If you’ve been walking around campus, you may have noticed the flyers that read: “KURE, Pouring you Iowa State’s best blends of ethnically cleansed alternarock since 1996. Sparkling white!”

Steve Juon, the former urban contemporary assistant for KURE and a senior in journalism and mass communication, is responsible for the flyers. Juon said the station fails to play urban contemporary music (rap, rhythm and blues, and reggae).

“I’m protesting what I think is a failure of a college radio station to present its students with different choices,” he said.

Juon, who said he resigned two weeks ago, claims KURE has a schedule that contains mostly alternative and rock music.

“When we used to be KUSR, we followed a block of six hours of urban rock a day,” Juon said. “Under the new name and call letters, there is only two to four hours of urban rock at night.”

Juon said the urban rock is played at night when people aren’t listening. “The diversity of programs has gone way down compared to the amount of diversity in the program we used to have.”

In the flier, Juon tells students to ask themselves: “If the radio station is so great, why did the general manager, operations director, engineer, and the assistant in charge of urban contemporary (Juon) all resign in the last three weeks?”

But Len Rettinger, the general manager of KURE, has a different view. First off, he said Juon did not resign, he was fired.

“He was let go of his d.j. position because he missed two shifts in a row,” which is standard procedure, Rettinger said.

Rettinger said the flier is completely false. The previous general manager, Rian Harkins, got married this summer and the station knew in the spring Harkins was going to step down.

Harkins could not be reached for comment.

The operations manager, Malik Toms, stepped down, Rettinger said, to go after another position on the station’s board of directors.

Toms, a junior in sociology and English, resigned from his position as operations manager Oct. 1. Toms said he resigned because, “I thought there was not enough leadership in the department. We were lacking a general manager, and it showed.”

Toms said there was no cohesiveness at the station. “Everybody was pointing fingers, and they were being pointed at me,” he said, “so I eliminated myself from the group.”

As for the urban rock music, Toms believes the station plays a lot of it, but at the wrong time of day. He said that doesn’t bother him, but that’s not why he resigned.

Toms now works with the sound system at KURE. “I felt that I could be of service to the sound system department.”

Rettinger said KURE plays more urban rock since the shift in format.

“The only time we could have seen a change in format was in the summer when he (Juon) was the interim program director,” Rettinger said.

“He was in charge of the format over the summer. He did not have the authority to create the format for himself.”

Rettinger also said a letter to the editor written by Juon and printed in the Sept. 30 Iowa State Daily was false. In the letter, Juon detailed his problems with the station.

In addition to the letter, Rettinger said KURE also received threatening e-mail “many, many, many times” from Juon. Rettinger would not comment on what the e-mail messages said.

“Some of the things he said were not appropriate,” Rettinger said.

As for student reaction to the flyers, Juon said students think, “It’s good that these issues are being exposed. If these issues aren’t brought up now, the station may go in the all alternative direction, without considering what the students want. I intend to keep the student body informed. This is the student’s radio station.

“The station belongs to the student body, not to those people whose opinions are involved right now. Students should be able to speak up and make a difference.”

Rettinger said students do have a say in everything that happens at the station.

He said the station will continue the tradition of hearing the voice of the students.

Rettinger said Juon’s comments and the flyer were “motivated from the anger from being dumped from the station.”