KVCH - Ten Years Running
By Danté Perez

November 2005

      Valley Christian High School’s radio station, KVCH, began with the vision of a handful of people at Valley Christian School in 1995, during the formation of the Web. A decade later Valley celebrated ten years of the KVCH vision, and student creativity.
      These VC visionaries wanted to create a working audio station run by students. They were not able to obtain an FM or AM signal; there were simply none available in the Bay Area at the time. However, being located in Silicon Valley, the epicenter of High Technology has its advantages. Attending a conference by the creators of Real Audio, VC’s Dr. Cliff Daugherty, Werner Vavken and Brian Kaelin came across a vehicle to reach not only a potential local audience, but in fact, the entire world.
      Real Audio was launching its service, and VCHS jumped on board, creating KVCH Radio, the world’s first high school Internet radio station. This student-run web radio station played an eclectic collection of music, from Christian standards to rock, R&B, etc. The station began getting fan emails from all over the world, and even did talk shows with listeners from as far away as Australia.
      It’s ironic, and interesting to note that the software giant, Microsoft, was just then developing its “Internet strategy,” (being very late to the party)…. And the creator of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee had launched the very first web page just a couple years earlier at the CERN think tank in Switzerland; God’s vision for Valley Christian High School was already being realized through three VCHS visionaries who saw the web as their vehicle to reach the entire planet.
      The radio pioneers also traveled to Washington, D.C. for broadcasts, and put the Billy Graham Crusade’s visit to the Bay Area “on the air.” It was an ambitious group making the most of being in the right place at the right time. A decade later their efforts have led to a rapidly expanding Communications Department, which now produces a live daily newscast via cable to Valley Christian High School. Valley Christian students also now regularly use the Internet to produce regular live video webcasts of key VC sports contests, such as football, volleyball, water polo, soccer, basketball, baseball, and softball.
      The next step in this audio and video evolution is to use the web to offer audio and video “podcasts” for listeners and viewers to listen to on demand. But it all began with a dream in 1995: A vision of what students could do if given the right tools and the opportunity to create.