It’s that time – ballots have been mailed out for the 2021 Election, and we have some information that we hope you will find useful in voting your ballot. Check out Election 2021 for information on the City and County bond and levy issues and for recordings of candidate forums.
Author: Bob Wall
3rd Birthday!
We are rapidly approaching KGVM’s third anniversary of going on the air – May 11, 2018, was the big day! We are excited to see where the next three years takes us. We have made significant strides over the past three years toward our goal of providing a platform for the Gallatin Valley community to share information, arts, and other collective experiences.
We are planning a celebration for our birthday – more details coming. We will also be conducting a fund drive around the week of May 11th. But we encourage you to donate at any time – the Support KGVM button will take you to a donation page with more information. We are 100% volunteer powered and completely community supported, and we would greatly appreciate your assistance in helping us continue to progress as the Audio Mirror of the Gallatin Valley.
Bozeman School Board candidate forum
Monday, Apr. 19, at 7:00 PM, we will broadcast a forum featuring candidates for the open Bozeman School Board positions, with a focus on fairness, equity, and social justice in education. The Bozeman Task Force to Advance the Status and Safety of All Women and Girls is hosting the forum, which will be held as a Zoom teleconference. You can attend the Zoom meeting using this link , or listen to it right here on KGVM!
Vinylthon 2021!
We are excited to be participating in this event on Saturday, Apr. 17, 2021! Saturday afternoon and evening, we will be spinning a lot of vinyl, starting with Unsolicited Recommendations from 2 to 4, a Vinylthon Folk show from 4 to 6, a Vinylthon Blues show from 6 to 8, and a Vinylthon Rock show from 8 to 10, at which time DJ Terpy will drop the greasy beats on Buzz for Brats.
More info at vinylthon.com. We’re the only Montana radio station registered so far!
Bozeman Bucks Baseball
It’s about time for baseball season, and KGVM is excited to announce that once again, we are the exclusive broadcaster of Bozeman Bucks AA American Legion Baseball! Mark Miller will be calling the games again this year, and we are going to carry all of the games, home and away. The first game of the season is a non-conference doubleheader against the Helena Senators in Helena on Apr. 18 – the team the Bucks played last year to win the state AA championship! What a way to kick off the season. The pre-game will start at 12:40 PM.
If you are interested in sponsoring KGVM’s broadcasts of Bozeman Bucks baseball, please email info@kgvm.org. We’ve got some additional expenses this year, with Mark travelling with the team and doing a LOT of games. We are really excited, and we hope you will join us to support baseball here in Bozeman!
Divisional Basketball Tournament
The Eastern AA divisional basketball tournament is being held in Bozeman on March 4-6, and KGVM is excited to bring you two of the games! On Thursday night, March 4, the #2 ranked Bozeman Lady Hawks will take on the #7 ranked Belgrade Panthers at 7:00 PM. On Friday night, March 5, the #3 ranked Bozeman Hawks boys’ team will play #6 ranked CM Russell at 7:00 PM. Ian Laird will be calling both games live right here at 95.9 FM, or streaming at kgvm.org. Go Hawks!
Bozeman High and Gallatin High Sports
KGVM is proud to be the exclusive broadcaster of Bozeman high schools’ sports – we will be covering both the Bozeman Hawks and the Gallatin Raptors this year! The first home game is Friday, Sep. 11, as the Raptors take on Great Falls High. We will carry both the Bozeman Hawk Football and Gallatin Raptors home games!
We have openings for sponsors for the football games, both for the season and for individual games. Get the message out about your company or organization to people and support broadcasts of the games – that’s a win-win! With attendance limits on games, we anticipate a lot of fans listening on the radio.
Virtual SLAM Festival
For a lot of us here in the Gallatin Valley, Sweet Pea Festival and SLAM are cornerstones of our summers. This year, things are obviously a little different. Although there won’t be live performances in Lindley and Bogert Parks, KGVM is going to help create a “virtual SLAM” festival for you on Aug. 8 and 9, playing a lot of local music throughout the weekend. We will work in some interviews with local musicians and artists as well. We are all about local arts and artists, and we are happy to do what we can to help support them in these trying times.
A virtual tater pig or a virtual frosty beverage from the SLAM beer tent aren’t going to cut it, but we suggest you check out the SLAM and Sweet Pea Festival events that will take place the weekend of Aug. 7-9. We even spied mention of drive-through tater pigs!!
If you are a local musician, drop us an email at info@kgvm.org. We’d love to play your music – let us know if there are any particular cuts you would like us to play. We have a fair collection of local musicians’ work, but if we are missing yours, we’d love to make sure you are in the mix. Live recordings would be awesome! And don’t forget the virtual tip jar – send us your Paypal and/or Venmo info and we’ll get that out 3there for people too!
While you are supporting local musicians and artists, we hope you might be able to support your home-town community radio station as well!
State Baseball Tournament
The American Legion State AA tournament will be held in Billings on Aug. 5 – 9. The Bozeman Bucks are the conference champions and #1 seed in the tournament, and we plan to broadcast the Bucks’ games from the tournament. The schedule is not set yet – we will post an update when we know.
We are raising funds to send Mark Miller to Helena to announce the games. If you can help out, please donate to KGVM – if you donate online, just put “Bucks Baseball” in the comment field and we’ll make sure your donation goes toward Mark’s expenses.
GO BUCKS!
Election 2020
KGVM is carrying a number of debates and candidate forums that are being held in advance of the upcoming primary election here in Montana. Check the Election 2020 section to listen to any of them on demand.
Human Capital – COVID-19 Updates
KGVM is now airing a new segment called “Human Capital”, in which MT Senator JP Pomnichowski of Bozeman talks about how our local, state, and federal governments function. The initial episodes have been status updates about the COVID-19 pandemic, and we anticipate that to be the case for a while.
You can hear Human Capital on weekdays at 8:00 AM, 11:50 AM, and 5:00 PM, and on weekends at 9:00 AM, noon, and 5:00 PM. The segments are also available on our web site under Human Capital.
State Championship Basketball
The Bozeman Hawks and the Lady Hawks both qualified for the State AA Basketball tournament, which will be held in Bozeman on March 12-14, 2020. KGVM is the exclusive local broadcaster of Hawks sports, and we’ll be airing the Bozeman games. Ian Laird will be courtside on Thursday, Mar. 12 at 3:30 for the girls’ game, and he’ll be back again at 8:00 that evening for the boys’ game. Depending on how those games go, there will games on Friday and possibly Saturday as well. Go Hawks!!
Northwestern Energy’s new Energy Resource Procurement Plan
KGVM Public Affairs host and producer, Joy LaClaire, attended and recorded recent public hearings to review Northwestern Energy’s new Energy Resource Procurement Plan, and we invite you to listen to a two-hour compilation she assembled of some of the presentations and public commentary. The recordings are available in our Community Issues section using this link, along with additional links and contacts you can use if you would like more information. The public comment period on the plan ends on Jan. 6, so this is a time-critical issue. We will air the recordings on Friday morning at 9:00 AM, Saturday at 4:00 PM, and Sunday at noon.
Christmas Stroll Open House
KGVM Christmas Stroll Open House
We hope to see you at our open house during the Christmas Stroll. We’ll be playing some tunes – say hello to our listeners. And check out the new T-shirt designs – hot off the presses! Plus, we have brand-new long-sleeve black T-shirts with the 4-color KGVM logo.
Bozeman Hawks Football and Basketball
We are proud to be chosen as the exclusive broadcaster of Bozeman Hawks’ home football and basketball games this fall and winter! The football season starts this Friday, Sept. 6, with a game against Big Sky High of Missoula. The next home game is the following Friday, Sept. 13, against Billings Senior. Next is Homecoming on Sept. 27 vs. Great Falls High, then a next-door neighbor game against Belgrade High on Oct. 11, and the season winds up on Oct. 25 with a game against Billings West for Senior night.
Kickoff for all games is at 7:00 PM, and Ian Laird will be calling the games with a roster of special guests providing color commentary. Tune in!
We’ve Moved!!
KGVM celebrated its first anniversary of being on the air at 95.9 FM on May 11, 2019! But we didn’t have a party then, because everyone was in the midst of making preparations to move the studio. Our first year in our studio on Haggerty Lane was great, but we got an opportunity to move to a space in downtown Bozeman, and we jumped at the opportunity. We just completed the move into our new space in the basement of the Gallatin Labor Temple, located at 422 E. Mendenhall.
We will be holding an open house from 6:00 to 8:00 on Friday, July 12, during the Art Walk. Please stop by and have a look around!
Galla-Bash!!
KGVM’s big fundraising event, the Galla-Bash will be held on Thursday, Mar. 28 at the Ellen Theatre in downtown Bozeman. The entertainment starts at 7:00, but doors open at 6:00 to give you a chance to check out the silent auction items.
The event features music by Larry Kiff, Big Lou’s Latin Experience, Chris Cunningham, and the Dead Yellers, aerial acrobatics by Michael O’Reilly, a reading by author Al Kesselheim, a lecture on the origins of music by Dr. John Miller, and comedy by Jenna Eleni, Kyle Kulseth, Zach Martinez, and Thom Blake!
We hope to see you at the Ellen on Thursday, Mar. 28, for a great evening of entertainment to support your community radio station!
March 2019 Station Meeting
We are back on track this month to have our monthly Station Meeting on the third Thursday of March, Mar. 21. The meeting will be from 5:30-7:00 pm at the Elks Lodge Ballroom, 205 Haggerty Lane in Bozeman.
Anyone interested in the care and feeding of KGVM is invited to attend. The agenda will be a discussion of the upcoming Galla-Bash fundraiser at the Ellen Theatre on March 28. We will also recount the recent adventures to fix the outage of our transmitter last week.
Equipment Malfunction
On Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019, one of the pieces of equipment that gets the signal from our studio to the transmitter up on a hill southwest of Four Corners malfunctioned. This time of year, getting up to the tower is a little tricky. We have secured parts to repair the equipment, and we expect to have the transmitter back on the air on Sunday, Jan. 27, if things go according to plan.
Update On Sunday, Jan. 27, we were able to snowmobile up to the tower and get the equipment repaired – we got back on the air around 1:30 PM.