Today, Campbell’s funky, 10-watt radio station, cobbled together out of used parts in his garage, has grown into 3,000 watts, and the nonprofit has became the hub of a community spanning 10,000 square miles. It includes small towns such as Norwood, near Telluride, and larger towns like Montrose and Delta, thanks to a network of translators and repeaters erected on high elevation lands.
As for Campbell, who moved away for a while but still maintains property on Garvin Mesa, the reach of “people-powered” KVNF is nothing short of amazing.
“It’s all about over 60 volunteers and thousands of listeners feeling like they ‘own’ KVNF,” he says. “We didn’t know at the time, but we were creating a community treasure.”
For several decades, a treasure on the air was Felix Belmont, a New Yorker who retired to Paonia and early became a KVNF stalwart. Felix, who died not long ago at 104, was perhaps the state’s oldest DJ, hosting a show every week called Stop Time, which celebrated dance tunes of the 1940s. In the early days when the station’s finances needed a boost, Felix was known to collar friends on the street, march them into one of the town banks, and get them to co-sign a loan to the station. Always, he liked to boast, the loans were paid off.
For the last few years the station has worked hard to add local and regional news to its diverse music shows and coverage of community events. Its locally produced programs include one that covers authors and journalists (The Pen and the Sword), tips about gardening and landscaping (As the Worm Turns) and interviews with musicians, both local and passing through (Talkin’ Music).
Once out of the garage, KVNF headquarters bounced around for a while until 2006, when it moved into a 6,000-foot building in Paonia that once was Joe’s Bar, a lively place (sometimes too lively) on the main drag in town, Grand Ave.
Now a transformed, “green-designed” building, it boasts airy, open space, a community room in the back for meetings of nonprofit groups, and a main studio named after the rock star Joe Cocker, a generous benefactor to the station. In homage to Felix Belmont for his years of volunteering, the building bears his name: The Belmont.
As the station has continued to grow, a major move occurred in 2019 with the opening of a new studio, Studio M, in Montrose. It can host original programming and also makes it closer to home for the area’s volunteer disc jockeys and news hosts.
But if you really want to know what makes KVNF tick, talk to Ashley Krest, who started out as a DJ in Paonia, became a staffer, and then was brought on by the board of directors two years ago as general manager.
“We’re a friendly voice,” she says. “We tell the weather (which includes an Avalanche Report) and we interview people running everything from their county to public schools. We also like to connect somebody with a lost dog with someone who found that dog.”
One recent story she likes to tell came out of the station’s Spring Pledge Drive, a weeklong effort that raised the budget goal of $62,000, an important part of the $580,000 budget.
Ashley says a man called from Cedaredge, saying that he and his wife were fixing up a house they’d move to when they left the Denver area. The man explained that when they turned on the radio, they stumbled on “this great show featuring the Grateful Dead, and then we heard it was KVNF’s pledge drive. We had to call in and pledge and become a member.”
“We love to add new members,” Ashley says. “Most of all, we feel lucky to be part of something we make together in this rural part of Colorado.”
--Betsy Marston
As for Campbell, who moved away for a while but still maintains property on Garvin Mesa, the reach of “people-powered” KVNF is nothing short of amazing.
“It’s all about over 60 volunteers and thousands of listeners feeling like they ‘own’ KVNF,” he says. “We didn’t know at the time, but we were creating a community treasure.”
For several decades, a treasure on the air was Felix Belmont, a New Yorker who retired to Paonia and early became a KVNF stalwart. Felix, who died not long ago at 104, was perhaps the state’s oldest DJ, hosting a show every week called Stop Time, which celebrated dance tunes of the 1940s. In the early days when the station’s finances needed a boost, Felix was known to collar friends on the street, march them into one of the town banks, and get them to co-sign a loan to the station. Always, he liked to boast, the loans were paid off.
For the last few years the station has worked hard to add local and regional news to its diverse music shows and coverage of community events. Its locally produced programs include one that covers authors and journalists (The Pen and the Sword), tips about gardening and landscaping (As the Worm Turns) and interviews with musicians, both local and passing through (Talkin’ Music).
Once out of the garage, KVNF headquarters bounced around for a while until 2006, when it moved into a 6,000-foot building in Paonia that once was Joe’s Bar, a lively place (sometimes too lively) on the main drag in town, Grand Ave.
Now a transformed, “green-designed” building, it boasts airy, open space, a community room in the back for meetings of nonprofit groups, and a main studio named after the rock star Joe Cocker, a generous benefactor to the station. In homage to Felix Belmont for his years of volunteering, the building bears his name: The Belmont.
As the station has continued to grow, a major move occurred in 2019 with the opening of a new studio, Studio M, in Montrose. It can host original programming and also makes it closer to home for the area’s volunteer disc jockeys and news hosts.
But if you really want to know what makes KVNF tick, talk to Ashley Krest, who started out as a DJ in Paonia, became a staffer, and then was brought on by the board of directors two years ago as general manager.
“We’re a friendly voice,” she says. “We tell the weather (which includes an Avalanche Report) and we interview people running everything from their county to public schools. We also like to connect somebody with a lost dog with someone who found that dog.”
One recent story she likes to tell came out of the station’s Spring Pledge Drive, a weeklong effort that raised the budget goal of $62,000, an important part of the $580,000 budget.
Ashley says a man called from Cedaredge, saying that he and his wife were fixing up a house they’d move to when they left the Denver area. The man explained that when they turned on the radio, they stumbled on “this great show featuring the Grateful Dead, and then we heard it was KVNF’s pledge drive. We had to call in and pledge and become a member.”
“We love to add new members,” Ashley says. “Most of all, we feel lucky to be part of something we make together in this rural part of Colorado.”
--Betsy Marston