Inga’s right on the airwaves

By Mike Stepanovich

Inga Barks loves CSUB. In fact the popular radio-talk-show host loves the university so much that she almost didn't want to leave. Took her 11 years to graduate. And then it was only because someone told her, you've got more then enough units, don't you think you should go ahead and graduate?

When she finally graduated with a bachelor's degree in psychology, she had five options for a minor; she chose philosophy.

"I loved college," she said. "I started in 1986 and graduated in 1997. I just loved Cal State. I loved learning about philosophy and religion and history and theater. I can still smell and taste Cal State. Sometimes when I take my kids out there for soccer, I walk around the campus. It was just a great experience to be there. "Not to be melodramatic, but it's home for me. It's a great place. I feel like a majority of my professors were personally invested in my success."

CSUB seems to have played an integral part in Barks' success. After graduating from South High School in Bakersfield in 1985, she began her CSUB journey in 1986. She and her husband, Michael, married in 1988. In 1993 she began her radio career that now has her doing talk shows in Bakersfield on radio station KERN, and in Fresno on KMJ.

And that's what she's best known for, though she quickly says, "That wasn't my plan." But if it wasn't part of her plan, it also wasn't out of the realm of possibility because "I fell in love with radio when I was in grade school. I realized I liked the disc jockeys and newscasts better than the music. I listened to KERN, so by the time I got to college I was completely hooked" on the format.

In 1993 she got into radio "completely by accident. I was doing stand-up comedy routines at a comedy club that was in Bakersfield at the time. I used to be funny; I actually got paid for it. I made about a hundred bucks a month doing comedy. One of my co-performers hosted a radio show - an auction on KBID (the station recently folded). She was moving to Portland (Ore.) and suggested I take her job. I hooked up with the program director, and the next thing I knew I had a three-hour radio show that I did for 10 years."

Her entry into talk radio was also unexpected. In 1997, she said, "I made friends with a woman who had a talk show on KERN. She asked me to fill in for her when she went on vacation. A couple years later she resigned, and I took over as the Inga Barks Show in 1999."

While she had plenty of national models for her show, she said she aspired only to be a respected local talk-show host. "I love talking politics, and that's what I do here," she said. "The format fits my personal philosophy. But to me, when I have someone on the air who disagrees with me, it's not a fight, it's chewing the meat and spitting out the bones.

"When I'm on the air I'm looking to engage in a discussion with my callers where I will either learn something or they will change my mind. … I couldn't come to my job if I wasn't passionate about it."

Her show expanded this past year when she began on Fresno's KMJ. "I do two shows a day," she said, "10 a.m. to noon here and 6 to 8 p.m. in Fresno. I do the Fresno show from a studio in my home.

"There's a huge difference in my the audiences. My Bakersfield audience is working, so when I'm on the air in Bakersfield it's more difficult for them to call in. I know they're listening, though, because the ratings say they are. My forte here is local and state issues. At KMJ, I catch them going home from work so I get more participation. There I do more social issues.

"Another difference is that here KERN is the top talk station in town, but it's fourth overall when you include the FM stations. In Fresno, KMJ is the No. 1 station, period.

"Ironically, I'm not as recognized in Bakersfield because FM is tops here, but in Fresno everyone knows me." That may be in part because KMJ's website has an entire section devoted to her with many photos; KERN's website opts instead to have one photo and a large collection of excerpts from her shows.

But a lower profile in her hometown isn't a bad thing, she said. "I want to grow old in the city where I grew up."

And she wants to continue her education. "From the moment I wake up I'm feeding my brain. I want to get a master's degree in history." And of course she's only considering one place to do that: CSUB.