KZSM — Still keeping you informed

We at KZSM.org maintain our mission to educate, engage, enlighten, and entertain the people of the San Marcos area and our world-wide online audience through the past difficult year and on into the uncertain future. Every weekday at noon after the Hays County order of March 13, 2020 restricting public and private gatherings, we broadcast a COVID-19 News Special.

In addition to the most recent statistics, we provided a local perspective on the pandemic with a wide range of live interviews. We talked with officials such as Mayor Jane Hughson, Judge Ruben Becerra, San Marcos City Council Members, and Hays County Commissioners. We heard from medical professionals such as Dr. Lee Johansson, Chief Medical Officer at Christus Santa Rosa Hospital San Marcos and Dr. Rodney E. Rohde, Professor and Chair of Texas State’s Clinical Laboratory Science Program.

We also spoke with local business owners, clergy, and representatives of human service organizations such as Southside Community Center and the HOME Center. We took calls from San Marcans and reached out to KZSM family and friends from around the world for reports on conditions there. As the pandemic moved into summer, we continued the News Specials on Mondays and Fridays into the fall of 2020.

Some of our Program Hosts also addressed the pandemic from their own perspectives. For instance, on “Indigenous Freedom Radio,” hosts Uncle Gene and Marisa offered an Indigenous perspective on self-care during the pandemic, incorporating excerpts from a recent webinar featuring an Indigenous naturopathic doctor and an Indigenous ethnobotanist. Also, our regular talk show Bookmarked aired “Pandemic Poetry,” a special featuring local poets reading their work in response to the COVID-19 crisis. As poets have done for hundreds of years, the show’s guests used language as a map to help us navigate an alien emotional landscape.

And whether or not they addressed the pandemic specifically, our Program Hosts continued to provide information and entertainment for listeners confined at home. Some Program Hosts recorded their shows at home; others broadcasted remotely; and still others sanitized their equipment and broadcast live from our studio.

And now, as always, we provide insights into the pandemic and many other issues affecting our community every Friday from 7-8 p.m. on “We the People,” hosted by Rob Roark and Quad-D. County Judge Ruben Becerra is a regular guest, as are City Council members and community activists.