(KACV continued) FCC licensure tug-of-war with another non-commercial group that vied to operate on Channel 2. The dominoes fell quickly after that. The FCC issued AC a permit of authorization in 1986, and in 1987 AC received a $1 million equipment grant from the Department of Commerce. About $550,000 was raised locally that same year, enabling building expansion. PBS affiliation then came swiftly. Panhandle PBS now serves the 26 counties of the Panhandle and reaches 140,000 households and about 412,000 individuals. Its birth was 25 years ago this month, in 1988, when Rain Man won the Oscar, and a certain presidential candidate asked that we read his lips, and the cost of a first-class postage stamp skyrocketed to 25 cents, and the street of Sesame was finally paved, from Tulia to Perryton, skirting happy little trees along the way.
Anniversary Events Aug. 21-23 – Library Tours | PBS costumed
characters will visit various area libraries to encourage kids to read. One such visit, not at a library, will be to the Child Development Lab School on AC’s West Campus: 3:15 p.m. and featuring Buddy the Dinosaur.
Aug. 25 – Wonderland Day | The public is invited to enjoy PBS
costumed characters like Daniel Tiger and Sid the Science Kid and all the park’s amusements from 1-6 p.m., with half the gate going to benefit KACV.
Aug. 26 – Welcome Back to Campus | Costumed characters will greet folks from 9-11 a.m. on the Washington Street Mall.
Sept. 24 – Otwell Twins in Pampa | The first of a quartet of free
concerts by the twins who won fame on The Lawrence Welk Show, this one is at 1:30 p.m. in Pampa’s MK Brown Auditorium. Subsequent appearances are Nov. 14 in Tulia; Feb. 21 in Dumas; and sometime in April at Clarendon.
Nov. 2 – Anniversary Party | A BBQ dinner with open bar and live music for dancing provided by Atteberry Station starts at 7 p.m. at the Event Centre, 4600 N. Western. Cost is $120 per couple or $400 per table of eight.
March 17 – Big Idea Challenge | Teams of necessarily clever folks will be pitted against each other to solve puzzles and brain teasers. Teams will begin forming in November, so stay tuned.
KACV and the Community . . . While segments from all will be posted to the KACV website, some ultimately will be shown on air.
KACV is the catalyst for much more than meets the eyes of its television viewers. Community engagement efforts—all lofty, some extraordinary—are a continual priority for AC’s workforce at the PBS affiliate. “We place a high value on education, partnerships and meaningful relationships that help us extend programming beyond the television screen,” General Manager Linda Pitner says. To those ends, KACV recently threw its weight behind such endeavors, among others, as the American Graduate, a nationwide effort to raise public awareness of high school dropouts; the Texas Graduate Initiative, a Texas PBS effort to help Texans with GED preparedness and completion; and Texas Feeding Minds, in which KACV coordinated a statewide PBS awareness campaign focused on childhood obesity and hunger. It therefore comes as no surprise that KACV has developed something special to complement its 25th Anniversary
“We have so many residents whose wonderful memories are at risk of being lost,” Cullen Lutz, KACV’s community engagement specialist, said. “We want to capture our history through face-to-face communication with those who hold the keys to our past. celebration: The Panhandle Stories Project. Funded through a grant from the Payne Foundation, this project launches at Pampa in September and will take KACV videographers once each month to a different regional library, where their aim will be to collect personal stories from willing Panhandle residents. Everyone who shares a personal story with KACV—it might be about farming and ranching, arts and culture, church life, sports or everyday living—will immediately be given a keepsake DVD of the interview. Copies also will be housed for posterity at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum.
“This is an effort to create a repository of empirical communication to be preserved for future generations.” One need not be from an outlying area to take part in the Oral History Project. Lutz says a toolkit will be available at the KACV website to anyone who wants to participate—near or far. The Panhandle Stories Project is just one of many special events to help KACV celebrate its anniversary. The station also will coordinate concerts by the Otwell Twins of The Lawrence Welk Show fame, a library tour with PBS costumed characters, a celebratory party in November, and special on-air and online programming celebrating the region.