Collection is open for research.
Gift of Patricia L. Swenson, July 2001 (Lib. Acc. 24639).
Patricia Louise Swenson (née Green) was born in 1916 in Seattle, Washington. She studied at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington; Columbia University in New York; and at New York University, from which she received a doctorate in mass media. In 1948, she was employed by Portland Public Schools in Oregon as general manager for KBPS, a student-run radio station based at Benson Polytechnic High School. She remained manager until 1994, when she resigned to help enable the station to continue to fund necessary staff following budget cuts, but she continued working pro bono for the KBPS Public Radio Foundation.
In 1955, she married Daryl L. Swenson (1931-1983), an engineer for KOIN-TV. Patricia Swenson died in 2010.
Sources: Obituary in the Oregonian, January 17, 2001, Page D8; vital records via Ancestry.com.
KBPS is a student-operated radio station that broadcasts from Benson Polytechnic High School in Portland, Oregon. The station was first licensed in 1923, with the call letters KFIF. The station changed its call letters to KBPS in 1930, the letters "BPS" standing for Benson Polytechnic School. In 1941, KBPS stopped sharing its frequency with other stations and moved to 1450 AM. In 1971, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gave KBPS permission to increase transmitting power to 1,000 watts.
Source: "History," KPBS, Benson Polytechnic High School (accessed March 12, 2024),
Patricia L. Swenson KBPS papers, Coll 1074, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Other materials at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library relating to KBPS include the KBPS records, Coll 822; and a vertical file, Radio - KBPS.
The collection consists of materials compiled by Patricia L. Swenson about KBPS, a high school radio station in Portland, Oregon, that she managed. The materials include broadcast and instructional guides from the 1940s through the 1990s; brochures, handouts, reports, and presentations from the 1950s through the 1990s about the station and its programming; records of the KBPS Radio Advisory Council for Community Listening; histories of the station; scripts; and publications and clippings mentioning the station. The collection also includes a 2001 issue of the station's newsletter, "Station Break"; materials relating to recognition that Swenson received for her work as the station's manager; and three photographs of Swenson with students circa 1948, when she began her career with the station.
The Oregon Historical Society owns the materials in the Research Library and makes available reproductions for research, publication, and other uses. The Society does not necessarily hold copyright to all materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may require seeking additional authorization from copyright owners.