On-Air: Building a College Radio Station: The WSUM Story & Remembering Dave Black

  On February 22, 2002, at 2:22PM the airwaves of Madison, Wisconsin would never be the same again. College student radio could finally be considered legit and truly legal. Many may not realize that the landscape for student radio at the largest university in the state of Wisconsin was looking bleak for nearly a decade prior to officially turning on the transmitter for WSUM 91.7FM. There were legal battles, a town who practiced a strong push of “not in my backyard” policies, and a threat from the FCC to name a few of the challenges. Right before WSUM, the UW-Madison campus radio station was known as 91.5FM WLHA. The early 90s saw a slight renaissance for the college station with a significant promotion effort to get college students listening, including such highlights as “Blocks of Ice”, “The Early 80s Flashback” and its associated popular dances held on campus that served as fundraisers for updating equipment, the great expansion of a music library, and a partnership with the Associated Students of Madison– the student government on campus, to start the effort to make a push for a full-fledged campus station. We will go through some of that history today with former WLHA managers who became a sports medicine physician; a college professor; an engineer; a writer, editor, and reviewer for NPR Music; and a now retired Journalism school Professor. But all of us have a heavy heart as we record this. We were saddened to hear of the passing of our great friend, Dave Black, this past week who was the main reason why college radio exists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He died just a few days before we recorded this. Dave Black was a graduate student in the journalism school in the early 90s and we were able to convince him, along with journalism school professor, Dr. James Hoyt to lead the charge forward to help secure the campus radio station by providing some stability to the effort which ultimately resulted in WSUM. Dave served as the station’s general manager for 20 years and anyone who had the honor of crossing paths with Dave, know how he truly stamped his impact on your heart forever.       The Pediatric Sports Medicine Podcast Links Bar:  Subscribe via Apple Podcasts |  Subscribe via RSS Feed |  Facebook Page |  Twitter Page |  Stitcher Page Find Even More Ways to Listen & Subscribe via The Podcaster Matrix!     The ultimate success for every podcaster – is FEEDBACK! Be sure to take just a few minutes to tell the hosts of this podcast what YOU think over at Apple Podcasts! It takes only a few minutes but helps the hosts of this program pave the way to future greatness! Not an Apple Podcasts user? No problem! Be sure to check out any of the other many growing podcast directories online to find this and many other podcasts