College radio history is near and dear to my heart and I appreciate it when stations celebrate their origin stories. With many stations purporting to be the “first” at this or that, I’m always eager to dive into long-lost documents in order to sleuth out the veracity of station lore. As any historian or journalist can tell you, primary sources are the way to go when researching historical claims.
This week I was excited to run across another “first” claim. According to an article on Cleveland.com, “Baldwin Wallace University’s WBWC 88.3 ‘The Sting,’ is celebrating its 60th anniversary, along with the distinction of having been the nation’s first student-operated radio station” (emphasis mine). Delving further, the WBWC website states, “WBWC first signed on in 1958 as the first totally student funded and operated radio station in the United States (emphasis mine). In 1960, due to limited number of FM radios, WBWC began an AM carrier current campus limited broadcast operation. This operation was discontinued in 1970. In the fall of 1975, stereo facilities were added. On November 23, 1981, as a result of the FCC’s move to eliminate all 10 watt stations, WBWC received permission from the FCC to begin construction to increase broadcast power from 10 to 100 watts of power.”
Digging into the Baldwin Wallace archives, I may have found the original “first” claim regarding the student radio station. Upon the launch of WBWC over FM in 1958, an article in the February 28, 1958 issue of The Exponent reports:
The studios were completely constructed by the students with funds appropriated by Student Council. As far as could be learned, WBWC-FM is the only college educational radio station in the country that is student built, student operated, and student financed (emphasis mine). The idea was first conceived in 1946 by the speech department. Nothing, however, was done until 1955 when Student Council formed a ‘steering committee’ headed by Dick Draper, a pro-engineering student who laid the groundwork for the project.
Reading these early accounts, I was amazed to see that the number of student participants in the operation of WBWC was 176 when the station launched in 1958, which includes DJs, engineers, music librarians (20!), secretaries, announcers and more. That’s an incredibly high number of students working at a brand new radio station.
To recap, the original assertion from 1958 seems to be that in 1958, WBWC may have been the “only college educational radio station in the country that is student built, student operated, and student financed.” This isn’t necessarily arguing that it was the first student-built/operated/financed station; but just that it may be the only FM educational station in 1958 to fit this criteria. This may or may not be true and I’d be curious to hear about other student-built FM stations that may have been around in the 1950s.
So, as we can see, WBWC’s claim today to be the first student-operated radio station in the United States is probably the descendant of a decades-old game of telephone, where specific details of the station’s origins have been lost to the ether.
While its 60th anniversary is notable and worthy of celebration, WBWC was not the first student-operated radio station (unless it has a hidden history in the 1920s or earlier). It’s difficult to pinpoint the “first” student-operated radio station, but there were plenty of student-run radio stations prior to WBWC’s founding in 1958. Beginning in the 1920s there were licensed college radio stations run by students (including WABQ at Haverford College from 1923 to 1927) and by the 1940s there were numerous AM carrier current student-run radio stations at colleges all across the United States.
More College Radio News
Station Sale
Shaw University to Sell WSHA (News and Observer)
Personnel
Steve Gulley Named Program Director at WCXZ/WLMU (Bluegrass Today)
Programming
Student DJs Work Graveyard Shift to Keep College Radio Alive (The Daily Tar Heel)
Two Elmhurst College Seniors Set World Record for Radio Show (Elmhurst, IL Patch)
Elmhurst College Seniors Aim for Broadcast Record (Chicago Daily Herald)
Events
WXTC Festival Benefits Instrumental Music in Schools (Sharon Herald)
Echofest Brings Music to Three Stages at UNC Asheville (Citizen Times)
Awards and Accolades
University of Bedfordshire Station Shortlisted for Best Outreach Project Award (Luton Today)
Baldwin Wallace Students Pick up Awards at IBS (Cleveland.com)
History and Anniversaries
Free-range Radio KGLT Celebrates 50th Year (Bozeman Daily Chronicle)
Local Radio Station is Celebrating 50 Years on the Air in Montana (KBZK)
WSOU Seton Hall to Celebrate 70 Years on Air (Radio Ink)
WSOU to Celebrate 70th Anniversary with Alumni Reunion Dinner April 14 (New Jersey Stage)
Robert Siegel Talks about His College Radio Past (The Daily Evergreen)
