KGHP radio station wins General Excellence Award

Giving students an edge after high school is a goal for many high school teachers, and one that Leland Smith is proud to say he regularly achieves.

Smith, a career and technical education (CTE) teacher at Peninsula High School, teaches the three radio and broadcasting classes available to students. These classes teach students the basics of radio broadcasting work and prepare them to contribute to KGHP-FM, the community radio station based out of the high school.

“They get a pretty good sniff about the day-to-day operations of a radio station,” Smith said. “We try to give kids a lot of license to be creative.”

The station recently won the General Excellence Award at the Washington State High School Radio Conference and Awards.

“It’s really good for the kids,” Smith said. “They get to feel like their work is being recognized. The judges are people from the industry from around the state.”

Students who participate in the station and broadcasting classes have a definite edge over other students when they get to college radio stations, station manager Spencer Abersold said.

“They’ve been on air, been in front of a microphone, been handed a script … they know how to operate on air,” Abersold said. “They have that confidence, and that’s huge.”

Smith says that the class sizes, mainly made up of PHS students (though he’d like more students from Gig Harbor and Henderson Bay high schools), vary from year to year but average about 75 to 90 students.

Smith helped to start the State High School Awards in 2008 in a cooperative effort with other high school radio stations to give his students a conference and awards to compete for. The awards have 12 categories and each award gives a certain number of “points” to a school, Smith said, which is how PHS received the General Excellence Award for doing well overall at the conference and as a station.

“All of our students contributed,” Smith said. “That’s the motive of it, for kids to compete and get better at it. And to recognize their achievement.”

The station is staffed with 18 volunteer adult DJs who host a variety of shows and a mix of student DJs who host shows after school.

“We just let them play what they want,” Abersold said. “We don’t tell them what they have to do, we just kind of let them do whatever creative thing they want.”

In addition to giving the students a place to learn about radio broadcasting, the station also serves to provide emergency and disaster info and an entertainment station.

“We are a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week, 365-days-a-year broadcast radio station broadcasting on three radio frequencies,” Abersold said.

Giving students experience on air and creating their own content helps to boost confidence and provide an edge outside of school — even if the students choose a different career path than radio broadcasting.

“They have a good advantage if they’re going into that industry. They know how to speak the language,” Smith said. “You may have a good career with radio skills … that’s going to help a kid with any business or field they go into.”

Abersold agrees, and says he is impressed with the quality of the work and level of dedication he sees from the students in the program.

“Everyone who’s involved with KGHP — from the volunteers to the teachers all the way up to the district office — are very proud of our students for representing us both on air and at the conference,” Abersold said. “We’re a success because they’re a success … it’s not the other way around. We hope they’re proud of their work but they also take with them the experience they got from KGHP.”

KGHP-FM can be heard on 89.9, 89.3 and 105.7 or online at kghp.org.

This story was originally published June 29, 2016 at 2:21 PM with the headline "KGHP radio station wins General Excellence Award."