“Happy New Year!”

Tuesday January 2nd, 2023
From the messy desk of Amanda Eichstaedt…

A New Year

Happy 2024 from all of us at KWMR. It’s really just another day on the continuum of life, but it always takes a bit of adjustment to get the date correct and get those new numbers solidly ensconced in our psyche, and on our checks. 

In 2024, specifically on May 2nd, KWMR will turn 25 years old. There are many community radio stations in the USA that have a decades on us, but this is a milestone. In June, I will have been at KWMR for 14 years as the Station Manager and Executive Director. How did that happen? This is the longest I have held any one job in my career that has included retail, city government, and innkeeper (your basic radio station manager trajectory).

I am looking forward to working with the team here at KWMR this year to celebrate KWMR’s quarter of a century of existence. Stay tuned for some fun events and ways to continue to engage with your community radio station. 

We are also excited to inform you that our antenna that was damaged by a wayward backhoe has been repaired and will be reinstalled soon (weather permitting) at Mt. Vision. The backup antenna has been doing a fine job bringing KWMR to the listeners on 90.5 FM and 92.3 FM. My hat is off to Richard Dillman and James Mohri for ushering the antenna back to good health and getting it to the manufacturer for the TLC it needed. And to our pals at AJM General for being at the ready to take on KWMR’s needed construction work.

If you are a sustaining Calendar Club member of KWMR, your 2024 calendar should be on the way to you! Word of warning, if you are still using your 2023 calendar, beware. January 2024 is not correct on that one (much to the alarm of the manufacturer) and I was trying to set up a meeting with someone using that old one and they thought I had lost my mind.

Rut Roh.

You can get your hands on one of those calendars if you become a Calendar Club member. It’s easy! 

And we thank the over 270 households that do just that! Also, KWMR has revamped our Underwriting program and you can promote your business or nonprofit organization on the airwaves. That is easy, too!

Thank you to everyone who contributed to KWMR during the Annual Appeal. We are grateful for your support!

__________________________Waylon Update_________________________________

Tomorrow (1/3/24) we are going to pick up Waylon from his month with Teri the trainer. We have missed our pup and are looking forward to picking him up and getting some training ourselves that will help us keep him on the trajectory of confidence and good behavior!

I will be interviewing Teri about her training approach and will post that audio here. That interview is TBD at this point, so stay tuned. My entire life has been spent around dogs. We had a dog when I was born, and always had canine family members growing up. When I was 23 I adopted Alice the Wonder Dog (Alice Luella Jones). She lived bo be 17 1/2 years old. Ken and I then had Tula and Skye. There was a short overlap with Tula and Waylon. 

We never took our dogs to trainers when we were kids. They mostly could “sit “and “shake,” and I was able to teach Tula to “roll over.” English Shepards (Waylon, Tula, and Skye’s breed) are smart dogs, and we would joke that the biggest limitation was us, and that we had Rhode Scholars working at Burger King (not that there is anything wrong with a fast food career).

By the time we got Tula and Skye puppy class was a thing. They were good. With Waylon it was more like the Human Humiliation Hour. I have high hopes for his future though!

So it is with some trepidation that we head up to get him. From all indications and updates from Teri, he has adapted well to his training, and we intend to stick with it and hold each other accountable going forward.

Here is Waylon with his new 10 month lab buddy. It was a significant accomplishment for both of these dogs to settle inside and not continue to play and rumble.

Waylon and friend.   photo: Teri B.

Amanda Eichstaedt
Station Manager/Executive Director

p.s. Not only is Dewey Livingston finishing up his book, but he has an art show at Toby’s with the work of his late mom Joyce Livingston and his son Ben Livingston. The opening is on January 7th. Go Dewey!