As Real Presence Radio turns 20, its founders and director reflect on the challenges and joys of the apostleship – InForum

CASSELTON, N.D. – While not provable, it would also be difficult to argue that the success story of the Real Presence Radio (RPR) network does not include some elements of divine intervention.

Over the course of five years, the network transmitted 27 signals in a region covering the Dakotas, as well as parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Wyoming, under the most incredible circumstances.

Now, as the network prepares to celebrate 20 years of “sharing truth in love,” stories of its origins are emerging, including the ups and downs of ventures that beat the odds.

Steve Legering, owner of an engineering company, carries the seed within him.

It was Reformation Sunday, and the Christian radio station he was listening to made some challenging and rather harsh remarks about the Catholic faith he cherishes.

“I started going on the radio asking, ‘Where is the Catholic Church in all of this?’ – he said. “Why aren’t we there?”

Taking a deep breath, he heard the words, “What are you going to do about it?”

Legering pondered this burning question for about a year, eventually meeting with several others, John Kerian and Paul MacLeod, who shared his desire.

“We incorporated in December 1999,” he said, broadcasting a limited number of programs on AM radio stations in Mayville and Jamestown. “We received some support, but mostly hate mail,” Lögering added. “After a year I said, ‘I can’t do this.’

Just as they were about to give up, the men learned that the University of North Dakota was selling its AM station. They submitted a blind application, which was accepted. Kicker? “We had to move the tower,” he said.

When they turned on the signal, “the first thing on the air was Mass,” Lögering said.

Back then, they operated the station from a closet in the basement of UND’s Newman Center. Calling it Ave Maria Radio, they changed the name in 2000 to Real Presence Radio after discovering another station with the original name.

“We had our ups and downs and a lot of problems,” Lögering said, “but we sincerely believed that this is an apostolate, and if God wanted it to exist, He would allow us to struggle, but also give us the opportunity to way forward.”

Legering coined a phrase that many, even if not avid listeners, have probably seen on yellow and black billboards and bumper stickers: “What do Catholics believe?”

“I really pushed for it,” Legering said, noting that the goal has always been to educate fellow Catholics about what their faith actually teaches. “We are not trying to be a secret Catholic organization,” he added. “We just want to share the joy of these truths.”

Although the station was registered in 1999, the station was officially launched on November 6, 2004. And in March 2007, the board of directors hired Steve Splonskowski as chief executive, placing him in charge of all operations: engineering, marketing and finance.

“I had no radio experience,” Splonskowski admitted, but he had tinkered with electronics with his father as a child, and when the two figured out how to fix a broken transmitter, he felt God’s approval.

After that, he began enlisting the help of others, including an engineer, an accountant and a salesman. In 2010, their part-time fundraiser, Janelle Schanilek, was working full time, drawing crowds to help grow the station.

“She’s a pro at this,” Splonskowski said, adding that the hiring of longtime radio engineer Brad Wilson also gave them the boost they needed to launch the Moorhead station, causing a growth spurt.

“From 2011 to 2012, we added three stations in the west — Bismarck, Dickinson and Williston — all at once,” he said. “I finally realized, ‘I don’t have to do all this. I just need to be available and God will do the rest.”

Even when people thought they were crazy, resources—and sometimes “a shoulder to cry on”—appeared just when needed, he said.

In the early 2000s, looking for ways to deepen his faith, Bismarck’s Chuck Huber began listening daily to the Eternal World Television Network, a radio station based in Irondale, Alabama, but broadcast around the world.

One day, while driving, he noticed an 800 number promising help in opening a local station.

“There are certain things in your life that you remember vividly,” he said, recounting how he stopped to dial a number and Doug Keck, one of the network’s top executives, answered.

Keck connected him with Splonskowski, and Huber conveyed his dream of getting a station in the Bismarck-Mandan area.

In 2009, Huber received a call from Ed Schmitz, an RPR board member, who called him away from a pheasant hunt to have lunch and discuss opportunities.

He and another interested local, Raymond Gruby, raised the necessary $125,000 and it launched on October 12, 2010, with EWTN offering national content to fill gaps in local programming.

“Catholic Radio, as well as many publications by some apologists, played an important role in my decisive return to the Catholic faith and integration of it into my life,” said Huber, who became and remains a board member. Today.

At first, many believers and clergy resisted it, he said, but with the help of Bishop Zipfel and then Bishop Kagan, the station became an integral part of the local Catholic community.

“Quite often we get an email, call or letter from some listener saying, ‘Hey, I just want you to know… I found your radio station and it changed my life,'” Huber said. “Every time you broadcast the truth, it has the opportunity to penetrate the minds and hearts of people.”

Lynn Devitt, the current executive director who works out of the Fargo home office, said she found the station by mistake.

Devitt previously worked for Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota, where she enjoyed a successful 24-year career. But something was missing. “As a lifelong Catholic, I followed the faith, but I didn’t have the time to put it all together in a fully reasoned way,” she said.

Once on one of Catholic Answers’ syndicated programs, she was intrigued.

With a degree in language and rhetoric, Devitt was impressed by how the show invited Catholics and even non-Christians to participate using the Socratic method she learned in graduate school.

“They grounded my faith; it added richness,” she said, admitting she was “too lazy to figure it out on my own.” But then, “realizing that I had a reason for joy in my faith—that it was not just rules, but gifts—it changed the narrative in some ways… and brought great beauty into my life. »

At the height of the pandemic, when “people were dying and losing their jobs and businesses were closing,” she began donating.

“At some point you just realize that the only thing I can really pass on that has value is my faith, and the only thing that matters is whether my children go to heaven,” she said .

Eventually becoming a board member, Devitt was hired as executive director in 2023 and said that Catholic radio—in all the ways it now broadcasts, including through its app and podcasts—is needed now more than ever. or.

“Believers are being attacked in society now, and to some extent we need an outlet, some community to say, ‘You’re not crazy.’ There is a reason, there is a logic, there is a community of believers much greater than this.”

Catholic media, she said, strives to offer “respite to those who are tired of a media that may not be giving them all the information.”

“We focus on truth as it relates to the truth that God has given us,” she said, inviting listeners to positive, engaging conversations and addressing guests “not as adversaries, but as people who are truly trying to understand and seek the truth.” ” “

Devitt said before she discovered RPR, she had a community of people.

“This community of politicians made me grumpy,” she said, noting that the switch was life-changing for her. “We have to choose the community we want to be a part of. I want people to be part of a joy-filled community.”