High school radio station KBPS AM in Portland, Oregon is celebrating a very special anniversary this week: 100 years on the air. It’s an accomplishment that few radio stations can lay claim to. And it’s especially remarkable that this particular radio station has always been a student-focused educational radio station. It’s very likely the longest-running […]
Tag Archives | KBPS
My Visit to the Oldest High School Radio Station in the U.S.: Portland’s KBPS
Radio Survivor readers are well aware of my passion for radio history and my appreciation for high school radio. For those reasons, it was a thrill to finally visit KBPS 1450 AM in Portland, Oregon a couple of months ago. Licensed to Portland Public Schools, the station is housed at Benson Polytechnic High School (thus […]
Podcast #24: The Value of High School Radio
Faithful listeners of the Radio Survivor program know that Jennifer Waits is a huge proponent of the educational benefit for students who participate in their college radio stations. That educational benefit is multiplied “by a million” in her opinion when the students are in high school. On this edition of the program, Jennifer takes us […]
Digging in to the Early History of High School Radio Station KBPS
A few months back, in honor of High School Radio Day, I wrote about possibly the oldest high school radio station in the United States, KBPS-AM in Portland, Oregon. In the course of researching the Benson Polytechnic High School radio station, I learned that one of its General Managers, Patricia Green Swenson (who led the […]
Where is the Oldest High School Radio Station in the United States?
Happy High School Radio Day! Because of my fascination with radio history, it seems like a great day to delve into the history of high school radio. As is the case with college radio, multiple stations lay claim to being the first on the air. (more…)