Inside HPPR

Public radio on the High Plains is possible only through the giving spirit of all those who join hands to support HPPR.  And between now and December 31st your support will be doubled thanks to a generous helping hand from a special year-end $20,000 challenge. New memberships, membership renewals and additional gifts of any amount are all eligible for this dollar-for-dollar match.

Your year end support of HPPR brings to everyone in your community a news, information and music service that’s driven by qualities and values that build community. 

After over 40 years of service to the High Plains, there are now two generations of "backseat listeners" who grew up listening to HPPR from their childhood car seats and now continue to have public radio as part of their life. Making a planned gift to HPPR will ensure that public radio continues to be part of the quality of life in your community and across the High Plains for generations to come.

Transferring appreciated stocks and securities to High Plains Public Radio is a good way to make a charitable gift that can benefit you in two ways. When you donate publicly traded stocks to HPPR that have been held long-term (more than one year) you may avoid capital gains taxes. Plus, you may take the full current fair market value of the security (as of the date it is transferred) as a charitable deduction on your income taxes*.

The easiest way to make this kind of gift to HPPR is to have your broker electronically transfer the stock from your account to ours:

If you or your family has a donor-advised fund through an area community foundation or a financial institution (Schwab, Fidelity, etc.), you can support HPPR through the fund by requesting that HPPR be a grant recipient. In making the request, you’ll need to specify the recipient as the legal entity operating HPPR, the Kanza Society Inc.  You may also need our Federal ID#, which is 48-0859735.

There are three ways you can use your IRA to support public radio on the High Plains, depending on your age and circumstances.

HPPR works to go the extra mile for you, all year long.  By operating a network of 18 stations HPPR is able to serve you in your community and in your travels across the High Plains region. 

There are individuals who give an “extra share” to HPPR – a share that goes above and beyond supporting just their own listening.

There’s one thing you’ve heard less of on HPPR in recent months – days of on-air fundraising.  Since February we’ve reduced those days by about two-thirds of the usual, so that we could keep the programming coming to you uninterrupted and stay focused on maintaining operations during a difficult time.

Last month, public radio stations across the country bid farewell to Live from Here with Chris Thile, which ceased production and was therefore no longer available. This program will indeed be missed on the High Plains, but there’s a bright side: new shows on the schedule! Here’s how HPPR will be switching things up for September and beyond, so mark your calendars:

Saturdays:    

NPR’s Alt.Latino (5:00 – 5:30p) 

Sunday, April 5, 2020

KJJP-FM, 105.7 in Amarillo is off the air due to satellite receiver failure. The station has been dark since approximately 5pm central time. Repairs are expected to be complete by noon, Monday.

High Plains Public Radio announces two changes to its weekend program line-up. Starting this Saturday, February 29, HPPR will feature the two-hour program American Routes, hosted by award-winning musicologist Nick Spitzer. American Routes covers a broad spectrum of American music: blues and jazz, gospel and soul, old-time country and rockabilly, Cajun and zydeco, Tejano and Latin, roots rock and pop, avant-garde and classical.

Public radio on the High Plains is possible only through the giving spirit of all those who join hands to support HPPR.  And between now and December 31st your support will be doubled, dollar-for-dollar, thanks to the generous helping hands of a special year-end member match. Additional gifts, membership renewals and new memberships of any amount are all eligible for this dollar-for-dollar match.

On Thursday, Nov. 21, High Plains Public Radio was presented with a very generous check from the Community Foundation of Southwest Kansas.

The grant was for engineering expenses for KONQ in Dodge City, Kansas.

High Plains Public Radio is excited to announce the hiring of its new executive director, Will Murphy, who brings over 30 years of public radio experience to the High Plains region.

Murphy was selected by HPPR's board following a search over the past few months. 

It’s one thing to be inspired. It’s another thing to act on your inspiration. Four decades ago, when your friends and neighbors across the High Plains provided the support to make your public radio listening possible, they had some seed of inspiration, some source of motivation that prompted them to act and pledge their support. It might have been about realizing the need to support the service they use. It might also have been about believing in the value of having public radio service available to everyone in their community.

 Inspiration can come from many sources – great works of music, art and literature, spiritual experiences, witnessing the good works of others, biographies of leaders and innovators, rousing speeches and talks, travels to new lands.  

Here at High Plains Public Radio we work to bring you moments of inspiration – great and small – each day, across the year. They may come from …

We can’t think of a better way to spend Thursday mid-mornings than with Skip Mancini and her regular feature “Growing on the High Plains.” (Or if Thursdays at 10:30 a.m. (Central) doesn’t work, try Saturday mornings at 8:35 (Central).) Either way, you’ll be glad you did.

Each week Skip brings more than tips and advice on how to coax living things from out of the challenging High Plains soil; she has a story, a piece of sage advice, a bit of history, or a general good vibe to pull you through to the end of the work week.

Cokie Roberts, the longtime NPR journalist who died early this week, was “one of a handful of pioneering female journalists — along with Nina Totenberg, Linda Wertheimer and Susan Stamberg — who helped shape the public broadcaster's sound and culture at a time when few women held prominent roles in journalism.” So NPR reported on Tuesday.

High Plains Public Radio and the Cerulean Gallery announce the artists for the upcoming exhibition to benefit HPPR on Oct. 17-20 at the Cerulean Gallery in Amarillo. 

"POSTCARDS FROM THE HIGH PLAINS," a juried exhibition by the Cerulean Gallery and High Plains Public Radio (HPPR), was open to artists from Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska.

Visitors to HPPR’s Community Calendar may have noticed something new this week. The Amarillo Convention & Visitor Council is sponsoring the calendar, which lists events across the High Plains. To post your event click here.

Whatever your plans for this holiday weekend, we hope you will keep HPPR, either on the air or online, nearby. Allow us to share a couple of musings on Labor Day:

> Time Tells Its Own Story: A Labor Day Fable (From a 2012 column by Adam Frank):

The number of visitors to High Plains Public Radio’s website — www.hppr.org — is more than 60 percent higher than this time last year, according to a search of online data conducted this week. Not surprising. HPPR.org is a place where people of the High Plains (and others) can access the latest news, our thought-provoking features, and stream our two services — the music and news of High Plains Public Radio or the news and information on HPPR Connect.

High Plains Public Radio captured three awards in the 2019 Kansas Association of Broadcasters contest. Our winners were:

• Editorial/Commentary

1st Place: Little Spouse On The Prairie: Deep Fried Fun by Valerie  Brown-Kuchera

  HPPR's Radio Readers Book Club's 2019 Fall Read began this week. The new theme is "Navigating Uncharted Waters — Past, Present, & Future." We’ll be exploring the ways in which our childhood and life experiences inform our worldviews. Are we products of nature or nurture? Many intriguing questions will be explored.

This week saw a somber one-year anniversary in the High Plains.

On the evening of Aug. 1, 2018, Garden City Community College football player Braeden Bradforth died of heatstroke, according to an autopsy.

Sam Zeff, a reporter for public radio station KCUR in Kansas City, has followed Bradforth’s story since earlier this year.

The on-air portion of HPPR’s "Summer of Renewal" membership campaign concluded Thursday evening.

It’s summer time – your renewal time.  

Summer is renewal time – taking vacations, catching up on reading, tending a garden, enjoying hobbies, getting to long-awaited projects.

Make renewing your HPPR membership a part of your personal summer renewal so public radio can be there with you when things start getting really busy again.

Update: HPPR Connect, 94.9-Amarillo is back on the air. Thank you loyal listeners once again for your patience!