Rachel Maurer: Enter the Radio Queen
Memorial by KUNM’s Kent Patterson:
“I just walked up and walked in,” Rachel Maurer recalled her first day at KUNM back in 1977. A new resident of New Mexico, Rachel was searching for something to do and people to meet when she decided to put to good use the radio experience she had acquired at her college station at the University of Redlands in California.
Rachel immediately encountered Deb Auletta, who had arrived to KUNM the year before and already held the position of “Chief Jock.” Surprisingly, Auletta asked the newcomer if she was willing to do a set right then and there, without an audition and live on the air. Rachel gladly complied, passing with flying colors. So began the long presence of “The Radio Queen” on KUNM.
“A lot of people said I sounded like (legendary KUNM DJ) Lady Kate but I never met her,” Rachel said in a 2019 interview.
Compared to her alma mater’s cramped quarters in California, Rachel considered KUNM’s studios in Oñate Hall to be a “fabulous space.” At the time, many of the DJ slots still revolved around UNM’s academic calendar.
“We would change (air) shifts three times a year because of semesters,” the veteran DJ reminisced. “We were more of a student-run station than community.”
During the 1970s, defining, practicing and fine-tuning freeform was a big part of the mission at KUNM. “Back then it was to try to hit every category as possible. You don’t play the same artist week after week…that was the whole thing, we were supposed to explore.”
According to Rachel, KUNM Station Manager Paul Mansfield, plowed through the playlists and urged DJs to experiment with the new and unfamiliar. “‘See here, you’re playing the same person. We have 20,000 albums at the station…explore,'” she remembered Mansfield saying. “It was really about trying to broaden the audiences’ horizons.”
But the DJs also pitched in with the coaching and critiquing. “If you did a good segue people would call up and say that was great, or what a great set,” Rachel continued, adding that discussions over the nature freeform might consider, for example, whether following John Coltrane with the Beach Boys could fall within the boundaries of the musical realm in question. “We’d discuss things like that and nobody took offense. Everybody got to know each other and we were a big happy family.”
Maurer pictured in the back with a black shirt and straw hat. Photo courtesy of Perdita Wexler.
After specializing in volunteer freeform shows, Rachel landed the job of traffic director (the person responsible for routing the station’s public service announcements and the like) before working as the station’s music director during the early 1980s.
With ample experience under her belt, Rachel went on to work for NPR and the CBC in the mid 1980s. Her productions got wide airplay, including a story on Buddy Holly and a classic radio documentary on border radio, the super-powered radio stations based in northern Mexico that emerged in the 1920s and which played an influential role in shaping the musical, media and cultural mosaic of the United States.
Rachel’s interviews for the radio documentary later became source material for the book Border Radio by Gene Fowler and Bill Crawford (University of Texas Press, 2002). In putting together her story on border radio, Rachel interviewed Wolfman Jack, Sleepy La Beef and Chris Strachwitz, among others.
Subsequently, Rachel returned to KUNM as a volunteer DJ and joined the station’s Folk Routes collective. Her friendly, funny and insightful voice enlivened alternating Saturday mornings for many, many years.
In her formative KUNM years, Rachel recalled a gaggle of volunteers always hanging around the station. When a scheduled DJ didn’t show up, there were usually two or three enthusiastic replacements who would take over the control board and rescue the day.
KUNM programmers solidified their social bonds at amateur softball games that also attracted hangers on. “One of them ended up being my plumber for years,” the veteran deejay said. “(Softball) did a lot for camaraderie and getting to know each other…”
Memorial by former KUNM Production Director Paul Ingles:
KUNM lost a true friend in March of 2020 when Rachel Maurer passed away.
Rachel was KUNM’s Music Director for a time, and had been on the air for
decades, most recently as one of the revolving hosts of the Saturday
morning Folk Routes program.
She also served on the Board of Directors of my non-profit organization
GOOD RADIO SHOWS, INC. that produces the show PEACE TALKS RADIO for KUNM.
For 6 years, Rachel guided us well through the early part of our company’s
journey. She offered good advice and support, tapping into her decades of
experience in public radio.
Personally, you’d never meet a more soothing soul than Rachel. She was
smart and calm and wise and kind. AND she was so brave in dealing with her
brain tumor ordeal of the last year of her life. She let her friends in
on the process via social media. Her posts were informative and
good-humored, just as Rachel always was. Our deepest appreciation and love
go out to her family.
I’m really going to miss seeing my friend Rachel at concerts and community
events when we’d share a hug, a laugh, and some honest deep conversation.
Rachel was a keeper and I’ll keep her in my heart for the rest of my days.
