In the spring of 1971, students at this campus got together and took the initiative to play the music and discuss the topics they wanted in the Campus Center by broadcasting via their own radio station. It faded away from the ears of students in 1998.

Located in the corner of Campus Center, which is now the headquarters of the Renegade Rip, KBCC was able to be heard over the closed-circuit channel of 690 and later 1510 on the AM dial.

The students were able to acquire a lot of their equipment, although old and used, from area stations like KCFJ in Delano.

That first semester was a testing period for the station and the programming was an eclectic mix of acid-rock, progressive jazz, soul and contemporary rock. The students also tried to mix in faculty interviews, as well as campus and local news, operating from 9:20 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

It was an independently run student station. The first staff consisted of general manager Tom Neece, program director Jim Simmons, sales manager Al Hurst, news director Don McFarland, Bob Easly and Bruce Palmer as music directors.

After the test semester, the school hired Ron Dethlefson, who was advisor from 1972-1986.

“Vic St. Marie was the Campus Center administrator at the time and the radio station was dumped into his lap,” said Dethlefson, “He had too much going on so he wanted someone from the faculty to help out.”

The students were looking to receive something better, other than being allowed to broadcast what they wanted over a loud speaker. “It started out as kind of a club,” said technician Richard Kelley, who started working with the station in 1974, “but the students wanted credit for what they were doing so the front office set up a program.”

Kelley was an addition to the station that helped with a lot of the mechanical development, both material and not.

“Kelley was very knowledgeable and took a load off of me,” said Dethlefson, “He had been in broadcasting already and taught the students a great deal.”

Kelley had worked on the radio station as a student while he attended BC, but then he was really working on it.

“They advertised for a technician that could run the equipment and programming, and I applied and got the position,” said Kelley.

Students in the Campus Center, along with a listening field of approximately 100 yards were the only ones who were able to hear the station. It would have been very hard to get on the air for the entire county to hear.

“The problem in those days was the FCC wouldn’t let broadcasts over the air unless you passed a government test,” said Dethlefson, “and that costs money, so that’s why we focused on the cable because you didn’t need FCC regulations to be on cable.”

KBCC switched over to cable in 1973 at 106 FM on Bakersfield and Warner cable by feeding the signal through the telephone. “106 was a nice spot, too, because it was right in the middle, “said Dethlefson, “so if you were passing by you would run into it. Most college stations are way in the mud at the bottom so we had a nice spot.”

The Campus Center studio was a small space for work. According to a quote from an archived edition of the Renegade Rip in October 1972, music director Bob Easly said, “With this much room, a KBC DJ has space enough for one and a half turntables and a finger on each hand.”

A move to the then-new Language Arts building in 1974 gave the staff a lot more room for production. “The big change happened in 1974. That’s when we moved to the Language arts building,” said Dethlefson.

While in Language Arts, KBCC was allowed two production studios and two separate rooms for operation.

“These two rooms right here, (Language Arts) 111, and 112 were what we used,” reminisced Dethlefson as he opened the door of one of the rooms to a class of staring students.

The production studios can still be seen in Language Arts with a sign next to them titled “George Day Production Studios.”

“What’s in there now?” wondered Dethlefson as he peeked through the window, “Oh, just storage.”

The move to Language Arts was not only a crucial move for the needed space of the station, but the classrooms were beneficial as well.

Dethlefson went on, “at that time it became part of the teaching curriculum and we started to get money from the district and were able to start more classes.”

At one point the Broadcasting Program consisted of nine different courses for students to choose from. Classes offered dealt with writing and producing television and radio news, radio production and radio broadcasting.

As the years went by, the station progressively got larger and larger in the class size, potential listening audience and programming.

“At one time we had a broadcasting area the size of Massachusetts,” said Dethlefson, “even though we didn’t broadcast over the air, we still had a fully large potential audience.”

They not only had the size to reach that many people, they were reaching that many people.

Found in the BC archives in the files concerning the station, there was a fan letter from one listener named Beverley Slover in 1977, and she gave some suggestions about the format of the station’s programs, but then later admitted her real reason for writing the letter. “And, last but not least, I must add that I wrote this mostly for selfish reasons. Since leaving L.A., I haven’t found a radio station I like, and I think KBCC might be the answer.”

Throughout its entire tenure as a station, KBCC boasted a diverse program of music. The early years were acid-rock, jazz, opera, and later other styles of music appeared that appealed to all tastes.

“We had different kinds of specialty shows,” said Jake Chavez, DJ from 1984-1987. “There was a punk show, a reggae show and a Doctor Dimento type of comedy show.”

KBCC was on the cutting edge of playing artists and getting interviews with people that were unknown at the time, but later made it to fame. Throughout the years they interviewed such people as Dr. Joyce Brothers, Bill Hicks and George Carlin.

“Three or four students went to Los Angeles to interview George Carlin but on the way they got a flat tire. Luckily one of the students had his number and called him up and waited for them to interview him so that was pretty neat,” said Dethlefson.

The jockeys never saw a limitation on the styles of music that came out of the speakers, even if it meant dealing with some repercussions. “I got into some trouble one time for playing the rap show,” said Geore McArthur, producer from 1991-93. “They accused me of being a racist (because of some of the words in the songs) and I hate rap, hate it. But, does that mean I don’t think it should deserve its own show, no. If you don’t like it, turn it off.”

Not only were they diverse in the music they were playing, but in their news reporting as well as other themed shows. There was a show called “Voz De la Raza” in the ’70s as well as “Things French” where then- French instructor Dick Daux would help students with their French, play French music and exchange French recipes.

The news reporting was very up- to-date, especially when they began using the United Press International teletype beginning in 1976. They were able to broadcast news that was national and international opposed to just local and campus. At the same time, it was also getting BC news to different outlets.

“The teletype had a line into the San Joaquin Valley, so we were broadcasting BC news to the Valley. We were able to develop a [public relations] situation,” said Dethlefson.

There were hourly headlines from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. as well as five minute newscasts at 9:18 a.m., noon and 5 p.m.

“The students could write stories and call them in (to the UPI) and sometimes they would get used and sometimes not, but it was a very good learning experience,” said Dethlefson.

The students involved were able to have many learning experiences, from the news portion to selling and making advertisements.

“It was a good realistic situation. The students went out and got the advertisements. We had businesses that would buy the commercials too,” said Dethlefson, “So in the end students would sell the commercial, write the commercial, produce the commercial and play the commercial.”

“I learned a lot,” said Chavez, “we used to make [Public Service Announcements] all the time.”

“With our machines, you couldn’t just [electronically dub],” said McArthur, “you had to get out the razor blade and splice them all together and hope it went well. But you learned from it. You learned to think creatively and outside of the box.”

From those learning experiences many of the DJs at KBCC were able to land jobs in the broadcasting business. There were internships and scholarships established that helped the students achieve this.

The George Day Scholarship is one of those, “One day these guys came into the studio and said we have a golf tournament for an old broadcaster named George Day,” said Dethlefson, “we want to honor George by giving you money from the golf tournament.”

The money was used for funding the station as well as the scholarship. Dethlefson went on to say that the students in the program would emcee the dinner for the tournament and that’s when they would give out the awards. The proceeds benefited the station for 13 years. “At one time the George Day Golf Tournament was giving more money to BC than the Bank of America was,” said Dethlefson, “they donated at least two professional studios.”

The opportunity for internships was also present for students at the station. “There was a bulletin board where we would post positions that local stations were offering,” said Dethlefson, “it helped the students get their way into the business.”

Some students moved on to work in radio, but KBCC stopped moving completely in 1998, due to lack of funding. Dethlefson left KBCC in 1986 to continue teaching speech classes. The station slowly started dying in 1995 and was dead by 1998.

“The biggie was [the school] didn’t want to pay,” said DJ Cynthia “Red” Needham, who was present from 1989-1995. “They took that money and they gave it to the Rip.”