, but provides radio programming for Abilene and 27 other counties. KACU also serves to educate journalism and mass communication students in the field of broadcast. The average listening audience of KACU is 10,000 to 15,000 per week.
