On April 2, 1975, with, appropriately enough, the Chicago song “Beginnings” piped into the Student Union Grill, USC’s radio station run by and for students, known today as KSCR, was born.

Twelve students in the Hancock Foundation Building, sharing an old audio production studio with USC School of Journalism broadcasting classes, were behind the modest debut.

Under the guidance of Joe Saltzman, USC journalism professor then and now, and the late Kenneth Owler Smith, temporary head of the USC School of Journalism, the idea of reestablishing a student radio station had coalesced the previous fall. The prior station, KUSC, began life in 1946, but left campus to go classical in the early ’70s.

Within a year, the new station’s reach had expanded, via telephone lines, to include Birnkrant Residence Hall, a second room in the Student Activities Center and the McDonald’s on Figueroa. The station eked by until 1988, when it was incorporated and funded by the USC Student Senate.

The gravy train derailed in April 2007, however, when the USC Undergraduate Student Government, citing hundreds of student organizations that also merit support, cut KSCR funding by nearly half.

Enter the founding fathers and mothers. Buoyed by the fact that KSCR will have permanent quarters in USC’s new Ronald Tutor Campus Center in 2010 (coinciding with the station’s 35th anniversary), a group of its progenitors and alumni have banded together to help.

The group includes Bob Moore ’76, MA ’78, KSCR’s founding general manager (1974-75), who ran the speaker wires from the Hancock’s second floor window to the Grill across the street; Rosemary O’Brien ’76, whose nascent public relations skills helped get L.A. radio personalities Dr. Demento and Gary Owens to record station IDs; Julie Fosgate ’76, MA ’78, KSCR’s first news director who literally cut and pasted news stories from the Daily Trojan with scissors and rubber cement; Ron Redmond ’77, who hosted a twice-weekly morning show with frat brother Mike Hugill ’75; and Justin Evans ’03, general manager (2002-03), who helped establish the KSCR Concert Series at Ground Zero Coffee House.

They have launched the KSCR Endowment Fund to raise $1 million. With money already allocated for construction of new station digs (including two permanent studios adjacent to Traditions Café, where live bands will perform), interest from the endowment will go exclusively to KSCR’s ongoing operations.

Patrick Bailey at USC Student Life and Involvement is helping to locate KSCR alumni who may want to give. Alumni and friends of KSCR may visit www.kscrfriends.com or KSCRfriends on Facebook for details.

For many KSCR alums, their station experience not only helped their careers but nurtured some of their most cherished college memories. For example, back in the day when KSCR was heard only in the Student Union Grill, if someone dropped a coin in the resident jukebox, the chosen tune took precedence over the KSCR broadcast.

Redmond remembers putting on a Queen album, then heading to the Grill with Hugill. Posing as inspectors, they convinced the Grill managers that the jukebox wiring was defective and proceeded to cut the power cord. For weeks, KSCR was heard sans interruption.

Today, the station, using the slogan “Revolutionary Radio,” offers 24-hour programming at AM 1560 and www.kscr.org. In addition to playing music from multiple genres, KSCR broadcasts all USC football games and has been Webcasting since 1998. It has a management staff of 20 with about 100 DJs and interns. And it has a loyal base of passionate alumni helping the station remain part of USC student life for years to come.