Dixie Treichel’s Audio Doc Reflects On Landmark Queer Radio Show

(Left to Right) Steve LaVigne, Gary Peterson & Claude Peck from Equal Time in 1988 when Fresh Fruit turned 10 years. This Equal Time paper is in The Tretter Collection archives.

KFAI Radio’s Fresh Fruit is the longest running queer radio program in the US. It first aired on May 11, 1978. Dixie Treichel has scrupulously researched and produced an audio documentary that chronicles its still ongoing run. She interviews past hosts such as like Debbie Davis, Claude Peck, Steve LaVigne, Kim Hines, John Killacky and Eleanor Savage, as well as current ones – Leigh Combs, Roxanne Anderson, Norman Strizek, Peter Gokey, Patricia Nelson, and yours truly.

Some archival audio from the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies will also be heard. The planning stages prior to its first airing are covered with information on the original Fresh Fruit Collective 1977-78: Ted Faigle, Mark Mattheissen (Maya), Richard MacDougall (Shannon), and Kirk Hoffmeier (deceased).

In a time where corporate considerations often seem to dominate queer culture, Treichel’s work reminds us that basic grass roots activism is where it all started, and frankly, where it will always return.

Fresh Fruit: 35 Years of Queer Radio
Thurs., Nov 21 at 7 pm
and then streaming on 90.3 FM Minneapolis & 106.7 FM St. Paul.

(L to R) Steve LaVigne, Gary Peterson & Claude Peck from Equal Time in 1988 when Fresh Fruit turned 10 years. This Equal Time paper is in The Tretter Collection archives.