For the past 19 years, KYRS Thin Air Community Radio has called the third floor of Main Avenue's Community Building home, but the radio station is now sending out signals from the third floor of the Central Library branch in downtown Spokane.
In 2018, voters approved a $77 million bond, setting in motion plans to renovate four existing Spokane Public Library branches and build three new branches. Shortly after announcing that its downtown branch was one of those locations getting a major facelift, KYRS was contacted by Jason Johnson, the Central Library's community engagement manager.
"A lightbulb went off in his mind," says Dana Matthews, the radio station's programming director. "Jason asked if we'd like a permanent location within the new library. It was like serendipity. We'd been searching for a new location for years. We just never found one that felt right."
The downtown branch began its transformation in March 2020, and was unveiled to the public in July 2022, but KYRS couldn't move into its new space right away.
The hardest part was yet to come: raising funds for new equipment.
"Between then and now that was our biggest struggle," Matthews says. "I made our case to the state first and applied for a grant. I said that we need this money in order to continue doing what we're passionate about and what the community loves. The state agreed and we received the grant. The ability for us to move was really hinging on that."
The grant required KYRS to buy equipment for the new studio space and then show proof of purchase in order to be reimbursed. But as a nonprofit, KYRS doesn't have a ton of cash lying in wait. Once listeners caught wind of the need to fundraise, however, all of the station's worries vanished.
"We truly have the best listeners in the world," Matthews says. "All of us here cherish our relationships with our listeners, and because our staff and volunteers foster such good relationships with listeners, we received an outpour of support in the form of donations. It says a lot about [the listeners]."
Once adequate money was raised, Matthews and long-time volunteer-turned-station-engineer Dale Sanderson began picking out state-of-the-art equipment to furnish the new space.
"We owe it all to Dale," Matthews says. "Even down to the needles on our turntables, Dale thought of every single detail. He even handmade the desk that everything sits on in his home workshop."
The radio station and Central Library have a mutual agreement that KYRS provide certain services to library users in exchange for free use of the space. Matthews says station staff have plans to hold workshops to teach interested parties how to run their own radio show. After completing the workshop, participants are invited to broadcast their completed show on the air.
"We're able to open our doors to so many more people now because of this location," Matthews says. "We're so much more visible and able to get involved more easily."
Since October, the station has been operating full-time out of the Central Library.
For a grand opening celebration in early December, KYRS staff, music programmers, board members and, of course, listeners filled the Central Library's nxʷyxʷyetkʷ Hall, showing just how many community members are involved in making KYRS what it is: A radio station for the people, by the people.
"A library is probably the epitome of a community institution," Matthews says "We're literally right within the community here. It's like a radio station's dream come true. Like, if you were to write a movie script about a radio station, this scenario would be going overboard because it's too unbelievable."
In the station's old home on the third floor of the Community Building, visitors pass by a poster that reads "How to Build Community." Near the top, the list recommends "use your library" and near the bottom, it urges community members to "turn up the music."
Though KYRS has since departed that space, these tenets of its mission remain the same, and are now perhaps even better amplified — literally and figuratively — from its new operating base. ♦
