Joya Misra '88
I probably first started listening to KSCL during Jaxon Baker's tenure as Station Manager. A couple of guys from Magnet (where I was in high school) started DJing there, which was amazingly cool, and listening at night made me feel like there was more to life than high school. (Alternative) music, (alternative) ideas about life, and especially the friends I made during those years changed my life (for the better). Jaxon and Merrill were both legendary in my world.
I left Shreveport after graduating, just to turn right back around and return to complete my sophomore through senior years of college at Centenary. By that time, Lauren Gaddy was station manager. I met my best friend (for life), she and I started doing a radio show of our own (think: The Cure "Love Cats," the Clash "London Calling," and Iggy Pop). These were, believe it or not, the days of albums and 8-track "carts" of public service announcements. I loved learning how to mix music from one song to another, and became very good at choosing songs and mixing two songs so that they had the same beat as one faded out and the other faded in. I sometimes wonder if that was my greatest skill ever. But to be fair, I also had a habit of running songs on the wrong speed just to be silly, and Jeanne and I often giggled so much when we tried to read public service announcements that we couldn't finish them and had to go right into the next song.
Lauren was a senior, so I decided to apply for the Station Manager job. Her roommate was my competition. I walked into the interview room with a list of about 25 ways I would change/upgrade/etc. KSCL if made station manager. It never occurred to me that she might find that annoying or insulting. But she still chose me (thanks!)!
Running KSCL was a dream come true. I went to NYC for the CMJ Music Festival, and almost got mugged. I got to see bands all of the time, and loved listening to new bands and new albums and just feeling like I was some small cog in the music industry. But it was also a real job (I got $150/month, which just covered my rent). During those years, we tried to upgrade our library and catalog our albums (just in time for the switch to CD, what a waste), we bought new turntables and eventually our first CD player, we repainted and recarpeted (thanks to "design" advice from another friend, we went from the previous blue and silver to a range of different shades of grey, which was even worse), and even got bands to come to campus for events. We also completely re-did the handbook. I spent an inordinate time on finances, bills, and asking the SGA for more money. I doubt more than 4 people ever saw it (my dentist was one, since he always mentioned it), but I even had a cable access tv show interviewing bands. I interviewed three, but then we ran out of bands and the third show was so lame ("hey, what have you been up to," "not much, you?" "not much, I guess you have a band" "yea, and you run the radio station?"), it didn't seem worth trying to find others. We were always being promised more money to upgrade, and I think we did extend our watts and range a little, but I felt like it was a constant fight.
Because most of my friends were "town," rather than "gown," we also had a fair amount of non-student staffing for late nights and weekends, or whenever students didn't run shifts, though we still used the auto-reverse tape desk Jaxon mentions. I ran into a fair amount of trouble over this, and after one incident regarding President Reagan's weekly radio address, found KSCL padlocked, and had to attend many meetings with the Dean of Students and promise all sorts of things just to get back onto the air.
When I stepped down after graduating (by the way, Jonathan Dagenhart was a freshman that year DJing for KSCL, I see he later became Station Manager), that night a band played a song about my being out of a job. From there, I went on to grad school, and I've been a professor for more years than I'd like to remember. I still support college radio, and am grateful every day for all of those who came before me at KSCL, as well as all of those who came after. You're doing good in the world."
Thanks!
Joya