Joseph Vidrine
Cecil Doyle, KRVS's Music Director.
Two thousand miles from my home in South Louisiana, in a North Dakota campground surrounded by bison quietly munching prairie grasses, a man called out to me in a French accent, “You know KRVS?!”
Excited to spot “KRVS 88.7 FM—Radio Acadie” emblazoned on my T-shirt, this Baton Rouge French immersion teacher from France and I connected over our mutual affection for the small college radio station, which is a dedicated curator of the multifaceted, French-flavored culture of South Louisiana and an invaluable asset of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
A Distinct Sound
Beginning as a small student-run radio station in 1963 with a six-block broadcasting reach, KRVS now lures zydeco enthusiasts from coast to coast and French teachers from France via live streaming at krvs.org and the smart phone app. The non-profit media organization is run by five staff members along with countless student and community volunteers. Like the culture it transmits, it has undergone a series of changes—continuously improving its programming while broadening its reach and maintaining its roots in the community.
Today, the National Public Radio-affiliated music station plays Cajun, zydeco, blues, jazz, swamp pop, and myriad variations between, within, and beyond these genres. Cypress Lake Studios—the station’s onsite recording studio named for the adjacent bison wallow turned swampland—provides a space for musicians and university students to learn the skills involved in making a quality recording.
The station is distinctive in carrying twenty-five hours, often more, of locally produced French language programming weekly. For over forty years, the weekday morning show Bonjour Louisiane has been waking people up with news and music tout en Français Louisiane (all in Louisiana French). Saturday mornings are sacred to zydeco enthusiasts who tune in to Zydeco Est Pas Sale to hear DJs John Broussard, “JB,” and Melvin Caesar, “MC” share music, community news, and spontaneous lessons in Creole French.
Joseph Vidrine
KRVS
“I love and care about this station because it’s like no other,” gushed General Manager Cheryl Devall, “Where else can you hear anything like the by-play of JB and MC? They’re like a comedy team.”
During their four-hour show, the two gentlemen move gracefully between covering their playlist, telling stories, and calling on folks to be peaceable with their standard reminder, “Now, if you’re out on the dance floor this weekend and someone steps on your foot, don’t get mad, just say, ‘Excuse me for putting my foot under your foot’ and keep dancing.”
Devall, a journalist and former NPR correspondent who worked all over the United States before accepting her position at KRVS said, “Life, work, school has taken me many places, but there’s no place like here. In many areas regional culture has been homogenized out. Sure, people may dance the polka, but only on special occasions. Here the music and social dance traditions are not just for tourists—they spring from the culture of exiled people who miss where they’re from, living in isolation, having to make their own fun.”
Cultural Curator
As it became an NPR affiliate in the mid-1970s—bringing national news programming to local radio—KRVS continued to broadcast area news, weather, and music in Louisiana French, playing a major role in the regional French language renaissance of the late seventies/early eighties in South Louisiana. Decades prior, Louisiana French-speaking World War II veterans had learned the value of bilingualism but, nonetheless, regional French with its unique pronunciations and words was still trying to shake its reputation as being “broken.”
Megan Brown Constantin, Assistant General Manager at KRVS and professor of Cajun and Creole vocals in ULL’s Traditional Music Program, pointed out, “By KRVS broadcasting in Louisiana French and Creole, it validated to everybody that this is a real language because they’d heard it on the radio! KRVS showed them the value in their language and music.”
Joseph Vidrine
Megan Brown Constantin, Assistant General Manager at KRVS, and host of "Encore with Megan Constantin" on Sundays—which showcases music from Archives of Cajun and Creole Folklore housed at the University of Louisiana of Lafayette's Center for Louisiana Studies.
KRVS, along with organizations like the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana (CODOFIL), encouraged and provided the means for new generations to learn the language, but, Constantin asks, “What good is it to teach French if there is nowhere to use it—what are we saving the language for?”
She considers this one of the main questions of another linguistic renaissance happening today—one that finds young French speakers like Colby LeJeune continuing the legacy of the Bonjour Louisiane radio program, and former KRVS host Drake Leblanc co-founding Télé-Louisiane—a multi-lingual media platform. Countless others answer the question with their work, films, poetry, music, and theatrical productions tout en français and KRVS then helps share it all with the world.
Ever Evolving
Maintaining a worldwide reach relevant to today’s rapidly evolving media landscape is a challenge KRVS has met by keeping abreast of emerging technologies. When online streaming became available in the early 2000s, KRVS began attracting a worldwide audience of listeners wanting to learn more about what they were hearing, seeing, and reading at krvs.org.
Chief Engineer Kris Wotipka has guided the station in expanding its presence on the radio dial by adding two subchannels via the technology of high-definition radio: student-led Kampus FM at HD2 and public media news and information at HD3.
Devall noted that most NPR affiliates nationwide have shifted to news and information. While KRVS remains a music station, the addition of HD3 allows it to simultaneously satisfy the demand for more news.
While students have been a part of the station since its inception, Kampus FM gives them a blank slate of 24/7 programming to fill—allowing the station to act simultaneously as a playground and training ground within the well-established reputation their predecessors began over sixty years ago.
"By KRVS broadcasting in Louisiana French and Creole, it validated to everybody that this is a real language because they'd heard it on the radio! KRVS showed them the value in their language and music."
—Megan Brown Constantin
Wotipka has enjoyed hearing the results of handing HD2 over to the students, “It’s fun; it’s youthful,” he said. “Our traditional listeners are finding it and giving great feedback.” Listeners who explore the subchannel online at kampusfm.krvs.org or via the app will find student-produced music, videos, and live recordings while they get a taste for how artists like xelA7th (pronounced ex-el-uh-seventh) and The Fizgigs are using KRVS and sites around campus as their backdrop for creativity and exploration.
ULL’s Chief Strategy Officer Kristi Anderson spoke about the importance of KRVS to the university: “Every college and program can find ways to connect with KRVS, and many already have. For example, the College of the Arts, the Center for Louisiana Studies, and the College of Liberal Arts all have a strong presence at the station. And with their ability to pass along information, KRVS also works with the Office of Communication and Marketing, Office of Environmental Health and Safety, and even UL Police Department. The beauty of KRVS is that its airwaves are open and welcoming to all.”
World Cafe
Since the Fall of 2024, KRVS has been partnering with World Café—a nationally syndicated radio show with over a half a million listeners on 285 stations—for the Acadiana Music Showcase. During its thirty-three years in production, World Café has become the go-to show for music promoters looking to book bands for festivals and concerts.
“The partnership has allowed the station to reach beyond the converted while giving bands a platform outside of the local listenership,” said Constantin, who went on to explain how KRVS has encouraged all local musicians—not just the Cajun and Zydeco standbys—to apply. Three different acts are recorded each month, of which World Café selects one to air.
Joseph Vidrine
Amanda Sphar, the lead vocalist of the Lafayette soft rock band, Kid Charleroi, who recorded a session at KRVS in October for its partnership with World Café.
The sessions in October included Kid Charleroi and her flute dappled soft rock sound—filling the studio with her band’s smallish horn section and steady tambourine. Longtime award-winning DJ and KRVS Music Director Cecil Doyle airs segments of the sessions live on his program Medicine Ball Caravan, and they are viewable through the KRVS app.
The team at KRVS, along with student and community volunteers, as Devall puts it, “connect the best of this culture with the world and bring elements of the world here.” This, all while maintaining the in-real-life community at the heart of the KRVS culture—where you can visit with a DJ at a local festival, or stop in at the station during a fundraiser to share a link of boudin with a musician.
