Passion for radio launches alumna’s career

Lindsey Lounsbury fell in love with radio before she even attended St. Cloud State University.

A junior in high school at the time, a friend of Lounsbury’s invited her along to SCSU’s Be the Broadcaster event. The event offers prospective students and their families the opportunity to visit campus, learn more about SCSU’s award-winning broadcasting program and tour the University’s state-of-the-art facilities.

“So I went and I fell in love with it without even thinking that this would be what I would want to do,” Lounsbury said. “I knew I liked radio and everything else, and I slowly got started with KVSC on campus after that meeting.”

Before she was even enrolled at SCSU, Lounsbury was a volunteer radio host for SCSU’s student-run station KVSC 88.1 FM.

“I’m so glad I started as a volunteer radio host before I even started working at KVSC, because it really just got my foot in the door and a better understanding as to what I like, what radio was and how it works,” she said. “Because you never really know just listening to it. You can't tell how it works in the background.”

Lounsbury took on more roles with the station throughout her time at SCSU, including working as program director and traffic director.

“Then I started asking (KVSC Operations Director) Jim Gray questions and he slowly started answering them and pulling me into his little schemes. Not schemes, but his work on the technology and other things. In radio, you're dealing with music and you're recording and editing and a lot of it's on a computer. So when I saw him soldering cables together and making XLR cables and RJ45 network cables, I was like, ‘What is that? How are you doing that? Why?’ And it just kind of rolled into engineering,” Lounsbury said. “I really got such a wide grasp on what the broadcasting is from KVSC and St. Cloud State because of that — having all those different roles and then also the curriculum. Although I didn't graduate with a major in mass communications, I still did most of the education through there. I did TV classes, journalism classes, production classes, everything like that. And it really helped me better understand the technology behind it that still continues to help me today.”

She especially enjoyed her time working on live radio theater productions for KVSC, as well as going up in a fighter jet to interview a pilot before an airshow.

“Everything I've done through KVSC and St. Cloud State is just irreplaceable,” she said. “They’re experiences I wouldn't have gotten anywhere else.”

Lounsbury earned her Bachelor of Elective Studies in 2022, which encompassed minors in mass communications, psychology and technology studies. She joined The MaxxKonnect Group in Alabama in July 2023, and works as a regional field support engineer. In addition to broadcast engineering in her region, she also travels the country to work on different studio builds.

“The impact I hope to have is kind of what the goals of radio are: bring community together, make sure people stay informed — whether it’s weather, news, events, activities, school stuff or anything like that. That's really what I strive to do, because not only do I work in radio, some of it involves TV and weather and other things that all contribute to that public safety aspect and community that I really enjoy being a part of. Helping out in those dire situations — when it's giant storms hitting, especially down here with the hurricanes coming — traveling to help these stations so they can continue to broadcast through their community and keep people informed; that's really what's important to me.”

As technology and trends continue to evolve, Lounsbury is confident radio will always have its place. While YouTube and TikTok and their impacts on short- and long-form media continue in addition to podcasts taking off, she feels younger generations will start to move back to radio. As subscription prices continue to increase, Lounsbury believes radio has long had a universal accessibility to it that will continue.

“I think it's always going to be there in one way or another. I've heard so many differing opinions. When I first started in this industry, I would get many comments about not doing this job solely for the fact that it's a ‘dying industry.’ And it hasn't died yet,” she said. “I always say that if it's going to die, I'll be right there dying along with it then, because it's so much fun. Everything's different every day. You get to meet so many cool people, listen to so much new music and everything else, and there's just always more to learn. It's a lot of fun and I'm always encouraging more younger people to get into it because they don't know what they're missing.”