Nevada Public Radio

Nevada Public Radio is a non-profit, listener-supported public radio network located in Las Vegas and serves all of Nevada. The network consists three stations, KNPR News (88.9 FM) and KCNV Classical (89.7 FM) both out of Las Vegas and KVNV (89.1 FM) out of Reno along with four additional simulcast stations and 11 translators. The network airs digitally online, through apps, and through HD Radio. It also publishes a city-regional magazine, Desert Companion, primarily focused on Clark County and the desert southwest, circulating 25,000 copies a month.

Nevada Public Radio was the state's first NPR member station, founded in 1975 as an organization with its first broadcast in 1980. In addition to national and international programming from NPR, American Public Media, the Public Radio Exchange and the BBC, its studios produce original, local programming such as the current-events State of Nevada program and Desert Blooms, a weekly gardening program.

Beginning as a grass-roots, husband and wife operation based on the property of Sam Boyd Stadium, it now broadcasts from the Donald W. Reynolds Broadcast Center on the West Charleston campus of the College of Southern Nevada.

In 1972, when Lamar Marchese, and his wife Patricia, moved to Las Vegas to work for local government, there was no public radio in Nevada. While Marchese worked for the Clark County Library District and Patricia worked for the city of Las Vegas Cultural Affairs Department, the couple planned out the concept for Nevada Public Radio.

In December 1975, Marchese became one of the founding incorporators of the Nevada Public Radio Corporation, a nonprofit organization to raise funds and community awareness to create a local NPR member station.

KNPR was the first NPR member station in Nevada. Although KUNR in Reno signed on in 1963, it did not become a member of National Public Radio until 1981, a year after KNPR.

The flagship station is KNPR, which signed on to 89.5 Mhz at 7,500 watts on March 24, 1980; 45 years ago (March 24, 1980). Marchese was the station's first general manager. The station's original studio was 800 square feet (74 m²) of repurposed janitorial storage in Silver Bowl Stadium. Casino magnate William S. Boyd personally signed a $200,000 loan for the construction of studios for the new station, which moved into its new studio built on the stadium's property.

In 1997, the network moved into the newly-built Donald W. Reynolds Broadcast Center on the West Charleston campus of the College of Southern Nevada, funded through a donation from Reynolds Foundation, after whom the building is named.