Pioneer Radio for 25 Years
DJ Vulcan, also known as first-year student Lauretta Charlton, and KUSF General Manager Steve Runyon help maintain the radio station's progressive groove.
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KUSF, the University of San Francisco’s campus radio station for the last 25 years, has a 3,000-watt signal that even on a good day has trouble reaching most of San Francisco’s outer limits from its home in Phelan Hall. It employs a mostly volunteer staff and works off a skeletal operating budget. In short, no one is supposed to have heard of KUSF. But everyone has.
Its iconoclastic skull-and-bones logo can be seen on bumper stickers in Germany. Its name is familiar to any Japanese teen who reads the English-language pop-culture magazine Nonstop English Wave, which is co-produced by KUSF. And people around the world regularly download the station’s cutting-edge music off the Internet.
“[It’s] the small Northern California radio station for the stars of tomorrow,” raves Uni Spiegel, the student version of the popular German magazine Der Spiegel, in a recent issue.
But no one rivals the pride and loyalty of fans at home. The station, which celebrated its 25th birthday on April 25, enjoys cult status—both for its punk rock and its multicultural programming. It’s been officially honored in San Francisco with a “KUSF Day” for the last 15 years. It has been named best radio station by numerous local newspapers and organizations and earned accolades from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the state senate.
The praise is especially gratifying for general manager Steve Runyon, the man who bought the station’s license and transmitter back in 1977 when he was just a few years out of USF. Runyon built KUSF from an amateur “sub-carrier” broadcasting out of Phelan’s power lines into an FM station with its own piece of bandwidth at 90.3. His “No. 1 principle”—to be an outlet for social justice—has resulted in some of the most progressive, community-based programming anywhere. KUSF hosts a dozen foreign-language programs including the “Hamazkayin Armenian Hour,” “Studio Poland,” and “Chinese Star Radio” as well as shows for underserved populations such as the “Disability & Senior News Report.”
“As Bay Area broadcasting has become less community-service oriented year by year, KUSF has become even more important to the community,” Runyon said.
But it’s the music programming, aired every weekday from midnight to 2 p.m., that maintains the party faithful. It was KUSF that began giving airtime to bands like REM, the B-52s, and Metallica when they were unknown. Nine gold records from appreciative bands such as the B-52s adorn the station’s walls as testament to its forward-looking tastes.
“The cultural events at USF are great because they bring me to [KUSF’s] primary signal range,” said Sunset district resident Rich Zimmerman, headphones in evidence around his neck at a recent USF art exhibit. “It’s always been my favorite station for 21 years.”
The community is impressively loyal. Last fall, when KUSF suffered a transmitter melt-down, Runyon reluctantly asked for money from his listeners to repair the station’s equipment—his first on-air fundraising effort in his career. (The station receives some money from the university but more than half of its costs come from outside fundraising.) KUSF, Runyon likes to boast, produces 20 times the local programming of public station KQED, but on less than 5 percent of that station’s budget. Runyon expected a few thousand dollars from his request. Instead, the station raised more than $50,000 from private trusts, foundations, and listeners, including an anonymous supporter who sent a $10,000 check.
“KUSF has been our savior,” wrote one supporter. 
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