Category: News and Events

The Sun Prairie Media Center is pleased to announce a new collaboration with Melissa Ratcliff, member of the Wisconsin State Assembly representing Wisconsin’s 46th Assembly District, which includes Sun Prairie and Cottage Grove. The program, which the SPMC hopes to produce quarterly, is called “The Ratcliff Report,” and will include news and information about what is happening at the state capitol, how it affects residents of Sun Prairie, and reports from Rep. Ratcliff about community events past, present, and future. “I was so excited when Jeff Robbins first approached me with the idea of doing a show detailing what is going on at the Capitol and the work we are doing to serve the 46th Assembly District. I thought that this would be a phenomenal opportunity for us to share…

The Sun Prairie Media Center is pleased to be partnering with the Sun Prairie Area School District for a live broadcast of the 2023 Sun Prairie High School graduation ceremony, held this year at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Madison on Friday, June 9, 2023, as well as the 2023 Prairie Phoenix Academy graduation ceremony, to be held on Thursday, June 8, 2023. The SPHS ceremony will be a combined ceremony for both East and West graduates. SPMC’s coverage will be seen live on KSUN Charter channel 983 or TDS channels 13 or 1013. The ceremony will also be streamed at sunprairiemediacenter.com/ksun as well as available on KSUN’s Roku, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire TV channels and on the SPMC app, available to download for free from the App Store or…

The Wisconsin Broadcasters Association recently handed out their annual awards for broadcasting excellence and Sun Prairie’s own 103.5 FM The Sun Community Radio scored with five awards, including three first place finishes. Entering in the “Large Market-Music Format” category, 103.5 FM’s first place awards included “Best Newscast” for “Sun Prairie News,” “Best Sports Coverage” for its 2022 coverage of the “Sun Prairie versus Middleton Strikeout Cancer Baseball Game,” and “Best Election Coverage” for its spring election coverage. Elsewhere, 103.5 FM and producers/hosts Sara Milewski and Tenisha Winn took home a third place award for “Remote Broadcast from the 2022 Sun Prairie Multicultural Fair” in the category of “Best Live On-Site Broadcast Remote” and versatile producer Mark Gonwa won third place for “Best Radio Show” for his live Friday afternoon program…

On Monday, April 3, Culver’s of Sun Prairie, located at 1501 W. Main Street, will donate a portion of all sales between 5-8 PM to the Friends of Sun Prairie Media Center. The Friends of Sun Prairie Media Center (SPMC) group exists to provide financial support for SPMC and its entities as well as to promote SPMC and function as an advocacy group for the center.Money raised on April 3 will be used to buy equipment deemed most necessary by the Sun Prairie Media Center and families currently involved in KIDS-4. Options for the money raised will be discussed at future meetings of the Friends of Sun Prairie Media Center. Thank you goes out to Culver’s of Sun Prairie for their great support of the Sun Prairie Media Center.

Wisconsin Community Media, in conjunction with the Alliance for Community Media’s Midwest Region, has announced their annual award winners for the 2023 Best of the Midwest Media Fest. The Sun Prairie Media Center is happy to announce that no fewer than 20 original shows created for either KSUN, KIDS-4, or 103.5 FM The Sun Community Radio are set to receive awards at the fest, which will be held in Madison on Thursday, May 4. The total represents 13 percent of all awards to be given out at the event. Included in the 20 awards are three “Best in Show” winners: SPMC’s coverage of Sun Prairie West vs. Sun Prairie East football, the Mark Gonwa-produced radio program “Bluesology,” and “Voyageur Canoe Excursion,” a documentary filmed by Tim Hatfield at the Historic…

As the Cardinals and Wolves baseball and softball programs embark on their first historic season as two schools each fielding two teams, the Sun Prairie Media Center is pleased to announce that it is planning on live radio coverage of 32 games The games will be broadcast live on 103.5 FM The Sun Community Radio, with coverage split evenly with eight broadcasts per team. A full list of scheduled broadcasts can be found at sunprairiemediacenter.com/playball. The Sun Prairie Media Center is currently looking for sponsors for this coverage. If you are interested in supporting the live coverage of baseball and softball games, please contact Jeff Robbins at jrobbins@cityofsunprairie.com for more information. A big thanks goes out to all the volunteer announcers who have agreed to call the games on 103.5…

Sun Prairie residents will have some important decisions to make when they head to the polls on April 4. And the Sun Prairie Media Center is offering programming to help residents make those decisions. The SPMC has already recorded two in-depth programs related to this spring’s elections: On February 24, the two candidates for municipal judge, incumbent Tom Hebl and challenger Brent Eisberner, engaged in a “Talk of the Town” format that covered a variety of topics from caseloads to common offenses to penalties. Then on February 28, SPMC director Jeff Robbins moderated a SPARC-hosted event that included all candidates from municipal judge to SPASD school board to the mayor and city council candidates. (Anyone running unopposed gave short statements and did not engage in any formal debate.) Then on…

The historic first year of having both Sun Prairie East and Sun Prairie West athletics continues and the Sun Prairie Media Center is thrilled to announce that it will be broadcasting the WIAA playoff basketball games for both schools. The Sun Prairie Media Center is your exclusive home for video and audio coverage of all WIAA playoff basketball games, boys and girls, Cardinals and Wolves. Video coverage will be on KSUN with audio coverage on 103.5 FM The Sun Community Radio. The girls’ playoff bracket gets underway first as Sun Prairie plays . . . Sun Prairie! Yes, in an unexpected seeding oddity, the #13 Sun Prairie East Cardinal girls will visit the #4 Sun Prairie West Wolves girls on Friday, February 24 at 7 PM. The winner of that…

Another Groundhog Day in Sun Prairie has come and gone. Thanks to the loyal volunteers at KIDS-4, we will have memories from this event. KIDS-4 crewmembers Evie & Avery got up bright and early to brave the cold weather on February 2 and headed down to Cannery Square to see what Jimmy had in mind for the upcoming weeks. This year is the 75th anniversary of the Groundhog Prognostication in Sun Prairie.In case you missed it, Jimmy communicated with Mayor Esser that we will have six more weeks of winter this year! If you still want more, you can see pictures from the event here. The video footage that was captured will air on KIDS-4 throughout the month of February.

A new year brings reasons to reflect as well as reasons to look ahead, and that is what Sun Prairie Mayor Paul Esser does in his annual “State of the City” address. The first of the 2023 “State of the City” presentations is now available to access through the Sun Prairie Media Center’s on-demand player at sunprairiemediacenter.com/ksun. Hosted by “Talk of the Town”’s Chris Mertes and Steve Sabatke, the two-hour program’s theme is “Sun Prairie on the Horizon” and goes in depth on major impacts that upcoming projects, plans, and initiatives will have on the community. Topics touched on include diversity, transportation, housing, the mayor’s uncontested re-election campaign, taxes, growth, and, of course, sidewalks. “Talk of the Town,” as well as all SPMC programing, can also be accessed on demand…