University radio station earns honors

KJHK wins five awards including Best Entertainment Program

By Brian Lewis-Jones

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

When Ian Hrabe was broadcasting a comic-book-oriented radio show with two other students on KJHK last November, it never crossed his mind that it might win an award.

“We did it because we all love comics,” Hrabe said. “To get some recognition on it, it’s sort of nice.”

Hrabe, Olathe junior, and the two other co-hosts — Annie Harrigan, Leawood junior, and Joe Noh, Overland Park junior — of “The Panel,” a radio show on the student-run radio station, won second place at a Kansas Association of Broadcasters awards ceremony earlier this month.

Hrabe said the purpose of the “The Panel,” which placed in the entertainment category, was for the co-hosts to de-stigmatize comics as something for kids. In the November episode, the three co-hosts interviewed an artist who had been writing a comic per day for seven years.

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It’s good to illustrate that the station is multi-faceted and we’re not just about playing independent music. We do pay attention to production qualities and production values.

-Tom Johnson, general manager and program adviser at KJHK

He said the show was something he had been “passionate and proud of.” Winning the show, he said, was like some verification the show was getting noticed.

Four other honors were given to KJHK at the ceremony, including a first place award for a 60-second station promotion, “Hip Hop Hyp,” by Laura Watkins, Lenexa graduate student, and Jason Agron, Overland Park doctorial student, and a first place award for an entertainment program called “The Sporting Life.”

Rustin Dodd, Overland Park sophomore and Kansan sportswriter, was one of three co-hosts for “The Sporting Life,” an hour-long sports show with humor, analysis and spontaneity. Dodd’s co-hosts were Blake Cripps, Topeka senior, and Ryan Elder, Topeka freshman. Plaques were given to KJHK for “The Sporting Life” and other programs that won honors at the awards ceremony.

“KJHK is the small college station,” he said. “When you’re able to submit stuff for a contest like this and you’re able to compete against other colleges in Kansas, it makes you feel good when you’re able to win something.”

Dodd also won an honorable mention with Bryan Cisler, a Leawood junior, for “KU-K-State Men’s Basketball” sports play-by-play.

Tom Johnson, general manager and program adviser at KJHK, said the awards showed the students’ knowledge of quality programming and how to perform. He said hour-long talk shows like “The Sporting Life” can take four to eight hours per week to prepare for.

“It’s good to illustrate that the station is multi-faceted and we’re not just about playing independent music,” Johnson said. “We do pay attention to production qualities and production values.”

He said another second-place award was handed out for a documentary by Harrigan about visiting violinist and composer Daniel Bernard Roumain.

There were 138 entries in the competition this year. Thirty-two awards were handed out to students from schools across the state, which included the University of Kansas, Kansas State University and Butler Community College, Johnson said.

Kansan staff writer Brian Lewis-Jones can be contacted at bljones@kansan.com.

— Edited by Stacey Couch

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