KAWC Colorado River Public Media is the NPR News source for Yuma and La Paz counties in southwestern Arizona, a department of Arizona Western College broadcasting on KAWC 88.9 FM, KAWP, KAWQ and KOFA Border Radio.
KAWC Colorado River Public Media is the public radio service of Arizona Western College in Yuma, Arizona. It is licensed by the Federal Communications Commission as a noncommercial educational broadcaster, and its licensee is the Arizona Western College District Governing Board. The station describes itself as the NPR News source for Yuma and La Paz counties, and its mission is to educate, inform and entertain its audience with music, news, public affairs and fine arts programming.
KAWC AM 1320 signed on July 11, 1970, under founding general manager Robert E. "Uncle Bob" Hardy, and KAWC FM 88.9 followed in 1992. KAWP 88.9 FM in Parker went on the air in November 2013 to carry the NPR and BBC news service, and KAWQ 90.1 FM in Quartzsite came online in 2025, extending service across the full Arizona Western College district. In 2018 the AM station took the call letters KOFA and became Border Radio, now also heard on 94.7 FM, a community music service of blues, folk, rock, oldies and local artists with community news and perspectives from people living on the US-Mexico border. The main FM transmitter on Telegraph Pass reaches from Dateland, Arizona, to the outskirts of El Centro, California.
Since October 2023 the stations have broadcast from new studios in the Matador Activity Center on the college's Yuma campus, which let KAWC restart its student training program. Local work includes the KAWC Student Newsroom, Yuma Edition and Arizona Edition, and a slate of local podcasts, alongside programming from NPR, the BBC and other networks.
As a department of Arizona Western College, KAWC posts its staff openings on the college's careers site. It hires for station leadership, news and content, development and underwriting, and operations and engineering, and works with interns, volunteers and student reporters.
