Radio Personality Rescues and Revives Local Broadcast
By Craig Reed
1 woman—and her voice—have rescued a coastal radio station.
That woman is Delilah Rene Warner, and the radio station is KDUN, pronounced “Kay-Dune.” After returning to the airwaves, the station broadcasts 24 hours a day at 50,000 watts. That makes it the most powerful station in Douglas County, on the Oregon coast, and in Southern Oregon.
That’s quite the transition from 1961 when the station was founded as KRAF AM 1470, a daytime-only station serving Reedsport and Florence with 5,000 watts of power. Soon after, Delilah—then a Reedsport High School student—won a school contest, earning her the opportunity to host a weekend show on the station.
That exposure to radio led Delilah to shows on radio stations in Coos Bay and Eugene. Eventually, her show, featuring her talking to callers about their personal relationships with accompanying music, became nationally syndicated. She is known as “the queen of sappy love songs.”
While Delilah earned national recognition, KRAF went through some changes. Owners and brothers Steve and Jerome Kenagy gained approval from the Federal Communications Commission to increase the station’s daytime power to 10,000 watts and to broadcast through the night at 1,000 watts. Later, permission was granted to move from 1470 to AM 1030, increasing its coverage area and the opportunity to stay on at night.
A few years later, the station gained approval from the FCC to increase to 50,000 watts, the maximum power for an AM station.
But in 2016, the station went off the air when its California-based owner shuttered it and walked away. The station’s transmitter—powered by Douglas Electric Cooperative in an older barnlike building 3 miles up Smith River—was literally left to rats and other rodents.
When Delilah heard that the station that gave her a start was for sale, she didn’t hesitate and bought it in 2021. Her next move was to call Bob Larson, a longtime radio engineer and announcer in Douglas County, for help in reviving the station.
“I’ve been doing radio work ever since I was in high school,” Bob says of his 50 years in the industry, including working for KRNR in Roseburg and KGRV in Winston.
Delilah asked Bob to get the station back on the air. The main projects were rebuilding the transmitter and building a studio. Bob admits he jumped when he opened the doors to the transmitter and rats ran out.
“I had to tear the transmitter to pieces and put it back together because there was rat waste and nests everywhere in it,” he says.
2 months later, the station had a rebuilt transmitter. KDUN was back on the air in August 2021. Bob brought it up to full power slowly, starting at a low wattage and gradually bringing it up to 50,000 watts.
Also in 2021, Bob found a location for a studio. It turned out to be Delilah’s fifth-grade classroom in what had been Gardiner Elementary School, but was now the Oregon Coast School of Art. The art school approved turning the former classroom into the station’s front office and 2 studios, 1 for on-air broadcasts and 1 for production.
“It’s been fun to work at—and challenging,” Bob says. “It has 24-hour programming of music, news, and sports, some live and some prerecorded. “We play oldies from the ’60s, ’70s and 80s—the hot hits from those decades, formatted in like Top 40 radio.”
Delilah’s show is slotted in from 6 p.m. to midnight, Monday through Saturday. Bob plays his selection of Top 40 hits from 6-9 a.m. daily.
Other regularly scheduled shows include classics from the past, such as Rick Dees’ “Classic Top 40 Countdown,” Casey Kasem’s “American Top 40,” Dick Clark’s “Rock, Roll & Remember,” “The Real Don Steele Show,” and Wink Martindale’s “History of Rock and Roll.”
The station carries top-of-the-hour news, a Sunday church service, Reedsport High School football and boys basketball games, Seattle Seahawks football and NFL playoff games, and Seattle Mariners baseball.
Bob can manage programming remotely from his Roseburg home or from the Gardiner studio.
“We are 1 of the few radio stations that is 100% digital and wireless,” he says.
Bob says he is proud of what KDUN has to offer its wide area of listeners and is happy with the station’s jingle that slightly differs from the 1 McDonald's used back in the mid-1970s: “We do it all for you on KDUN.”