Rocky Mountain Community Radio

Author: RMCR Digital Editor

  • RMCR Hires Inaugural Rural Climate Reporter

    11/13/24

    Rocky Mountain Community Radio (RMCR) is pleased to announce the hiring of Caroline Llanes as the network’s first Rural Climate Reporter. In this role, Caroline will focus on telling the stories of rural communities across the region, examining how climate change impacts the people, environments, and economies of the Rocky Mountain West.

    Caroline comes to the position after nearly three years as a reporter at Aspen Public Radio  where she covered local government and reported on a variety of state, local, and federal agencies, with a strong emphasis on climate and environmental issues.

    Caroline’s award-winning work has been broadcast nationally on NPR, regionally through the Mountain West News Bureau, and across the RMCR network. 

    “Climate and the environment is at the core of pretty much all of my reporting, because it’s an issue that intersects with nearly every other issue in our lives. That includes where and how we build affordable and attainable housing, how we plan our cities and transit, and the impacts on our most marginalized and vulnerable members of our communities,” said Llanes.

    As RMCR’s new Rural Climate Reporter, Caroline will collaborate with newsrooms across the coalition’s 20 member stations to report on climate change and its impact on rural communities throughout the region. She will work directly with RMCR Managing Editor Maeve Conran.

    “Now more than ever, covering rural climate issues is crucial, with our region at the heart of so many national conversations on climate-related topics,” said Conran. “I’m thrilled to work with Caroline as she shares the stories of this region and amplifies the voices of the people and communities most affected by climate change.”

    Breeze Richardson, RMCR President concurs, stating: 

    “Over the last three years I’ve had the privilege of watching Caroline grow into a remarkable beat reporter, with a passion for making climate stories accessible and relevant to our lives today. She’s going to be a tremendous asset for the RMCR coalition, with Aspen Public Radio listeners still able to hear her work thanks to our role in this collaboration as a member station.”

    The Rural Climate Reporter position is funded by a one-year grant from the Rural Climate Partnership in collaboration with Colorado Media Project. 

    “In an industry once defined by fierce competition, Colorado’s local newsrooms lead the nation in creating innovative ways to work together to better serve their communities. When coalitions like Rocky Mountain Community Radio share reporters and coordinate coverage among their member stations, they help different communities facing similar challenges and questions connect, support, and learn from each other,” added Sam Moody, Learning and Grants Manager at Colorado Media Project who helped RMCR secure the grant.

    Founded over forty years ago, Rocky Mountain Community Radio is a coalition of more than 20 non-commercial radio stations in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. Participating stations include:

    KAFM – Grand Junction
    KAJX – Aspen
    KBUT – Crested Butte and Gunnison
    KDNK – Carbondale
    KDUR – Durango
    KFFR – Winter Park, Fraser
    KGNU – Boulder and Denver
    KHEN – Salida
    KHOL – Jackson Hole, WY
    KLZR – Westcliffe
    KOTO – Telluride
    KRFC – Fort Collins
    KRCL – Salt Lake City, Park City, Ogden, Provo, UT
    KSJD – Cortez
    KSJE – Farmington, NM
    KSUT – Ignacio
    KUNC – Greeley
    KUVO – Denver
    KVNF – Paonia and Montrose
    KZMU – Moab, UT

    With RMCR serving many additional communities beyond those listed above.

    For information about RMCR contact:

    Breeze Richardson
    President, RMCR Board of Directors
    Executive Director, Aspen Public Radio
    breeze.richardson@aspenpublicradio.org

    Maeve Conran
    Managing Editor, RMCR
    maeve@rockymountaincommunityradio.org 

  • Rocky Mountain Community Radio Wins Big at CBA and SPJ’s Top of the Rockies Continuing Decades-old Regional Collaboration Model

    4/27/23

    For Immediate Release:

    Member stations of Rocky Mountain Community Radio (RMCR), a coalition of non-commercial radio stations in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, have won a combined 52 awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and Colorado Broadcasters Association. 

    RMCR won a combined 25 CBA awards across all markets, with Aspen Public Radio claiming four (4), KOTO in Telluride winning four (4), KVNF in Paonia/Montrose winning four (4), KUVO in Denver winning four (4), KSUT in Ignacio winning three (3) with two of those recognizing KSUT Tribal Radio, KGNU in Boulder/Denver winning two (2), KRFC in Fort Collins winning two (2), KUNC in Greeley winning one (1), and KDNK in Carbondale winning one (1).

    In the SPJ Top of the Rockies competition, member stations of RMCR won a combined 27 awards, with KHOL in Jackson, WY winning eight (8), KVNF in Paonia/Montrose winning eight (8), Aspen Public Radio winning four (4), KUNC winning four (4), KGNU in Boulder/Denver winning two (2), and KBUT in Crested Butte winning one (1). 

    Much of the award winning work was broadcast across the entire RMCR network. 

    This recognition of the work of RMCR stations comes while the organization is only growing stronger, with two new stations joining the coalition in 2022, the hiring of Maeve Conran as the coalition’s first managing editor and producer, and the election of Breeze Richardson, executive director of Aspen Public Radio, as RMCR Board President.

    “Community and public radio stations are the heartbeat of their communities,” says RMCR Managing Editor Maeve Conran. “Many of the stations are in areas that have few other local news outlets, and they are doing crucial work. Even stations in communities that are not considered news deserts play an essential role with the ongoing volatility in commercial news.”

    Conran began her work as the network’s first managing editor last July and is increasing collaborative reporting efforts across the network, while working closely with RMCR newsrooms to offer training and editorial support. The managing editor position is funded in part by a three-year grant from the Colorado Media Project and participating RMCR member stations, with a mission to serve all RMCR stations equally in her new position. 

    The collaborative model that began with a handful of Colorado stations in the 1980s as High Country Community Radio Coalition (HCCRC), has grown over the past thirty years to include more than twenty stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico.

    “I know many radio stations around the country look to RMCR as a model for what can be done collaboratively,” says Conran who will be speaking about RMCR at the upcoming NFCB conference in Denver. “Individually these stations are doing incredible work, but collectively their strength is amplified,” she says. “We are greater than the sum of our parts.”

    Previous collaborative reporting projects include a regional look at affordable housing, fossil fuels, and how communities are transitioning away from fossil fuels.

    Additionally, RMCR has now launched a bi-weekly half hour program that showcases the diversity of work being done by stations in the coalition, which in addition to being broadcast across participating RMCR stations will soon be nationally syndicated on the Pacifica Network.

    “It’s exciting to see such interest in the stories coming out of our region,” said Conran. 

    The network also employs a full-time year-round news reporter at the Colorado state capitol, broadcasting this reporting from Lucas Brady Woods throughout the network. Capitol Coverage is funded in part by a grant from the Gill Foundation along with participating RMCR member stations, and is housed at Community Radio for Northern Colorado (KUNC) as part of a collaboration between the station and RMCR to provide continued coverage of state capitol issues and public policy in Colorado through the Capitol Coverage project.

    The stations of Rocky Mountain Community Radio include:

    KAFM – Grand Junction
    KAJX – Aspen
    KBUT – Crested Butte and Gunnison
    KDNK – Carbondale
    KDUR – Durango
    KFFR – Winter Park
    KGNU – Boulder and Denver
    KHEN – Salida
    KHOL – Jackson Hole, WY
    KLZR – Westcliffe
    KOTO – Telluride
    KRCL – Salt Lake City, UT
    KRFC – Fort Collins
    KSJD – Cortez
    KSJE – Farmington, NM
    KSUT – Ignacio
    KUNC – Greeley
    KUVO – Denver
    KVCU – Boulder
    KVNF – Paonia and Montrose
    KZMU – Moab, UT

    ***

  • RMCR Hires New Managing Editor

    5/23/22

    For Immediate Release:

    Rocky Mountain Community Radio (RMCR) is pleased to announce the hiring of Maeve Conran to serve as the network’s first Managing Editor and Producer.

    Maeve brings fifteen years of broadcast news experience as a radio news director, freelance radio podcast producer, and TV program director; and she shares a deep commitment to the success of RMCR. She has extensive experience collaborating with radio journalists in her professional career, and recently she served as the Project Coordinator for RMCR’s award-winning collaborative news project highlighting the issues facing communities as they transition from reliance on Fossil Fuels to green energy.

    As RMCR’s new Managing Editor, Maeve will collaborate with journalists and news producers at RMCR’s 18 stations on stories and public affairs programs, greatly increasing the network’s capacity to cover, produce, and distribute regional news.

    “I am so excited to be given the opportunity to work with the incredible stations that make up RMCR. Community radio is my passion and I believe so strongly in the work being done by RMCR and the member stations, I’m so honored to get to be a part of it,” said Maeve Conran.

    “RMCR is very excited to achieve one of our long term goals of expanding the impact of our collaboration. We’re pleased to have Maeve join the team to help strengthen journalism for communities in our region,” said Kelley Dole, President of RMCR.

    RMCR is a coalition of 18 non-commercial radio stations in Colorado (15), New Mexico (1), Utah (1), and Wyoming (1). RMCR stations share content and work collaboratively to produce in-depth features on regional issues.

    The Managing Editor position is funded in part by a three-year grant from the Colorado Media Project and RMCR Member Stations. Aspen Public Radio has agreed to host Conran in her new role, and so she will technically be an employee of Aspen Public Radio, an RMCR member, and will report to Brent Gardner-Smith, Aspen Public Radio’s news director. However, her mission is to serve all RMCR stations equally in her new position. 

  • 2021 Top of the Rockies “second place for public service”

    The 2021 Top of the Rockies contest sponsored by the Colorado chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists pits print, TV, radio, and online news organizations from four states (Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming) depending on newsroom size.

    KVNF secured 12 stories on the list of 2021 Top of the Rockies winnersKVNF freelancer Chad Reich was one of seven reporters from stations in the Rocky Mountain Community Radio coalition sharing a win. The stories in RMCR’s Fossil Fuel Reporting Collaboration aired during 2020 earned Second Place for Public Service. Other named reporters were Robyn Vincent (KHOL), Julia Caulfield (KOTO), Lucas Turner (KDNK), Justin Higginbottom (KZMU), Daniel Rayzel (KSJD), and Maeve Conran (KGNU).