For 30 years, KSMQ, Austin's very own public television station, has been a landmark in the community. Housed on the Riverland Community College campus, it serves approximately 600,000 people in southeastern Minnesota and northern Iowa.

But in 1972, when the station first went on the air, it was intended to be used as a training vehicle for the engineering students and the broadcast students at the school and only was broadcast to the nearly 30,000 people in Austin.

With virtually no employees and barely any programming, "it was very basic … very, very elementary. There were no frills or anything," remembers John O'Rourke who, at the time, ran the radio and television broadcasting program at the Austin Area Vocational Technical Institute (now Riverland Community College) and was the program director for the station's first couple of years. "Some of it wasn't very good television, but we were working on it."

At first, O'Rourke says, chuckling, "we had nothing. We went on the air for a few minutes each day," and then, after about a year, the station was able to show videotaped programs and do some programming for the college.

After a few years, Barry Baker was hired as the station manager and that's when the KSMQ really "took off," says O'Rourke.

In 1985, the station received a grant to widen its broadcast area to communities outside Austin and became a PBS affiliate. "From there on, we've done an awful lot in the community," says General Manager Jude Andrews.

Today, the station is one of five public television stations that is licensed by a school district – the Austin Public School District, in this case – which means the school district is "responsible for the station's welfare and upkeep," explains Andrews.

One of the station's main focuses is educating area children. "We air children's programming eight hours a day. It's very important to maintain that and benefit people. We're very, very fond of that component," Andrews says.

In addition to the television programming, KSMQ also has a program called "Ready to Learn," which distributes books and holds workshops with other agencies to help prepare children who cannot speak English or are living in poverty, for school.

Currently, the station also is focused on its future. "It's undergoing its biggest transition of the past 30 years," says Andrews, the excitement and anticipation evident in her voice. "We're working with SMIG to provide interactive TV. It's not going to be just a broadcast medium, but a data transfer medium as well."

Instead of one channel, KSMQ will offer four to the community and those can be used by organizations to send training manuals and information to people in the broadcast region.

"It's a resource that people would not get unless they lived in a big metropolitan area," says Andrews. "It makes it exciting because everything is changing so rapidly. TV stations have to keep ahead of technology and we're doing that. We're becoming a much more interesting community partner."

"It's doing a lot better than it did in the beginning," adds O'Rourke.

Amanda L. Rohde can be reached at 434-2214 or by e-mail at amanda.rohde@austindailyherald.com