Last Thursday, KSTO closed its rock-poster-covered doors for the last time, after celebrating its 45 year run with one final day of static, dead air and Of Montreal. The space, once occupied by amateur student DJs and school custodians on a break, will now be used to house overflow supplies from the college's 24 music ensembles.
"Ole Choir really needed a new place to store their robes," said Tim Schroer, headmaster of Buntrock Commons. "So we honestly had no choice but to eliminate St. Olaf's least-utilized musical department."
To figure out which musical program would be cut, the school sent out a survey to the student body.
"It turned out that more students knew about the Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble than they did their own radio station," Schroer said.
"We had a radio station?" Rebecca Halvenson '11 said, as she turned down the volume on her iPod. "Why hasn't anybody ever mentioned it?"
Aaron Day-Louis '13 had a similar reaction.
"I've seen all those Narwhal T-shirts around campus," he said. "I guess I just always thought they were some sort of joke thing. Those make a lot more sense now."
"I've actually only been on air once," said Brandon McGuiness ‘10, a student DJ. "I pretty much just sign up for my time slot, then use that hour to grab all the CDs from the free bin. So I'm going to miss that, for sure."
Schroer offers alternatives.
"You could create your own podcast, try to get a show on Carleton's KRLX or really just go yell outside on a sunny day," Schroer said. "Any of those are bound to attract more listeners than KSTO did in a year."
Administrators maintain that KSTO was not sold to MPR in a deal that will drag on in court for years. Really.
"Editor's note: this article appeared in the April 30, 2010 satire issue of the Messenger."
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