The award winning radio show, by students for students, Lions After Dark at Texas A&M University Commerce is planning a comeback in Spring 2020 after it’s hiatus this 2019 Fall semester.

Lions After Dark began in the fall  of 2010, hosted by Gaby Estrada and Heather Hutchens and there most recent broadcast was in the spring of 2019 with hosts Tyler McDonough and Drew Ivery. The show took a hiatus during the fall of 2019  due to budget cuts for student organizations according to professor and advisor, Dr. John Mark Dempsey .“We like a number of other organizations received a significant cut in student-activity funding this year, and we didn’t have enough money left over from last year to pay two students to host the program,” Dr. Dempsey said.

Being a staple at 88.9 KETR, as well as the A&M Commerce community, it has been around for ten straight years now. The show has won multiple awards over the years including first place “Overall Excellence, Radio Program” at the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association, 2019 confrence, and second place, “Best Entertainment/Music Radio Program” at the National Broadcasting Society, 2018 convention. 

The show will be looking for a new host to bring the show back in the spring of 2020. Dr. Dempsey will be taking all students interested in hosting the show into consideration,“If more students were interested in hosting the program as volunteers, perhaps even non-Mass Media and Journalism majors, that would be good.  There would have to be auditions. It’s a great experience, and many people fantasize about being a radio host, and would do it for the fun and excitement of it.” The experience of being an on-air radio host is something that most students don’t get to experience this early in their studies or careers and joining Lions After Dark is a one of a kind experience that you can only get at Texas A&M University Commerce. 

The spring semester hopes to bring the show back to its full time schedule of Monday through Thursday. Dr. Dempsey believes  the show will be making a big comeback “We’ll have enough to do the program in the spring semester, and then we hope we’ll do a better job of explaining why the program is a good expenditure of student-service fee dollars when we submit our proposal for the 2020-21 year.”

You can listen to Lions After Dark on “Your Station, 88.9 KETR”, and also be sure to follow Lions After Dark on Instagram and Twitter for updates on the spring broadcasting schedule.