It is one of the few NPR stations to be the primary member for two markets—Pittsburg and Joplin, Missouri (though they are a single television market).

Before KRPS signed on, the only source of NPR programming in the area was a translator of KSMU in Joplin.

In 1977, just after Pittsburg State gained university status, the Department of Speech and Theater proposed to build a 10-watt station, but it was rejected by the Kansas Board of Regents due to a U.S. Federal Communications Commission freeze on new 10-watt applications.

Wilson then renewed efforts for Pittsburg State to support a station of its own.

It would have been KPSU, but those calls were already in use by the student radio station at Oklahoma Panhandle State University.