A History of KMHD 89.1 FM
How a community college’s 1977 assignment became Portland’s home for Jazz Without Boundaries.
- 1984Signs on from Mt. Hood Community College
- 2009OPB takes over operations
- 2012JazzWeek Station of the Year
- 2015Becomes Jazz Without Boundaries
- 2019OPB partnership survives a vote
- 2024Celebrates 40 years on air
The Assignment 1977–1984
KMHD began as an assignment. In 1977, Mt. Hood Community College president R. Stephen Nicholson asked John Rice, later the station’s manager, to build an FM station that would promote the college beyond its service district in east Multnomah County. Part of the assignment was that broadcasting students would work at the station.1
The jazz format was chosen to complement the college’s annual Festival of Jazz and to avoid competing with other local stations. It didn’t match campus taste: students at the time reportedly preferred variations of rock.1
After years of planning and FCC licensing, KMHD signed on January 2, 1984. The student newspaper, The Advocate, called it the “live laboratory” for MHCC radio students.1
The Campus Years 1984–2009
For its first 25 years, KMHD broadcast from studios on the Mt. Hood Community College campus in Gresham.2 Through the 1980s and ’90s it grew in popularity alongside the college’s Mount Hood Jazz Festival and its broadcasting program,3 and it became one of the oldest listener-supported jazz stations in the country.4
Students were involved from the first day,1 but over the years the station came to rely on volunteer announcers.4 It never really served the student body as the communications laboratory first imagined.4 By the time OPB arrived, OPB’s Lynne Clendenin later recalled, it had 63 volunteers, “all retirees and jazz lovers,” and only one actual MHCC student.4
By the late 2000s the operation was strained. The station went without a true manager for the 2008–09 school year, after Doug Sweet left in the summer of 2008, and tensions ran high between volunteers, staff and students.1
The OPB Partnership 2009
Money forced the issue. Grant funding was drying up,4 and the college expected state funding cuts of at least $4 million for 2009–10.5 On a tour of public broadcasting facilities, OPB president and CEO Steve Bass learned from MHCC president John Sygielski that the college was considering selling the KMHD license.4
Instead, the two institutions worked out a partnership. When it came before the MHCC board on April 8, 2009, 29 people spoke for and against it.1 Some people suspected that OPB, which had recently moved toward more news, would take jazz off the air;4 OPB said it intended to keep KMHD a jazz station.5 That spring the deal went through: OPB would fund, program and operate the station,3 while the college kept the license.6
OPB hired Matt Fleeger, previously operations manager at San Antonio jazz station KRTU, as program director.7 That summer, KMHD moved from the Gresham campus to OPB’s studios in Southwest Portland.6
Reinvention 2009–2015
Fleeger inherited 34 on-air volunteers3 and a weekly audience of roughly 70,000 to 85,000, most of them 65 or older. He coached hosts on delivery and on the flow of their playlists. Some volunteers left, unhappy with the new approach, and some listeners switched stations.6
He also brought in new voices. Carlton Jackson, a drummer and mainstay of Portland’s jazz and blues scene who had hosted at KBOO, joined in 2009 to host The Message on Sunday nights.4,8 He described the show as presenting “African American consciousness” through the jazz-centric scope of KMHD’s music.8
The audience grew. In 2012, KMHD was named JazzWeek’s Station of the Year among stations in the nation’s top 25 markets, including New York and Los Angeles.6,4 By early 2013 its weekly audience was 100,000 to 120,000, and getting younger.6 Fleeger later said the audience doubled within his first five or six years.9
Jazz Without Boundaries 2015
In 2015, KMHD launched its “Jazz Without Boundaries” format, which presents jazz as the connecting point to the music it gave birth to: soul, R&B, funk, fusion, hip-hop and global sounds.3
The idea grew out of a question Fleeger put to musicians who visited the studio: how do you define jazz? None of them could.9 He concluded that jazz can’t be defined, so a station built on that idea could cast a much wider net.9
“Our real aim is to reach people who don’t think they like jazz and show them that they do.”
Matt Fleeger, 201710
The Crisis 2018–2019
Nearly a decade into the partnership, questions grew at the college. In the fall of 2018, The Advocate reported that no MHCC students had been awarded OPB internships, though internships had been a key selling point of the deal. Jazz faculty also missed the access to visiting musicians that the on-campus station once gave their students.2
In January 2019, the MHCC board voted not to renew the agreement, which was set to extend automatically for five more years that August. It asked for a two-year contract instead while it looked into bringing the station back to campus. OPB declined.11
Listeners pushed back. At the March meeting, a contractor named Tim Cook told the board he had climbed out of a crawl space and driven 90 minutes to be there. For him and his family, he said:
“This station is medicine.”
Tim Cook, KMHD listener, to the MHCC board12
Student government representatives argued the other side, asking the board to bring the station back and to “think of the students first.”12
A college committee had estimated that moving the station back would mean a startup shortfall of more than $169,000. On March 20, 2019, the board rescinded its January vote with one dissent, which let the automatic extension take effect. It authorized college president Lisa Skari to negotiate over student internships and sponsorship of the Mt. Hood Jazz Festival.11
The Pandemic Pivot 2020–2021
COVID-19 shut hosts out of the studios almost overnight in 2020. Shows were pre-recorded at home,9 and KMHD signed syndication agreements with many of its hosts and with independent producers.3
In January 2021, KMHD was named one of five stations in the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s new Jazz Media Lab, alongside WBGO (Newark), WRTI (Philadelphia), KNKX (Tacoma/Seattle) and KUVO (Denver). Each received up to $275,000 over three years.13
Fleeger used the moment to end the volunteer-DJ model, which he had never agreed with. He pitched OPB on an all-professional staff, and KMHD moved to what he calls a producer model: independent producers own their shows and are paid by the episode.9 By 2024, OPB said, the Doris Duke support had helped KMHD grow its staff by 300 percent since 2020.3
Carlton Jackson died in July 2021, shortly after his 60th birthday.14,15 KMHD rebroadcast The Message at 7 p.m. every night that week, and Fleeger wrote that Jackson had been “a true source of inspiration, mentorship and friendship” to the staff.8,14 Years later, rebroadcasts of The Message were still airing on Sunday nights, most recently in September 2026, as this site’s playlist archive shows.
40 Years and a New Agreement 2024–2025
KMHD marked its 40th anniversary in November 2024.16 OPB called it the top-rated jazz station in the nation, with nine full-time staff and listeners across the country and around the world.3
In February 2025, Fleeger said KMHD and OPB had signed a new 10-year agreement with MHCC the previous summer, with a five-year option. That keeps the station at OPB through at least 2034, and possibly 2039. KMHD was still adding new shows and hosts, and could now pay them.9
A New Chapter 2026
Matt Fleeger, program director since 2009, left KMHD in March 2026. His last day was March 9.7
“I had set myself a goal of becoming a Program Director by age 40, and I became one at 33. It was a dream to be able to do it in Portland and build something different in radio.”
Matt Fleeger, on LinkedIn7
Meg Samples, a drummer and KMHD host since 2020, served as interim general manager from March and was named general manager in September.17
In April, OPB and KMHD content creators ratified their first SAG-AFTRA contract after 20 months of negotiations. It set a $65,000 minimum salary with annual raises of at least 3%, and gave KMHD hosts a raise of nearly 30%, retroactive to July 2025.18
Funded by Listeners 2025–
In July 2025, Congress took back $1.1 billion in previously approved funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. OPB lost about $5 million a year, roughly 9 percent of its budget, and KMHD was affected too.19 In January 2026, CPB’s board voted to dissolve the organization after nearly six decades.20
KMHD and OPB turned to their listeners, and listeners answered. By November 2025, OPB said member support had closed that year’s $5 million gap, with nearly 80% of the new revenue coming from monthly sustaining contributions. OPB called it only a first milestone, with future gaps still to close.21 KMHD is now 100% member-funded, and its member households grew from 7,600 in 2024 to more than 9,300 in 2026.17
“KMHD’s successes are possible not just because of the incredible staff, producers, operations or programming of the radio station, but because of the financial support of KMHD members and our audience – who truly do love this music and wish to consume it on a daily basis.”
Matt Fleeger, at KMHD’s 40th anniversary, 20243
What hasn’t changed is the signal: 89.1 FM, 24 hours a day, jazz without boundaries.
Sources
- The Advocate — "A Look Through the Advocate's Archives" (2018, archived copy)
- The Advocate — "KMHD Decision Looms" (2018, archived copy)
- OPB — "KMHD Jazz Radio Celebrates 40 Years of Jazz Without Boundaries" (2024)
- Vortex Music Magazine — "KMHD: 30 Years of Jazz Radio Against the Odds" (2015)
- Current — "Another College Station Looking for a New Operator" (2009)
- Portland Tribune — "KMHD's Progress Bebops Past Limits of Local 'Jazz Police'" (2013)
- Current — "Comings and Goings" (2026)
- OPB — "Carlton Jackson, KMHD Host, Drummer and Advocate for Northwest Jazz and Blues, Has Died" (2021)
- Oregon ArtsWatch — "The Music Is the Message: A Conversation with KMHD's Matt Fleeger" (2025)
- Willamette Week — "As Jazz Changes, Portland's Only Jazz Radio Station Evolves Along with It" (2017)
- Willamette Week — "Oregon Public Broadcasting Will Continue to Operate Portland Jazz Station KMHD" (2019)
- Portland Mercury — "After Months of Uncertainty, KMHD Will Remain at OPB" (2019)
- Doris Duke Foundation — "DDCF Launches Jazz Media Lab with Five Leaders in Jazz Radio" (2021)
- Willamette Week — "Portland Drummer and Radio Host Carlton Jackson Has Died" (2021)
- Jazz Society of Oregon — "Remembering Carlton Jackson 1961–2021" (2021)
- Inside Radio — "KMHD Marks 40 Years of Jazz in the Pacific Northwest" (2024)
- OPB — "OPB Names Longtime On-Air Host and Local Musician Meg Samples as General Manager of KMHD" (2026)
- Inside Radio — "OPB, KMHD Staff Reach First SAG-AFTRA Contract After Two Years" (2026)
- Oregon ArtsWatch — "Congressional Takebacks of Arts & Cultural Funding Hit Oregon and the Nation Hard" (2025)
- Oregon ArtsWatch — "Corporation for Public Broadcasting Dissolved as Trump's Arts and Culture Cuts Continue" (2026)
- OPB — "President's Update: We've Closed the Gap" (2025)
KMHD Spun is a listener-built companion, not affiliated with KMHD 89.1 FM.