'The people's station' arrives in Pueblo
PUEBLO, Colo. — Theoren Gernazio didn’t know he wanted to work in radio until he realized what a powerful storytelling tool the medium can be. Gernazio works as the station manager for the CSU Pueblo radio station REVOLUTION 89.5, a student-run station. He is studying media and entertainment with an emphasis in production.
“For me it’s everything to be able to come in and have practical experience because as a student, the point of being a student is that eventually you go on and make a career out of it,” he explained.
At the beginning of June, Gernazio started getting even more of that practical experience thanks to CSU’s new collaboration with Denver’s Hip Hop and R&B station THE DROP 104.7, a Denver hip-hop and R&B station (THE DROP, like Rocky Mountain PBS, is part of Rocky Mountain Public Media).
“The merger just feels natural, just having a partner that cares about community and cares about telling stories,” Gernazio added.
THE DROP, launched in 2019, is commercial free, publicly funded, and calls itself “The People’s Station for R&B and Hip Hop,” which makes this partnership even more perfect for Gernazio.
“They [THE DROP] are the people’s station up there and we are the people’s station down here,” Gernazio said about his REVOLUTION 89.5, emphasizing that the two stations are doing even better work for both communities by working together. "We’re combined and it’s interesting, it’s like a melting pot nature of blending different ideologies and experiences.”
People in Pueblo now have the chance to listen to Unique Henderson on his Monday-through-Friday show called “The Kickback with Unique,” airing from 3-7 p.m., by tuning into REVOLUTION 89.5. Henderson is THE DROP’s assistant program director.
“Our model has always been to be for the people, and the model for our company is to be seen and heard all around and across the state of Colorado, and this right here is going to bridge that gap,” explained Henderson, adding that the hip-hop and R&B being played is includes a little something for everyone. “[There’s] Old school, new school; there’s a lot of cats out there who just like old school music but they can tolerate new school as long as they get some of the music they love. That’s what we bring.”
Jon Pluskota, an associate professor of media and entertainment at CSU Pueblo, spoke to Rocky Mountain PBS about what this type of partnership means for Pueblo.
“This conversation started more than a year ago about how can we bring more diverse content to Pueblo, and how we can become part of Denver and this concept of radio across the front range and the I-25 corridor,” he said, explaining that Pueblo is a diverse community. The CSU campus has around 4,000 students and approximately 34% of them are Hispanic. “We don’t just talk about diversity, equity and inclusion — we act on it.”
One of the main ideas behind the partnership between REVOLUTION 89.5 and THE DROP is to continue to attract a younger and more diverse population of listeners.
“This is something new. They’ve been playing ‘70s and ‘80s music for years, and this is something new in programming that we’re trying out,” said Henderson.
Julio Sandoval is the senior photojournalist at Rocky Mountain PBS. You can reach him at juliosandoval@rmpbs.org.