Catholic listeners in the Perham area now have a low-power FM station — KXPM-LP 100.3. It has a range of eight to 20 miles from the antenna located on the 99-foot steeple of St. Henry Church in Perham. Previously the area was not served by a Catholic radio station.
“The ‘KX’ of the station’s call letters are reminiscent of ‘Christ’ and ‘PM’ for ‘Perham,’” said Wayne Dardis, a member of the station’s board of directors and president of Stanislaus Communications.
The station’s tag line is “Bringing Christ to Perham.”
KXPM is an affiliate of K-YES radio (AM 1180) in Sauk Rapids and likewise airs Relevant Radio programming, Dardis explained, with only a few changes, mainly related to timing.
“I recognized the power of the medium as a catechetical and evangelical tool, and I learned of the rare opportunity to build a new station,” Dardis said.
The response from his pastor, Father Matthew Kuhn, and members of his parish, St. Henry’s, encouraged him to pursue the process of forming a low-power radio station.
In the summer of 2013, he began working toward acquiring an FCC permit for a low-power FM station through the Catholic Radio Association.
To qualify for the FCC permit, Dardis created the nonprofit Stanislaus Communications that owns the station and later worked to make it eligible for tax deductions as a 501c3 nonprofit. The name Stanislaus honors the memory of a Perham parish that had closed.