Iowa is about to become home to a new Catholic radio station.

This is exciting news to me, since I more or less began my broadcasting career toiling in the “theater of the mind” known as radio. It remains one of the most compelling and accessible types of media, and one all-too-often taken for granted in the age of blogs and cable TV.

The Sioux City diocesan paper, the Catholic Globe, first printed the story, here reproduced via Catholic Online:

Catholic radio will soon be coming to the Sioux City area thanks to a lay apostolate that formed St. Gabriel Communications, Ltd.

The three officers on the board of directors for St. Gabriel Communications in Sioux City have something in common besides their love of the Catholic faith – they were all friends of the late Father Harold Cooper.

The priest who died on Sept. 1 of this year is best known in the Diocese of Sioux City as founder of Trinity Heights Queen of Peace. After that dream and project came to fruition, his next line of business was promotion of Catholic radio.

Dr. Ken Roach, secretary/treasurer of St. Gabriel Communications, said listeners will soon enjoy Catholic programming on the radio dial at 88.1 FM.

“This whole thing was the brainchild of Father Harold Cooper,” said Dr. Roach. “Father was a very special priest, a visionary. He was a good friend of all of ours so we are following through by making this station happen.”

Jerry “Cal” Calhoun, vice president of the board, said that because the priest played such an important role in making Catholic radio a reality in Sioux City, the call letters for the station were selected after Father Cooper – KFHC. The idea for the call letters came from John Fitzsimmons, president of the board.

Fitzsimmons pointed out that they selected St. Gabriel Communications as their corporate name because he is the patron saint of communications. It was St. Gabriel who made the announcement to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she would be the mother of God.

He knew Father Cooper while growing up in Vail. Fitzsimmons remembers that back in the mid-1990s the priest hosted a weekly prayer group.

“Then after we would pray, we would talk about some things that needed to be addressed and one of those things was Catholic radio,” said Fitzsimmons.

They made application for the station back in 1998 and nine years and 11 months later their license came through last spring. It took longer than normal to receive a license because another entity counter-filed for the same frequency so the FCC had to do a comparative hearing. The Catholic radio station received the approval on May 30 and the other was rejected.

“It was the answer to a lot of waiting, a lot of prayers and then the action began,” said Fitzsimmons.

Check the link for more on how “the action” is happening — and whisper up a prayer for this great new enterprise. After all: radio is the perfect medium for The Word to be proclaimed (second only to the pulpit!)