KALA FM 88.5Student Life

A new campus podcast hits airwaves

DAVENPORT, Iowa—It started as wishful thinking, at least that’s what Zac Robinson and Keagan Dolphin will say. 

After moving-in to campus early, they didn’t expect a university power outage from the Aug. 10th derecho to last 48 hours. With little sleep and not much else to do in the early hours of the morning, Robinson joked about doing a podcast. Dolphin agreed. Keagan thought their conversations were too funny not to record.

“We want to talk to people who have interesting stories to tell,” Robinson said. “Everyone has one of those. If people listen to it, people listen to it, but if only our friends and family listen, that’s fine too.”

Robinson and Dolphin teamed up to produce Kinda Kredible: The Full Circle podcast with their friend Ryan Warrick to interview different guests about life and anything interesting.They wanted a third person to join their troupe and they thought Warrick was the perfect fit. 

“They pitched me an idea that basically said that we’d do what we normally do, but record it in a shortened version,” Warrick said. 

Kinda Kredible is produced at KALA-FM, a public radio station which is licensed for St. Ambrose. According to Dolphin, operations manager Dave Baker and production specialist Shelby Leabo were very inviting of them to start a podcast, as long as they remained interested and put in the work. 

Photo courtesy of Ryan Sandness.

“They made it easy for us to get involved.” Dolphin said.

Given the compromised academic year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dolphin advises others to find hobbies that interest them, considering the limited options.

“There is so much more to do than be a student or an athlete and its important to find that,” Dolphin continued. “This semester especially.”

Zac Robinson, a junior business major, is a peer campus minister. Keagan Dolphin is a senior international ambassador who transferred from Iowa State University after his freshman year. Ryan Warrick is an exercise science major. All three are from the greater Des Moines area. They all swim for the SAU swim team and have gotten to know each other more than a lot of students. 

From left to right: Ryan Warrick, Zac Robinson, Keagan Dolphin. Photo courtesy of Ryan Sandness

“We bounce off each other really well,” Dolphin said. “Which goes along with the theme of our podcast.”

Despite not being communication majors, all three of them still see the importance of the major, which can translate to the real world.

“I’ve gotten better at telling stories to people I know,” Warrick explained. “I’m able to explain them in a clear way because I know I have an audience listening.”

Dolphin holds a similar sentiment, saying he has gotten better at his communication skills, but he knows there is still work to be done.

“It’s hard to prepare for guests and have material ready to go that can be easily tied together in 45 minutes,” Dolphin said.

According to Warrick, he has now become familiar with and accepts an important part of the workplace—deadlines.

“This (podcast) has been something I look forward to, even when we scramble to figure out what we are going to do,” Warrick said. “It’s all part of the fun.”

Robinson admits the formalities of podcasting and tying things together has been difficult to learn, although he enjoys being in the studio with Baker recording.

The Full Circle podcast is available on KALA-FM’s SoundCloud and Spotify.

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