Voices from the Valley has lost a very dear friend, Barry Horn. It is hard to tell everyone who is doing what to get this new radio station going because the contributions are so many. Barry was an outstanding supporter. Always there for sage advice and an extra push to keep things going when it was difficult. We need him now.
When he and I first met five years ago, he and I spent a rip roaring time over cocktails talking about our past lives in the media; Barry at KTRK in Houston and me at KRCL Community Radio in Salt Lake City. He prompted me to volunteer for KMBH. I immediately felt at home in the Valley with all the people who supported public radio. I had friends.
When I sadly left KMBH as a volunteer and supporter, it was Barry that encouraged me and opened a path to start the process for bringing a new radio station to the valley. Barry took everyone and every charitable cause under his wing.
He is so much a part of life in the Valley, when Scott Clark from the Brownsville Herald called yesterday to get an update on where we are and he asked for other people to interview, I put down Barry’s name. Guess it will take months before the automatic “Call Barry!” response will be quieted. I will just have to change it to …..what would Barry advise me to do?
The Brownsville Museum of Art is starting a fund in Barry’s name to carry on his work. Barry believed strongly that art was for all and should be fostered from all walks of life. To learn more information about that, contact our other super supporter, Will Everett at the BMFA. will.everett@brownsvillemfa.org
October 28th, 2009
Hello Radio Fans!
No,we did not disappear, we are still in the running for our station. What happened is that the station we were going to lease got sold out from under us. (We were soooo close.) The radio and television market is nuts as people are trying to figure out what is going on. There will be more blogs about this coming up with more detail than just saying its crazy. Lots to discuss in this blog entry.
Number One Discussion Point: The KMBH audit report (click here to view the report) from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is complete.
To fill you in on details. Our goal is not to destroy, our goal is to bring high quality public radio to the Valley that serves the great people that live here. Our job is to figure out a way to do that. We are solution people not complainers. Helping KMBH obtain transparency with their donors, practice good business policies, listen to their management and community boards, and provide a safe and productive work environment for their great employees is part of a solution.
So, as you read this report, lets think of ways in which they can strengthen their business practices and we can support them in this effort. Some of you have commented that over the last four months or so KMBH has gotten somewhat better. They have begun running Public Service Announcements, bringing in more local programming, and meeting with their community boards. Lets give them a hand for that!
Number Two Discussion Point: To get you up to date, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) provides money for public radio and television to purchase programs, do professional development, upgrade equipment, and more. A station must apply for funds in a grant proposal that includes what they are going to do with the money and a budget on how they are going to spend the money. At regular intervals, they have to provide progress and evaluation reports as well as records of how the money was spent. If there is any diversion in spending they are to notify the agency before they spend the money.
As you can read from the report, KMBH is struggling with three issues, accountability for funds, transparency, and representing the community they serve. These are all issues that you have brought up in local news articles and in letters to the CPB. The action of the regulatory arm to assure good business practices often must be jump started from a grass roots efforts. You did that. Thanks!
Transparency:
All government funds come from you, me, and millions of other taxpayers. As contributors, we are partners and are entitled to see financial records to be sure that the money was spent appropriately if we feel it has not. Public radio and television must have transparency and it must be accurate, complete, and readily available.
Community Advisory Board:
All Public Radio stations are required to have community advisory boards that can advise the station on how best to serve the community. These advisory boards are serious business because they are the wisdom that enriches local programming, assures all groups are represented egalitarian, and bring new, innovative ideas to the table.
Compliance with grants:
All organizations must provide accurate records of how they have spent their money according to their proposed action plan and their original budget.
Number Three Discussion Point: I am not going to analyze the report here. What I would like you to do, especially the past employees, volunteers, and board members in the know to provide input. To make it a game i have already identified three errors in KMBH explanations. How many can you find? You can comment on this blog or you can email me at betsy@voicesfromthevalley.org
KMBH gaining acute regulatory attention and them beginning the process of complying does not mean we are dusting our hands off and abandoning our work to bring in a new public radio station to the Valley. We are in America and what we know works is competition. It makes everyone work harder, keeps quality, innovation, and creativeness energized.
Thanks to all of you persistent folks that have spoken out. It is because of you that radio and television in the Valley is getting better.
So, you can contact me by responding to this blog so others can read your comments or email me at betsy@voicesfromthevalley.org You can contact the CPB Ombusman for more technical questions by clicking here.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Betsy
October 7th, 2009
Thursday I attended a border committee meeting at Texas Public Radio. They have been working with us on getting a new station. The advantage of partnering with them is that as soon as we negotiate a lease or find a station to purchase, we go into full speed.
We originally started getting you all to make pledges of support to find out what level or support we would find here. There has been a myth around the Valley that residents wouldn’t financially support a station. We had to have evidence in black and white that this was not the case. Your pledges of support showed to us that this is not true. We used your pledges to go to potential donors and partners to learn what our options are.
We had a radio station in line, but low and behold, the bottom fell out of the market and some radio stations when to almost a third of their value. Whoops! You would have thought that would have made it easier for us to find a station but the big guys and gals have come in bargain hunting.
So, here is where we are at:
1. We are continuing to look for a station in the Valley through a broker.
2. We are debating on the structure on who will hold what. Do we, as a friends group hold the lease? or do we have TPR hold the lease?
3. Now we have to turn our pledges of support into understanding how much money we can raise and how quickly to have cash in hand when the lease is secured. We need a marketing and business plan.
We added a Facebook account so we can do more discussions. (Voices Valley request me as a friend, betsy@voicesfromthevalley.org) From our list of Radio Fans we see lots of local talent and professional assistance. Now that summer is coming to an end, we will be doing more meetings in the Valley….
We need suggestions for large donors and people that will help get us introduced so we can learn how we can help them in exchange for them helping us with the lease. So, if you have ideas, please contact me betsy@voicesfromthevalley.org.
Night Radio Fans!
August 9th, 2009
I’m headed to a negotiations meeting with Texas Public Radio. Text me 956-466-0182 about programs you would like to have and suggestions for local talent.
You can also get on twitter. Rio Grande Voices or our Facebook account Voices Valley
Betsy
August 6th, 2009
Thursday I am off to San Antonio to work with the Border Radio Committee at Texas Public Radio. This meeting will be to discuss where VftV is on our progress and how we might combine efforts to get this station up and running. I keep trying to remind myself that some of us have been working on this project for a year, but the Valley has been waiting for a long time to have this happen.
Today I went to the Brownsville Commissioners meeting at the old Post Office on Elizabeth Street. What an amazing building. For those of you who have not visited Elizabeth Street, you need to do this. There are great treasures to be found there, lots of fun, and some of the best restaurants. My favorite is the Mexican/Chinese restaurant that serves real new york yogurt ice cream. YUM Trust me, you can’t buy this kinda fun!
The reason for the visit was that the City provides non-profit attractions and museums with money from the HOT tax – that is the money that always appears on your bill when you go to a hotel. They tell you the hotel is $85.00, then they add this tax on it. The Brownsville Museum of Fine Arts and the Camille Lightner Playhouse were in danger of losing funding. The Zoo’s funding was going to be cut in half. This is very serious to cut huge amounts of money out of these organizations budgets. The place was packed with us protesters. (No, we didn’t burn anything.)
George from the Jazz Festival was there…….good news, folks I’ll see you there. If you want to hit the yogurt ice cream with me…..I’ll buy. I couldn’t believe the zoo only gets about 24% of its funding from the city!!!!!!!!! THAT is quite an accomplishment.
Gotta hand it to the Commissioners. it looks as if they are not going to allow this to happen. But what if we had not appeared?
This is one of the things we are missing in the Valley, a way for non-profits educational, cultural, and ecological/zoological educational institutions to advertise all the wonderful things they do for the community. As I listened to the numbers of visitors, school children, classes, and just fun things these institutions do, I realize that if this meeting had been advertised on the radio, it may have never happened. People would know that every penny they spend for these institutions is capital in our children’s educational and cultural life ways piggy bank.
So, at the meeting this week I’m going to talk about public service announcements and how we get them produced to be on the radio. Then what programs we might produce to let people know what your museums are up to. We are not going to open with a staff here sooooooo we need volunteers with good computers to record and edit.
This is it Radio Fans. Send an email betsy@voicesfromthevalley.org or make a comment on the blog that you might want to bring up at the meeting. Super volunteer Pablo may not make this meeting but then next probably.
Betsy
August 4th, 2009
We had a small by great group of people last night in Edinburg. Thanks for coming.
At the meeting we discussed what has been happening to date and what is coming up. Here’s a run down:
1. The radio station that we were negotiating with for a 5 year lease has been a victim of the economy. They were purchased by a large conglomerate that took many stations off their hands. This has put us and our broker back looking for a station.
This is a common story in the turmoil of what is happening with radio. Just our luck we got caught in it.
2. We will be attending the meetings of the Border Committee (not too sure if that is the real name) at Texas Public Radio on a monthly or as needed basis to regroup and get an outline.
3. There are still many options open on how this is going to be coming together. The frustrating part is that this is slow. Once we get everything in line it will go so fast we will bemoan the slow part.
So, hang in there Radio Fans. We will be having a meeting in Brownsville soon, then back to the upper valley.
Betsy
July 31st, 2009
Hi Radio Fans
We have a meeting in Edinburg tonight..
* Date: July 30 (Thursday)
* Time: 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm
* Place: Edwards Abstract & Title Co., 3111 W. Freddy Gonzalez Dr., Edinburg, TX http://www.edwards-titleco.com/
We will be talking about the delay we have encountered and what we are doing to speed things up. We will also be soliciting your comments and suggestions. I’ll be going to San Antonio next week so we need to have lots of input from Valley folks.
Hope to see you all there!
July 30th, 2009
I was looking for analysis or interpretation on the flurry of radio stations being bought and sold by national corporations. I ran into this blog http://www.sacunion.com/pages/columns/articles/11567/ . It cited Clear Channel as saying that they were intent on eliminating local news on their stations. The blog didn’t say why, but the economics of the situation is that it is expensive to have a local office with local folks operating their airwaves.
Now, this post is going to be like the Simpsons, you start out with one thought but a side line takes over. The blog continued on to talk about how Obama was going to silence national talk shows, particularly Rush Limbaugh. Now this is interesting. According to the article, Obama made a direct assault on the Rush Limbaugh show. I put “assault on …..” a quote from the article into Google and the trusty search engine brought up tons of entries on this assault. But you know, trained as a scientists, if you do research you have to quote primary sources. Not one of the blogs came up with a primary source of Obama’s actual statement. I actually got tired of the word …assault…plus I can’t spell it without my loyal but sometimes deceptive, spell checker (like slyly telling me boarder is border).
Where is this leading? I’m not going to assault Mr. Limbaugh, he has enough worries without me adding to them. What is interesting is the number of blogs that are carrying opinion style news with the exact same quotes as the one I found in the blog. Aha! The network of blogs that are taking the place of news reporting. And Clear Channel is going to less voices and more one voice for news and commentary.
So here are two thoughts. One, is can anyone find a primary source of exactly what Obama said about Rush Limbaugh? The other is what do we do if radio continues to become one national voice? Is this where the blending of radio and the Internet is going to play out? How dangerous is this?
Any of you want to discuss this on Facebook? Go to “Voices Valley” once you get there. Or send me an email address and I’ll make you a friend.
Don’t forget the meeting on Thursday night. Visit the board page on the website http://www.voicesfromthevalley.org for the details.
Betsy
July 28th, 2009
Voices from the Valley is gaining strength and support strictly by word of mouth and people like you. Because this is truly a Valley wide effort, we want to have a Valley wide Board and input so we are asking that if you are a resident of the upper Rio Grande Valley that you attend our informational and organizational meeting this Thursday. We will also be updating attendees about the latest on our efforts to have more diversity in public radio.
Here are the details in case you want to attend:
Date: July 30 (Thursday)
Time: 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm
Place: Edwards Abstract & Title Co., 3111 W. Freddy Gonzalez Dr., Edinburg, TX
http://www.edwards-titleco.com/
Please RSVP by emailing me at Pablo@voicesfromthevalley.org so that we can know the number of folks to expect. Gracias.
July 26th, 2009
This is taking much more time than expected. The radio market in the U.S., well I guess around the word, has lit up since the recession/depression/downturn/whatever is being played out. It is like a dust cloud out there as people try and determine to buy or sell. Prices are down, loans are hard to get, but there are some people out there with investment capital that are taking advantage of the low prices and the lack of buyers.
The reason for the delay is that we are right in the middle of all of this. Things were on target and a national buyer came in bargain hunting. Local, independent stations are disappearing as large corporations come in, purchase them, and pipe in pan programming. There is no local news, no local views, no local anything. Can you imagine more “generic” radio stations here? Not me!
At the same time all this buying and selling among national conglomerates is happening, radio gurus are predicting that local radio will be the wave of the future. Satellite radio and the Internet is where folks go to get national and international news and music. There is a great demand for good local news, local programs, and local advertisers.
Now this isn’t matching up. Large corporations buying stations and the demand is for local programming. I’m still searching around to understand the logic.
Anyway, we are in the stage of pounce. We have brokers, Texas Public Radio, and 300 local folks all waiting to roll.
For those of you in McAllen that would like to ask questions and/or give advice, super volunteer Pablo is organizing a meeting in Edinburgh on July 30th, the next blog will have the details from him.
The week after, we will be in San Antonio to work with Texas Public Radio. We are looking at changing our communications system. Web pages are so static, we are going to do a new blend of ways to let you know what we are doing. More on that later.
Thanks to all of you that have been writing and calling. We are working hard.
July 26th, 2009
Well Radio Fans, I took a break here to go to Ohio where I have 4 family members in and out of hospitals. Everyone is fine. Ya gotta hand it to my family for being efficient for everyone to do this at once! One trip for all four instead of stretching it out for months.
So, where are we? We have an advisory meeting planned on July 30th at Edinberg. We will publish the exact time and place in a couple days. We will also have one around that date as soon as I can find Mark Clark and set up a time and date. Friends of his knows he is one of the busiest men in town.
While driving to Ohio and back, I had the opportunity to listen to radio for the 52 hours I was in the car. Lots of changes. One is that there are many cities that have more than one public radio station. I’ll have to look at CPB figures to confirm if this is growing or not. It was nice because I could choose what to listen to. The second is that public radio stations are no longer the hog of the low end of the dial. They can be anywhere and that end is now very diverse with religious, rock, and country.
The third is that there are many public radio stations on AM. Thank heavens because some of those country places only get AM and heavens if I had to listen to Rush. I do enjoy Coast to Coast and listen to people talk about aliens from other planets. This one I love. Some man said that he had been abducted by aliens so many times that he just knew that they would want to “probe” his kids. So, he did the logical thing and lined the inside of his house and roof with tin foil. If I could have called in, my suggestion to him would to have been to take another physics course. Oh well.
Many of the stations gave their web address along with their call letters, almost as if they are one. That was interesting because I wasn’t able to call in, but I realized that when I stopped the car I could have just used my Internet connection on my phone to have contributed my wise advice to the “abductee”.
At the upcoming meetings, we will be discussing these issues. More than two stations, AM versus FM, and what role the Internet will play in our new station. We can also discuss how to protect your house from aliens after the meeting over a couple glasses of wine.
Betsy
July 15th, 2009
As we build this station, we will be asking a lot of questions about what radio will be like in five and ten years. Newspapers are giving us some very interesting hints.
News has never, ever, ever been more popular that it has been in the last ten years. People are totally addicted to it. Did all of you notice the complete and almost total shut down of the Internet after it was announced Michale Jackson died? People did not turn on the television, they turned on the Internet.
Now, we have discussed the popularity of news…..think about it. We all got on to find out about M.J.’s unexpected death. But what if someone just as important to our community does unexpectidly. it will not be on CNN, MSN, Fox News, or other AP sources. It will be in our local newspaper.
M.J.’s death with not help the conditions of our local schools, fix the pot hole in front of our house, or report a missing child. Our local newspaper and our local public radio station will. That is why we have our license, that is why we are here.
But also consider this. If we have a community issue that is of national importance, like the Boarder Wall or the drug trade targeting the Rio Grande Valley because other boarder towns are experiencing too much law enforcement. We need a national outlet to let people know the truth about what is happening here.
My friends that live in NYC, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Chicago are concerned because I live in Brownsville? How silly can that be???? They live with danger we cannot even imagine here.
Back to our title. Write letters to the editors of your local paper. We want to cooperate with them to keep local news live in the Valley and keep our true story national.
Thanks Radio Fans!
Betsy
June 27th, 2009
But who is counting.
What we need to be doing is counting the days that we will have a new public radio station in the Rio Grande Valley.
You know the fun part? What will radio look like in 10 years? Because we will be new, innovative, and exciting we will be in a position to reinvent radio.
Talk about fun Radio Fans….this is it!
June 22nd, 2009
So far this morning we have had over 200 hits on the Voices from the Valley web site. Tons of comments thought our email, twitter, and even old fashioned phone calls.
It is so great to know how welcome this new station will be. It is also amazing how many people here in the Valley have radio experience in producing, writing and volunteering. Believe me, you will all be put to work as soon as we get the station going.
We are still putting the details together…..just one more hurdle. We will be able to write a book on how not to put a station together. This is suppose to be our quiet period, however we keep getting all this interesting publicity. The good part about this is that the publicity just keeps showing our partners and large donors the amazing support we have and the following we will have.
We love hearing from you. Keep watching for more news. And keep passing the word!
Betsy
June 22nd, 2009
this is getting to be so exciting. We are very close to getting everything up and running.
Ha Ha what we don’t have up and running is that the blog sends a message to everyone but omits the notice that there is a blog entry and the title.
so, radio fans…..help! Who has worked with Yahoo Small Business Blogs and can give me a hand on this???? Hate to pay for this service and not be able to use the blog. Yahoo is not like apple with easy to access experts to give immediate advice. My eyes are crossed reading all the helpful information.
Anyway. Keep contacting friends for our 300 letters of support. And, remind them that this is just a pledge of support. We will be asking for money but only after we have all our business and financial measures in place…..but won’t be long.
Betsy
And, love to hear from you folks. Send me an email at betsy@voicesfromthevalley.org.
June 15th, 2009
Hi Radio Fans!
We have been experiencing some unusual attention. It seems as if KMBH has been running spots and put a notice on their web page that this project is a “scam or a fantasy”.
We are getting so close to making this happen, again we hate to go public because we are securing large donors and partner, (shhhh this is a secret, Texas Public Radio. This is a time to be quiet. (By the way, we are crossing our fingers that we will be up and running by December!)
So, to combat this publicity, we are asking you all to go public with your support for another public radio station in the valley. The local papers are getting ready to run articles so you can contact them directly or send in letters to the editors. We need them to hear from you.
What we want to do is publicize the positive aspects of this and not (sigh) attack KMBH. They seem to be doing a fine job of putting themselves in a negative light and they don’t need our help.
So, when you talk to people you may want to emphasize these points:
The Valley needs a station that serves non-profits, community events, charities, and other organizations that cannot find a voice on commercial radio.
The Valley needs a voice that extends nationally. We will be doing this by offering locally produced programs nationwide and our taking part in national discussions. (Ever notice that we had no say in the border wall dispute.)
That the Valley demands a high quality station that reflects the true culture and progress of the Valley.
No one has been asked for any money, just for a letter of support to show donors that we have a dedicated people that will support a station with money, people power, talent, underwriters, and listeners.
Many cities have two or three public and community radio stations. Competition is healthy for all.
Thanks so much for your help. This is going to happen – because of you.
Betsy Price
betsy@voicesfromthevalley.org
Sign up for the blog for updates http://www.voicesfromthevalley.org/blog
June 14th, 2009
Hi Radio Fans!
We are still in our quiet phase. However your pledges of support are making a loud noise to bring in our large donors and partners in this project. Thank you so very much. (Keep passing the word to your friends to sign up.)
Many of you have offered to write checks. We are not ready to take your money. Your promise is what we need.
Before we begin to ask for cash, we need to have our business plan in place, our large donors secured, and the date of our first broadcast. We are very very close to all of this. It is so exciting and difficult to not tell everyone the details………buttttttttt we have to line up ducks in a row. There is one left we are chasing and getting in line.
So, the suspense grows. I haven’t felt like this since the Christmas when I was 9 years old and was waiting for that very special present. I was so excited my stomach hurt, I could not eat (you can imagine!!) and I was on the verge of throwing up. But I lived through it and YES! I got that very special gift.
So, keep in touch. Good news is coming soon.
June 12th, 2009
Interesting title of a blog…..an equally interesting quest.
The Brownsville Museum of Fine Arts is having a Art of the Bellini event on Thursday, June 11th at 5:30. (You shouldn’t miss this one! Tons of fun.)
Now, I am helping out and just received an email for art friends to donate champagne flutes. (Don’t you wonder why they call them flutes?) We estimate we need about 200 and will still be washing them to keep up with the guests.
This is where our radio station will be so helpful to the non-profit community. As you all know, public radio stations are licensed to serve the community. I can see the Public Service Announcement now…….”be sure and donate your old and lovingly used champagne flutes to the Brownsville Museum of Fine Arts. Attend the event and you can just carry your glasses home with you.”
So radio fans…..anyone out there with extra champagne flutes?
June 5th, 2009
Sorry to be silent for so long.
I went to Michigan to do some work on a software product we are developing for UTB. I am from Chicago and my grandmother and grandfather both landed in Michigan when they immigrated from Sweden. it is hard to imagine that they came here to farm and found Michigan a better place. However they were from the northern part of Sweden so Michigan seemed to them like Brownsville.
People there were all excited about summer approaching. We had a party Saturday and they were worried if it got into the 80’s it would be to hot to have the party outdoors. I was in jeans, socks, shoes, and a sweater. They were in shorts and tees…..
What are we doing now. We are still collecting more people to sign up to support the station. We are also starting to calculate what our start up costs will be. Looks much more promising than we originally anticipated. We will have an announcement soon, but get your checkbooks ready.
For the start up costs, we will have to raise these quickly and we will do this to get the station running. So we are trying to figure out how to let everyone hear what the station will sound like but won’t be able to put it on the air right away. This is going to be tricky. Think we will do an Internet thing.
We are also looking at the future…..what will radio look like in 10 years. There maybe some exciting new technologies. Anyone care to comment on what it might look like? We have to aim in that direction.
Night radio fans.
June 1st, 2009
Things are moving along very nicely as we fit the puzzle pieces together for bringing a new public radio station here to the Valley. I’m getting really excited about what is happening and often tempted to do what my impatient brother use to do if a piece didn’t quite fit, he would hammer it until it would mold under the pressure and lock into the slot; never mind the piece was red and everything around it was black. We won’t do that, we want this radio station to be a stable, wild success. Here are some pieces we are gently putting into place now.
One great big piece is what will the local programming be like? We are going to put a sample show on the web pages so that you all can get an idea of what one show will look like. Most of you will be very familiar with the show – bet you can guess. Comments on programming are always appreciated because to be a wild success, we have to represent the community – that’s you.
We’ll send you a notice when we get the web pages finished this weekend. I can say this with confidence because super volunteer Mario, a person from the Valley who now works at Google….yes THE Google and yes, he told me that they really do have massage services at work. All the luxuries they supply employees sounded pretty cool until he told me how long and hard they work there. Anyhoo, Mario is going to help me.
Another piece going into place is how we are going to serve the Non-Profit Community. Volunteer Will Everett is going to help put up some pages that will have sample Public Service Announcements (PSA’s) as examples of the type of services non-profits will have to inform the community of their good works. One of the puzzle pieces that non-profits in the community have yet to put into their own puzzle of success is free PSA’s, station promotions and partnerships, and affordable underwriting to promote their issues within the community. This station will greatly strengthen the non-profit community.
So, radio fans. If you are going to meet friends and family this weekend, ask them to complete a (click here) pledge of support.
Betsy
May 21st, 2009
This is our first blog entry. Whopii!
Pretty exciting as we watch all the puzzle pieces fall into place as we bring a new public radio station to the Rio Grande Valley. Actually it was pretty funny trying to get this blog up myself. I manage electronic projects; don’t really do um. Now, humbled, I apologize to all those techies out there I was impatient with. (Head bowed in shame.)
Right now we are encouraging people to sign up for the 200 – Nope, nope, nope, no longer 200, that was 17 days ago we made that our goal, we are now seeking ta dah…300 Pledges of Support.
You can’t believe how impressive it is that we met our goal in 17 days! So we are going to impress donors further and go for 300. More members….more $$. We like that.
Our website is growing. Check out the dates for the upcoming board meetings. We will have them both in McAllen and in Bville.
If you haven’t already, please sign up for the 200 300 Pledges of Support .
This is your station…just for you.
Good Listening coming radio fans,
Betsy
betsy@voicesfromthevalley.org
May 17th, 2009
Voices from the Valley is a group of fine people who are bringing a new NPR radio station to the Rio Grande Valley.
This radio station will provide a local voice, by and for the Rio Grande Valley. It will include local news, weather, public service announcements. These programs will provide the Valley with a national voice as they are offered through the NPR family of stations throughout the United States.
There will also be national programs that are of interest to the Valley. These programs will be suggested by community groups with members that represent the non-profit, educational, and business industries of the Valley.
May 16th, 2009
