Glad to have you with me...here at the end of all things

Eventually this will be part of the final dinosaur post, but the clock's ticking...

Monkey Man. The Stones' Monkey Man, from Let it Bleed. My dad opened every shift on air with it, when KTXT-FM was still broadcasting from the Speech Building at a 1000 watts, when it was hard to hear in most dorm rooms. Some twenty years later, when the signal was stronger (barring fried transmitters, which was often) I neglected to have a signature sign-on. Nevertheless, I formed an identity and skills that served me for more than twenty years in a wandering, hopeless career in media.
Texas Tech University's Department of Student Media within the College of Mass Communications has elected to shut the station down and offer the frequency up for use at a different time. Details and quotes here and here .
As a Tech employee that is currently working my way into the unemployment line due to a reduction in force, I understand the money issues at work here. I understand the Official line about investigating new media to the betterment of the students (though I have to believe that "free radio" will survive in some incarnation as the world shakes out).
But my sense of loss is profound. KTXT was responsible for my first management job. Many friends of those days remain some of my closest (one will never forgive me for not giving him a shift--your schedule didn't fit the board, Todd), I proposed for the first time there (thankfully that didn't happen). As noted, my own father worked there, fer chrissakes.
I've never stopped listening to the station, 23 years after moving to Lubbock. In that time, listening to the young people bouncing across the ether, I heard the same youth, hopefulness and irreverence we felt back when dinosaurs roamed the campus and it warmed me, made me feel a little less old.
I have no call to action. I have no idea if there is anything we alumni can do to help these young people and save the station. I will let you know if I find out.
What I do know is that the silence at 88.1 megahertz is deafening. It has rendered me same.
Until the students organize, if you are a Tech alum that worked or listened to the station, please send an email to whereis88point1@gmail.com so that we can get you into a database.

-Michael Stephens
Operations Manager, 1988
KTXT-FM, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX

I recieved this email last night:

Well friends, it has turned out to be quite a sad day as something that I hold very dear to me, as do many of you, has been taken away. The Texas Tech radio station that meant so much to so many of us has ceased operation. News came through this afternoon that the TTU Dept of Student Media shut down KTXT-FM citing "high maintenance costs and an evolving media industry".

This brings to an end many decades of commercial-free, independent music. In thinking about KTXT-FM's legacy, I can't even begin to comprehend how many imaginative and diverse pieces of music were channelled throughout its 35,000 watts across the South Plains. Reggae, ska, hip-hop, alternative country, death metal, world, emo, punk, post-punk, spoken word, new wave, Texas country, jam band, Britpop, folk, indie, and downbeat/triphop were just a few of the genres of music that received airplay on 88.1 FM; many of which were radical and relatively unheard of in a Conservative hub like Lubbock. On occasion, the station's content resucitated Lubbock's music scene by providing an outlet for local (or travelling) musicians to get the word out about their craft. Most importantly, it stirred the musical and artistic inspiration and creativity in countless students, and opened their ears and minds to the diversity of non-commercial music. Throughout, it instilled in the listener that there is an alternative to what the Clear Channels, the Cumulus', and the mega-corp commercial stations are spinning.

Despite its finale, it has left behind a remarkable legacy.

-Brad Patrick
KTXT-FM, 2000-2003