Dinner marks Catholic Radio Indy’s 10-year anniversary
Bob Teipen, left, recognizes Jim Ganley for his 10 years of service to Catholic Radio Indy during its anniversary dinner on Feb. 25 at the northside Knights of Columbus Hall. Teipen is the founder and chairman of Inter Mirifica, Inc., which owns and operates Catholic Radio Indy. Ganley is the radio station’s general manager and president of its board of directors. (Photo by Mike Krokos)
By Mike Krokos
The idea for a local Catholic radio station came to Bob Teipen after attending a retreat in late 1998.
The visiting priest at Our Lady of Fatima Retreat House in Indianapolis on that December day repeatedly and passionately talked about evangelizing, and Teipen took the priest’s plea to heart.
As a certified public accountant (CPA), Teipen admits taking the lead in establishing a local Catholic radio station wasn’t something that would have initially crossed his radar.
But the priest’s message, an article the CPA read a week later about Catholic radio’s power as an evangelization tool, and a chance encounter with the man who would become the radio station’s general manager all demonstrated to Teipen the Holy Spirit at work in establishing Catholic radio in Indianapolis.
On Feb, 25, Teipen and more than 200 people gathered at the north side Knights of Columbus Hall in Indianapolis to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Catholic radio taking to the airwaves in Indianapolis—as WSPM 89.1 FM on Feb. 25, 2004. A second station, WSQM 90.9 FM in Noblesville, was added a few years ago to serve the neighboring Hamilton County area.
“To me, this has all been a movement of the Holy Spirit,” said Teipen, founder and chairman of Inter Mirifica, Inc., which owns and operates Catholic Radio Indy. “I really felt the presence here in this particular venture.”
A providential encounter
Timing is everything, and the first time Teipen publically floated the idea of establishing a Catholic radio station in Indianapolis was during a weekend Mass in the spring of 1999 at his then-home faith community, St. Lawrence Parish in Indianapolis.
Msgr. Mark Svarczkopf, his pastor at the time, approved the talk, and Msgr. Joseph Schaedel, then vicar general, supported the idea, too.
Providentially, Jim Ganley was in town that weekend visiting friends. He happened to attend Mass at St. Lawrence and heard Teipen’s radio pitch.
Ganley was working as station manager at a commercial radio station in Terre Haute at the time, but was intrigued by what he heard.
“Bob was talking about how some day they’d like to have a Catholic station here in town, and they weren’t sure exactly how they were going to make that happen,” Ganley recalled. “Bob gave an invitation that if anyone wanted to chat after Mass, he’d be in the narthex.”
After the liturgy, the pair talked, and Ganley told Teipen to let him know if he could help with the endeavor in any way.
A station is born
Though the idea for the radio station came to Teipen in late 1998, the project took several years to come to fruition.
There were leads that fizzled and others that led to dead ends, he said.
Still, the CPA said he continued to find the concept of starting a Catholic radio station in the Indianapolis area “intriguing.”
“I really wasn’t frustrated. I was anxious. I was thinking maybe this is something we can get to work,” Teipen said. “I thought it was a good idea to go out and evangelize, and it’s something that we need in the Church, and we as Catholics don’t do as good a job at that as we should, so maybe this is the way to do it.”
Finally, five years later, 89.1 FM was secured on the airwaves for the station. Catholic Radio Indy leased both its office space and a license from Hoosier Broadcasting Corporation. Twenty-four hours, seven days a week, Catholic programming would air on 89.1 FM—and later simultaneously on 90.9 FM—out of a Hoosier Broadcasting Corporation studio on the northwest side of Indianapolis.
Teipen contacted Ganley to see if he would handle the station’s operations.
Teipen and George Maley, a Catholic radio board member, met with Ganley, who wasn’t sure if he was ready to leave an established company to join a fledging operation.
“George and Bob were both there, and George said, ‘Jim, sometimes you’ve got to take a step out in faith,’ ” said Ganley, a member of Holy Spirit at Geist Parish in Fishers, Ind., in the Lafayette Diocese. “I thought, well, I’m not used to doing that, but sometimes you do.”
Ganley remembers the first day the station was on the air—on Feb. 25, 2004. “When we started, we had no listeners, we had no donors, and we had no underwriters,” he said. “We knew we had to ramp that up as we went along, and we’ve been very blessed. It really has come along, and just this past December, we finished [paying] off our lease-purchase of about $2.25 million.”
In December, the station also moved its studios and offices to a new location, at 8383 Craig St., Suite 280 in Indianapolis.
In a growth mode
While Ganley was the station’s only full-time employee for most of its first 10 years of existence, Catholic Radio Indy now has three full-time and two part-time employees. Volunteers continue to play a key role in the station’s evangelization efforts.
Officials are also in the midst of helping open a third Catholic radio station in Peru, Ind., this summer. A Knights of Columbus Council in the Wabash region applied for a station a few years ago, and the Federal Communications Commission chose their application. They have a construction permit to build a station that will serve the Kokomo, Wabash, Logansport and Peru areas in the Diocese of Lafayette.
“We’re helping them big time with it,” Ganley said. “We can’t wait to get that on the air because that will really put out a strong, strong signal over all those areas.”
At the Feb. 25 anniversary dinner program, Father Rick Nagel, keynote speaker, talked about saying “yes” in our lives of faith, including in support of Catholic radio.
“When God presents us with something, we can say ‘yes’ or we can say‘no.’ Sometimes, he’ll be persistent with us to say ‘yes,’ ” said Father Nagel, pastor of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Indianapolis.
“I think Catholic radio is here because God wanted it here in our city. I think God wanted it here because he knew Catholic radio would change people’s lives,” he continued. “And I can assure you, as all of you know [through] the stories of your own, Catholic radio has made a huge impact on countless people we won’t even know until one day in heaven.”
The radio is a great catechetical tool, he added.
“It has changed a lot of people’s lives to bring them to Christ,” Father Nagel said.
Msgr. Schaedel, now pastor of St. Luke the Evangelist Parish in Indianapolis, agreed.
“Ten years ago, Pope John Paul II was talking so extensively about the new evangelization,” he noted, “and I think, this is, for its time, a new way of evangelizing—through Catholic radio.
“Archbishop [Daniel M.] Buechlein and I were very anxious to give our approval, blessing and support to the whole endeavor, and we can’t believe 10 years later, how successful it has been.”
One family of faith
Beverly Watt is a longtime listener of Catholic Radio Indy. Though she is a lifelong Catholic, she calls the station her personal adult faith formation tool.
From “The Son Rise Morning Show” with host Brian Patrick to various other programming, Watt said it offers her spiritual direction in her life of faith.
“It’s such a lifeline not only to me, but to so many people,” said Watt, a member of St. Louis de Montfort Parish in Fishers, Ind., in the Lafayette Diocese. “We are so blessed to have a Catholic radio station here in Indy.”
Teipen said officials hope to continue to make Catholic radio even better.
“I think we need to do everything we can to improve our signal here within the metro area in Indianapolis. That’s part of our plan,” said Teipen, now a member of St. John Vianney Parish in Fishers, Ind., in the Lafayette Diocese,
Both Teipen and Ganley also agreed that Catholic radio’s current signal throughout the metro area is a blessing for both the Archdiocese of Indianapolis and the neighboring Diocese of Lafayette.
“We don’t think of it as two different dioceses. We’re putting out one program, trying to appeal to everybody as one family [of faith],” Ganley said.
Teipen said he hopes their mission of evangelization continues to blossom.
“I’m intrigued by the idea of making this grow,” Teipen said. “Maybe that’s the entrepreneurial instinct [in me]. Maybe that’s why God tapped me on the shoulder for this.
“As long as the Lord feels he can use us, we’ll be here,” he added.
(For more information on Catholic Radio Indy, their programming schedule, or to listen online from any location, log on to www.catholicradioindy.org.) †
