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| :: Radio Free Binghamton :: 90.5 WHRW-FM :: |
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A Warning to Beer Pong Enthusiasts WHRW is a place full of slightly weird people. If you scoff at the eccentric, or if you think "nerd" is a style rather than a vocation, WHRW isn't for you. But if you find yourself the object of scorn because you stay up all night twiddling with a shortwave radio, or if you can't understand why your friends are so politically middle-of-the-road when you're all charged up about things, or if you love music so much you could teach our listeners a thing or two, there might be a mutually beneficial relationship in your - and WHRW's - future. At our heart, we're still a radio workshop, full of people immersed in the technology and concepts of a long-passed golden age, when doing radio was an art. It's no news flash that the general public doesn't understand that. We're both a living broadcast facility, and a living museum. Within the physical limits of WHRW are more stories, images, and sounds than one could possibly take in. We've been blessed to be part of a university that has supported us through the good and the bad; and we're also blessed that we're a small enough organization that we can express strong opinions on tough issues, without fear of repercussion by the ever-increasingly politically-correct outside world. When I was in grade school, and I was having trouble memorizing all the seemingly boring names, dates, and places required by my history teacher, I asked my father what good it all was. A man who aspired at one point in his life to be a history teacher, my father said to me, "Mark, if you don't know where you've been, you can't know where you're going." There is no place this is truer than in radio. Although we have grown, and in many ways sound nothing like our first few years, WHRW serves as a constant reminder of how radio in our country was once a medium for actual communication and free thought, not just a conduit for big businesses to hit you over the head with Today's Best Music. New and unknown chapters are just beginning in WHRW's history, but we hope to never forget what we've experienced in our first 36 years. WHRW is an ever-changing organization, constantly influenced by its frequent influx of diverse and different people. That doesn't make for radio that ABC Networks could easily sell, but one thing is certain: If not for a place like WHRW, people would forget what radio once was, and might make it harder to eventually return again to what radio should be. --Mark D. Scudder Portions of this text researched from the following: Neer, Richard FM: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio. New York: Villiard Books, 2001 Previous Page | Next Page |