"EOB Community Action Partnership is the largest private, non-profit 501(c) (3) social service organization in Nevada. EOB CAP provides service through its nine divisions, which include: Adult and Senior Services, Child Care Assistance, Child and Family Services, Health Services, Housing and Development, KCEP Power 88.1 FM Radio, Micro-Business, Transportation and Substance Abuse Treatment. EOB CAP administers forty programs that impact 55,000 area residents each year."
KCEP 88.1-FM hit the airwaves in 1972, two years before I plopped out of the womb, so, yes, you can say we grew up together. I credit the station with introducing me to hip-hop (LL Cool J in 1986) and opening my ears to other types of music—gospel from Mahalia Jackson and Shirley Caesar, R&B from Luther Vandross and Teddy Pendergrass and bubble-gum pop from a shrill-voiced Boston quintet, New Edition.
Sure, the older I got, the less I listened. By then, gangsta rap and underground hip-hop had my attention. Ties cut during 4 12 years away at college in Louisiana were reattached when I came home after graduation, only be cut again thanks to mix tapes and underground radio (shout out to the Word Up show on KUNV 91.5-FM) and my growing disgust with the formulaic layout of contemporary radio: Play what's hot on Billboard even if it sucks.
KCEP was always the wild card. Yes, it spun the same hit records as its peers, but because of its function as a tool of the Economic Opportunity Board, KCEP delved into social issues, redefining my notion of a radio station as simply a conduit for music. KCEP had topical shows. For women. For budding entrepreneurs. For straight talk on issues that the daily papers might have glossed over. It was radio as a vehicle for civic upheaval. I remember the intense talk shows in 1992 after the acquittal of the Los Angeles cops in the videotaped beating of motorist Rodney King sparked local riots; the sad voices calling for an end to the gang carnage that wracked West Las Vegas in 2001; the if-voices-could-kill intonations from folks irate that former Clark County School District Superintendent Carlos Garcia dared to use the N-word on a KCEP show.
In many ways, KCEP was my first newspaper. But unlike the newspaper industry, which is ritually eulogized seemingly every time some newfangled, attention-redirecting technology hits the market—actual headlines: Is the Web killing the newspaper industry? The rise of Craiglist and how it's killing your newspaper—KCEP's fate is probably sealed, as EOB board members shop its license to erase the nonprofit's compounding debt.
If there's a more beleaguered outfit than the Bush administration, it's EOB. You damn near need an Excel spreadsheet to chart all the incompetence: loss of a $12.6 million Head Start grant; $2.1 million in missing funds; an EOB board member using a staff kitchen to fulfill a contract to provide meals to county inmates; exorbitant rents and high executive salaries; administrators defecting with the frequency of Cuban athletes. With feds pulling funding left and right, selling KCEP appears the only recourse, a possible windfall of $5 million to $15 million according to a Review-Journal story. "We're sorry that we have to sell the radio station, but it's financially necessary at this point," EOB Executive Director Lester Murray told the R-J.
Part of this is simply the way modern-day business works: When in debt (and doubt) dangle your most profitable carrot and see which rabbits bite. The other part is the sins of the father being visited upon the offspring: EOB mismanagement leading to KCEP's death sentence.
The station deserves a pardon because its nonprofit status frees it (somewhat) from the all-consuming competitive pressures of radiodom, allowing it to devote programming that addresses community needs.
Because there's no guarantee that the new owner—the station's license is only available to nonprofits—will produce civic-minded programming such as "Police Officers Promoting Unity," giving cops a chance to dialogue with callers on pertinent issues.
Because hundreds of thousands of people rely on KCEP's community activism—clothing and toy drives, the "A-Team honoring good students, and internships that have produced on-air personalities for other stations (such as Mike P on Hot. 97.5, KVEG-FM).
Because KCEP does service-oriented programming better than any station in the Valley: Enterprising People encourages entrepreneurship, Straight Talk covers topics of the day and the Patricia Cunningham Show covers news.
Because some people would've never heard Bush campaign spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt say that Republican operative Dan Burdish tried to get 17,000 voters tossed for political reasons in 2004; they would have never heard DJ Billy T conduct a phone interview with President Clinton in 2000; they would have never heard the informed and passionate dialogue about various churches refusing to bury Amir Crump, who was gunned down after fatally shooting Metro Sgt. Henry Prendes in February.
Because, for some people, KCEP is still their newspaper and it has a lot more to say.