*****The Founder*****

Kevin began his interest in radio broadcasting while in high school, asking the small Catholic high school he attended to replace the guidance counselor's office with a radio station of their own, a request that was declined.

When he attended college, Kevin began his actual broadcasting experience. WCCH 103.5 FM in Holyoke, Massachusetts is a 10 watt station owned by Holyoke Community College. Kevin was given the Tuesday morning radio show which was played in the Student Union lounge. Given Kevin's choice of Hardcore/Punk music, the station thought Tuesdays preferable to Monday mornings for obvious reasons.

Kevin went on to attend two four year colleges, both of which had radio stations. WMWM, a 130 watt station on the north shore of Boston was a more structured station, run in a professional manner. Despite this, Kevin was allowed on the air, doing a morning show, then transitioning to a weekend novelty music show. Kevin remembers using Alice's Restaurant several mornings to provide sufficient time for him to run upstairs to the dining hall for breakfast. When Kevin came to live in Rumford, he attended UMF and was soon on the air on WUMF where he participated until his graduation.

In the community, Kevin has remained active in many areas, including founding WVAC, the local public access TV station. He worked with others in communities throughout the region to activate community stations on many cable TV systems. Through his participation in community television, he held the position of Secretary to the Community Television Association of Maine.

In the 1990s Kevin, with assistance from a number of resources, completed an application for a low power community TV station to serve Southern Franklin County. The application was nearly perfect except for one technical exhibit. Not being an engineer, Kevin overlooked the need for the exhibit, which caused the application to be denied. Kevin considered an application for the River Valley Region, but lacked the resources to make it happen.

***** The Station*****

In 2011, an opportunity arose for a non-profit entity to apply for a Low Power FM station. Kevin researched the availability in the River Valley region and identified two frequencies with minimal interference. 91.1 and 102.3 were available in Rumford. At the time, Kevin did not know that The Seventh Day Adventist school in Dixfield was also applying. Kevin picked 91.1, and the SDA group chose 102.3. Had they both picked the same frequency, they would have competed with each other, requiring them to commit to numerous restrictions that would have become very costly to the Rumford group. Kevin formed River Valley Community Association with a three member board. Then Town Manager Carlo Puiia suggested that the station could place their antenna at the town's High Street transmitter site. Unfortunetaly, that site would later become problematic due to concerns by the Police Chief Stacy Carter over interference with his 2-way communication. The group applied for and was granted the construction permit. Due to the concerns over the High Street location, they later filed to relocate the station to Kevin's garage, which is much lower, and reduces the coverage by 80%, but has fewer complications. When completing the engineering of this application, Kevin consulted with an engineer who verified Kevin's work prior to the application being submitted.