Peace, Grace, and Jazz!

WCRW, as mentioned in my previous post, was a closed circuit carrier current radio station. It was not actually on the air. But as the station replaced its 1950s (or earlier) equipment and new student leadership took over both engineering and programming, somehow our station connected with a local FM station WPIC in Sharon, Pa.

The management there offered our staff three 2-hour blocks during which we could air pre-recorded radio shows. Three nights a week, from 7-9 PM Westminster College was finally on the air! I shared announcing duty with another student Harry Gardner on a program we called “Twilight Time,” not coincidentally the title of our theme song composed by The Three Suns. It was a magazine format show, with music, short segments devoted to campus news, some “News on the Light Side” (compiled by my roommate Barry Cox), and maybe a book review now and then.

WPIC’s management was pleased with what we came up with, so their initial risk paid off. And for us students, it was exciting to have actual listeners. At least we were told we had listeners. I don’t recall any fan mail.

The programming was much more sophisticated than the informal slapping of 45 rpm records (the ones with the big holes, you recall) onto turntables. In producing our programs there was accountability. As in real radio, we had a responsibility to take the production seriously. Looking back all these decades later, this was good training for anyone who intended to make broadcasting a career. (It’s worth noting that many campus radio stations were pretty much just “fun and games,” with far more independence than oversight, meaning that the jocks (deejays) would be ill-prepared for the broadcast profession. (The “morning zoo” format was years away, by the way.)

Kudos to Mark Klinger our program director and Tom Wensel our engineer. Rick Packer also had a lead role in the radio station’s moving from air “play” to FM broadcasting. The station’s next step would be getting its own transmitter and tower and call letters: WKPS. (Wensel, Klinger, Packer, and the faculty advisor Richard Stevens gave initials to the station that would be Westminster’s voice shortly after I graduated. I was told “Kellam” shared the K. But I suspect they were just being nice.)

Next time, graduating from college radio, just a little late. Thanks to my radio involvement, I had flunked out.

WCRW was the Westminster College Radio Workshop, and had been for many years before I arrived on campus at the small Presbyterian college in western Pensylvania. The studios were located in the basement of the library building.

The equipment was primitive. The record collection was small, and one of the rooms was littered with artifacts from radio’s past: a transcription machine, 16″ disks of audio no one would ever play again, and a large sheet of metal that had once rattled with the sound of thunder for a “live” radio dramatic show.

Besides being the initials for what was essentially the campus radio “club,” WCRW became the call letters for a closed circuit, carrier current radio station. One could hardly call it broadcasting. The signal, what there was of it, went by wire to the nearest women’s dorms on the quadrangle, and then was pushed through the electrical wiring of the dorms by very low power transmitters. If the women knew there was a campus station, if they knew where on the low end of the AM dial they could tune it in, and if they knew what the limited hours of operation were, they’d no doubt have enjoyed the music of the Four Seasons, Barry McGuire, the Beatles, and The Animals. But there is no evidence any Westminster College woman ever actually heard the station’s signal.

I entered the college in the fall of 1962 and was immediately intrigued by WCRW’s presence in McGill Library. It sounded like a top prospect for my extra-curricular campus life. But I had auditioned for a play and had been surprised to get a role, and put off the radio station until second semester. Thus the 1963 beginning of my radio experience. And this 60 year reminiscence.

An upperclass student handed me a news script when I tried out. And I was assigned to “do the news.” Now, the station was only on the air (well, not really “on the air,” but we called it that) for a handful of hours each day, so my time at the studio was quite limited. We had no news wire (that is, a teletype machine), so my job was to copy news stories from the morning’s Pittsburgh newspaper and do a three or four minute newscast that was taped for use each hour.

In looking back at that experience, I smile at the idea that we did have a few listeners. In warmer weather, three or four people might listen to the Beach Boys sing out of the open radio studio windows as a fellow student played deejay.

Eventually I was given a weekly timeslot for a music show. I hadn’t been into rock music or contemporary hits in my high school days, so I played jazz, mostly big band music from my own LP collection, along with a few albums I found in the station library. I called the program “Bandstand,” never connecting it to the Dick Clark version on TV. I have one particular tune I recall from the WCRW records: Ted Heath and “Harlem Nocturn.” Whenever I hear that piece today, I recall WCRW.

Next time, I’ll write of our transition to actually getting “on the air,” creating taped programs for a local FM station. Exciting days.

When I first retired and had time on my hands, I started a WordPress blog to record some memories related to my syndicated radio program “Celebration Rock.” That blog has been dorment for sometime, except for an occasional piece that I add to remind myself that it is there. I over-wrote every imaginable detail related to the program, and then moved on to this blog “Peace, Grace, and Jazz,” where the writing can cover anything remotely related to, well, peace, grace, and jazz.

A couple of years ago, I sprung for the actual PAID subscription to WordPress so that I could add some audio content. After all, I made my ministry one of listening, so it seemed like a good idea to expend the funds to expand. (A little glitch I haven’t bothered to correct: I added audio to the wrong blog; I had meant to add Celebration Rock audio clips to the first blog and mistakenly added the audio to the present one. So be it.

While this blog is most active during Lent (when I use the blog for an annual Lenten writing discipline), now and then I am moved to record some thoughts that I consider worth sharing, even if only for my progeny to read after my earthly presence has evaporated. Mostly, as you may have surmised, I write mostly for myself. But I encourasge your curiosity in looking (or listening) in.

As 2023 dawned, I realized that it was sixty years ago that I first spoke into a radio microphone. At the time, it was just an extracurricular college activity. I had no idea that those hours spent in the college radio studio would lead to six decades (and counting) of broadcasting.

For the next few entries here, I will reflect on what it meant to be “on the air.” I’m not writing frequently; just as the muse strikes. (But please don’t hold the muse accountable for everything you may read in the space, okay?)

I admit that some of what I write here may already have been covered to some extent in the “Celebration Rock” blog, or previously in this one. Heck, consider it a rerun and let’s move on. So, stay tuned.