KOSTing  Kim

Kim Amidon, Long Beach State alumni, has just started a new selection for the campus listeners of CSULB's student run radio station KSUL. The music plays and finishes. Amidon speaks confidently into the mic for the limited surrounding campus broadcast.

"That was the hot new sound from..." Amidon doesn't recall the artist now, but shortly after she does remember somebody poked their head into the studio and shouted, 

"That's the wrong speed!"

Amidon, KOST 103.9 FM morning radio host of "Mark and Kim", doesn't miss many beats these days. If she does, there isn't much to do about it but laugh, because with radio it's a fly by the seat of your pants kind of job. And you can't go back for a retake.

The Radio-TV-Film major "wanted a fun job. I didn't want to put in eight hours then go home to my life. I wanted a fun job to add to my life," said Amidon.

But at first Amidon didnít know she was to become a radio host for one of the top five radio stations in the five radio stations in the greater Los Angeles area. She started her collegiate career at Riverside Community College for a couple of years to become a veterinarian. She then transferred to Cal Poly Pomona and discovered her calling.

"I took some sort of communication course and wow," said Amidon.

She spent her last year studying at CSULB and graduated in 1980.

Amidon didn't have a single course she disliked here because she was taking her upper division courses, she mentioned.

"Radio production courses were the best. Although some of the regulations I learned then are obsolete today," said Amidon.

Enjoying the year after graduation, Amidon gained valuable on air experience Back then the student run radio station allowed graduates to continue working on the station for an extra year. She did that while working at a local grocery store to make money.

Then the jobs came to her.

"Radio was looking for women, and if you were half way good, you could get a job," said Amidon. "They just started to come to me. I was constantly changing radio stations for a while. My mother complained, ‘Why couldn't you just stay put' but I replied, ‘They're offering me more money.'"

But for the past 16 years Kim Amidon has found a fun home with KOST FM. It pays the bills and allows her to raise her two daughters, who are inspirational in some of the ad-libbing on air during the morning show.

Amidon recently told her oldest daughter, 4 year-old Beverly that she was leaving for a week to Japan for a live broadcast. Beverly's biggest concerns were who would pick her up from school and who would make dinner?

Most of the funniest tid bits on the show just happen Amidon says.

Although she does look for material to discuss from the news, locally and worldly, the entertainment business and cultural observations Kim always asks, "What's funny about this?"  She then looks for the punch line to be included on the next show..