Ron Kurtenbach

Who is Ron Kurtenbach?

Ron Kurtenbach is a Lincoln, Nebraska communist born January 6, 1943. An enthusiastic community activist, he is one of the original group which founded local Lincoln radio station KZUM and the local grocery co-op Open Harvest. He is also one of the group which founded the short-lived Lincoln Communist music venue, The Red and Black Café, in the early 1990s, a spin off to another talk program he produced with Sally Herrin, noted Lincoln author, and a number of others called "Zero Street". Many Lincoln bands, including Plastik Trumpet and Hour Slave played at the Red and Black.

He was a long-time custodian at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He received his Ph.D. in English in May 2000, and taught briefly at both the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and at Kearney.

Kurtenbach is most well known for his long-running controversial Public-access television call-in show, Ron's World, that was seen nightly on local Lincoln cable TV. On the program, he explained the basics of Marxist thinking, read poetry and spent most of the time discussing his politics with the general public.