College Radio in the 70's

I used to work on a radio station in college and we had to play all types of music such as Vikki Carr and 101 Strings during a little segment on our station called "Music for Dining." (Music to get sick by and hate the rest of your life). Why college students had to play this stuff I'll never know. We should have played stuff that we liked and represented the college tastes not that stuff. The original station manager was in her fifties (old back then to me). She was pretty strict on how she ran "her" station. We had to play old stuff, some new stuff (not that new!), and some radio mysteries. We did news, reporting, interviews, and sports. I had my own shift when I got to play "some" new music. The station manager got mad at me once because I was playing an Elvis song in the rock time slot. I insisted that Elvis (at that time) was rock n' roll.

I was the station's traffic director. I typed the logs daily(where the Public Service announcements were placed). Since it was a non-commercial station only PSA's ran. I also got to read the news. I read horribly. I read somewhat better now. Having kids will get your skills better. I did sports interviews. I got to talk to the guys who I had crushes on and interview them. I think I still have that tape around the house or somewhere when I interviewed a basketball player named "Randy." I even got to do play-by-play for football. I was terrible at it...I knew very little about football. I did one game and I was done. Then I got to do a basketball game. I got too excited. Now if you ever listen to a KU game the announcers ALWAYS get excited. But the guys didn't like it and neither did the station manager. I was out again. But I did know how to do basketball statistics. I would often sit in the booth and score the game supplying them with the percentages the team was shooting.

I was the only girl in my broadcasting class. I miss those times and some of the guys who were at the station. The station manager died while I was there of a heart attack. The radio station went downhill after that and now "H" Juco is without a student-ran radio station. It is kind of sad. One guy, Terry, lived in this H town and moved to my hometown. He's still in radio as a sales manager for a radio station there. I think he's the only one in my class who stayed with radio.

That was my freshman year in college. I changed majors the following year. How I wished I would have stuck with radio!