Behind the Faces of KTSW

By Janessa Rutiaga
Blog Content Contributor

Texas State’s very own radio station, KTSW, is a huge collage of different departments and people. You may only see a few faces, but I assure you, there are dozens of people working at the radio station. There are two sides to a radio station, ones you see and the ones you don’t. Both are required to maintain a well-oiled radio station (just like KTSW) and cannot exist without the other.

The sides of college radio you don’t see are usually music, news, sports and all the writers in between. Their work is all out in the open, but none of it would be seen or heard of it wasn’t for the departments in charge of maintaining image. These departments fall down to social media, multimedia, community relations and promotions. They build up all the hype around KTSW, and they make sure to maintain the good image of our radio station not only around Texas State University, but also in the surrounding communities. These four departments are the faces of KTSW.

The community relations department is fairly new to KTSW, but is doing major headway. Their most notable event is Rock Your Chakras. It’s yoga at Sewell park and designed specifically to help people relieve stress. Even though it’s an event hosted by the university, it’s open to the entire surrounding areas. Community relations helps us maintain a good standing with the community, as well as help the communities prosper in different ways. They target events towards veterans, the arts and children in the surround San Marcos area.

“Not everyone would know what KTSW was really about if it wasn’t for us,” said Haley Helenbrook, event specialist for KTSW.

If I’m being honest, I feel like our multimedia department is often overlooked and a little underappreciated. Which is heart breaking, because they do all our visuals, so just about everything you see that that’s on our website, any photos, illustrations or videos all come from them. We have some amazingly talented people in this department, and our visuals would be so bland and boring without them (if we would even have some). I tend to think of them as the cherry on top of the sundae.

We then have the promotions department, and you’re probably most familiar with these guys. You’ll see them in the quad, or at any KTSW event, usually handing out free merchandise or handing out fliers for our next event. These guys’ primary job is getting people involved, creating events and concerts and simply making people aware of what KTSW does. They’re always promoting our events, radio shows and concerts. A majority of KTSW’s fan base comes directly from their hard work and networking. I truly believe that without these guys it would just be KTSW employees at the events and concerts. They do so much for our radio station, and we wouldn’t be all that without them.

“I think a lot of students discover KTSW through the promotions team, so they definitely play a big role in expanding the audience,” said Cain Hernandez, who’s on the promotions team for KTSW.

Last, but definitely not least, is our social media department. They control our Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. They do a great job at highlighting everything that goes on behind the scenes as well as helping promote all our written content and events. The coolest thing about social media is that they give you a behind the scenes type of look at KTSW. You can see clips and pictures of our DJs and Other Side Drive members while they’re on air and giving interviews. They definitely give you a look at KTSW you can’t see from the other departments. They also promote our written content online, which can be a little obscured compared to the events and actual radio side of KTSW that gets promoted through the other departments.

It wasn’t until I started working for KTSW that I was truly able to get a look at how things go on around the radio station. There’s so much behind the scenes work that you never really think about, but thanks to our four different promotional departments you get a better understanding of it. Without them our radio station wouldn’t be half as successful. They really are the faces of our station.