OUR LOCALLY RUN National Public Radio station has come home to Rhode Island at last, heralding good local journalism. After months of anticipation, Rhode Island Public Radio will operate WRNI-1290 AM independently from its parent station, WBUR in Boston, from which it hopes to buy the station shortly. That means that Rhode Islanders will not only own and operate 102.7 FM, serving southern Rhode Island, but will now manage Providence-based 1290 AM without any subsidy from WBUR or Boston University.

This is a decisive moment. Will Rhode Islanders support their NPR station? Will we support it generously enough to fund the kind of excellent local news our state and our communities deserve?

We’ve all watched with dismay the decline of traditional broadcast media, even as WRNI, National Public Radio and other NPR member stations have added reporters, opened bureaus and increased the quality and the amount of news coverage here at home and across this planet. No other American news organization is doing that.

National Public Radio is a national treasure, yet Rhode Island is one of only two states that until now have had no NPR outlet of their own. The cacophony of voices on the Internet, on talk radio and on television news all make NPR and its member stations ever more important to a citizenry who take their citizenship seriously.

As good as NPR is, you won’t get extensive and in-depth coverage of Rhode Island news and Rhode Island issues on any other station. Shrinking circulation and staff cutbacks at newspapers in our region and nationwide heighten concerns and underscore that Rhode Islanders must help WRNI, now in its infancy, grow and mature into the first-rate news and public-affairs organization it can be, covering town halls, business and economic conditions, Smith Hill, our school committees and universities, health services, the arts, our waterways and the dozens of state and local developments that daily affect us all.

It’s news to no one that excellence isn’t cheap. Money is crucial to WRNI’s growth and survival. Nationally, listeners provide as much as half of Public Radio’s financial support. The federal government provides very little.

Foundations such as the Robertson Foundation, the Providence Journal Foundation, the Rhode Island Foundation and others have generously supported the station. So have wealthy Rhode Islanders and devoted listeners of varying means. Yet more is needed and will continue to be needed. A single gift, while helpful and always appreciated, is not enough to keep WRNI healthy and growing. We must give now, give annually and give generously to maintain the station as an enduring Rhode Island asset. To keep WRNI, we’ll need to get in the habit of giving to it often.

In less than a year WRNI has added an education reporter, a health reporter, a general-assignment reporter and soon will add a political reporter. If the funds can be raised, a maritime and environment reporter will be added, too.

A Community Advisory Panel of listeners is forming to give us feedback and insights into the events and situations that concern Rhode Islanders the most. And you’ll be able to hear WRNI not only on the airwaves but over the Internet, on cell phones, and through any new medium that listeners use. This growth in vision, scope and quality can make WRNI one of the premier local news stations in America.

We can have that if we want it. But we must prove that we do.

Jim Marsh, a retired publishing executive who lives in Little Compton, is chairman of Rhode Island Public Radio.