The Butte America Foundation has been granted a license for a new LPFM station. KBMF-FM 102.5 will run Butte-centric programming spotlighting social justice issues and air a variety of programming.
While the foundation is in the fundraising stage, it has raised $4,000, hired a station manager and found an Uptown location, noted the Montana Standard story.
“We’re excited,” Butte America Foundation founding member Amanda Curtis, a former state legislator and the impetus behind the new organization and the radio station, told the paper. “Folks driving through will be able to hear about Butte by Butte people as soon as they hit Ramsay and until they get to Whitehall.”
“We would like to have Labor Day Today or some kind of Labor Day show in which labor leaders – Teamsters, teachers, food service workers, etc. – give news updates locally and worldwide in order to incorporate labor history,” said Curtis. “A lot of the organizing was built around music because it’s a moving way to communicate your message.”
The mission of the new station: “The Butte America Foundation, or BAmF, was founded to educate the public by providing information and tools to uphold the tenets of social justice. It is a center point for information about Butte, Montana, particularly its mining, industrial and cultural history. The Butte America Foundation promotes the interests of workers and underserved populations through education and community outreach.”
Locals can pitch their ideas for a show, said Clark Grant, newly-hired station manager who recently moved from Missoula specifically for the job. Grant worked for Montana Public Radio KUFM for five years and KGBA-FM, the University of Montana student-run radio station: “It will be a completely open access space where people can come to learn about music, learn how to broadcast, a center point of information about what’s going on in Butte and arts in this town,” Grant told The Montana Standard.
DJs from the Montana Tech student-run radio station, like Butte High School student Amber Edwards, are welcome, said Curtis.
Edwards plans to broadcast her “Breakfast for Dinner” show that she aired on KMSM. Her show focuses on talk, ‘90s music, Indie and metal genres.
The foundation’s goal is to have the radio station on air by July 2015.
See the Montana Standard story here
