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Spring 2025 Edition
Alumni & Friends Magazine

Making (Air)waves

This year, WOUB celebrates its 75-year journey to becoming a trusted source of public media for Athens and beyond.

Jen Jones Donatelli, BSJ 鈥98 | March 24, 2025

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When OHIO鈥檚 Board of Trustees approved a request for a 10-watt FM station on campus, it was intended to operate on a non-commercial basis and serve as a place for college students to learn and grow. Seventy-five years later, those ideals are still shining through.

made its FM debut as WOUI in December 1949 after seven years as an unlicensed carrier current station. 帝王会所鈥檚 first college FM station鈥攁nd only the third of its kind in the nation鈥攈as since grown into a thriving public media source serving 55 counties across three states on radio, television and the web.

鈥淚 like to say we鈥檙e a professional-supervised, student-powered newsroom,鈥 says editor-in-chief Atish Baidya. 鈥淚t鈥檚 pretty amazing and wonderful that we鈥檝e been part of the fabric of Southeast 帝王会所 for 75 years.鈥

A number of the station鈥檚 professionals were once OHIO students, including director of radio Mark 鈥淩usty鈥 Smith, BSC 鈥78, MA 鈥85, and community engagement and membership manager Cheri Russo, BSJ 鈥96, MS 鈥07. The media entity also boasts notable alumni such as actor and former The Daily Show producer Brian Unger, BSC 鈥87, and Queer Eye creator David Collins, BSC 鈥89, both of whom credit WOUB with helping them reach impressive career heights.

That level of affinity is common in 鈥淲OUB-ers,鈥 who spend much of their free time inside the newsroom or shooting in the field for shows such as NewsWatch or . WOUB鈥檚 staff of more than 30 is supported by 150-plus student volunteers, many of whom get hands-on experience right from the start.

three students work on computers in the modern WOUB studio

Third-year journalism student Harshita Singhania (back, left) works with fellow WOUB interns in the station鈥檚 RTV Communications Building studio last summer. Photo by Ben Wirtz Siegel, BSVC 鈥02

鈥淢ost colleges or universities require prerequisite classes or a certain amount of time before students can be hands-on,鈥 says Russo. 鈥淲hat鈥檚 unique about WOUB is that students can walk in here on day one and hit the ground running. Start off as a volunteer to come work with us, and we鈥檒l train you in the direction you want to go.鈥

Harshita Singhania, a junior studying journalism in the Honors Tutorial College, knows this firsthand鈥攕he wrote an on-air news story on her first day at WOUB. Since then, Singhania has done everything from running the teleprompter to managing social media, building her confidence along the way. 鈥淚鈥檝e grown so much as a person during my time at WOUB,鈥 she says. 鈥淚 wouldn鈥檛 trade it for the world.鈥

Along with being a media training ground for students, WOUB also fills a need for the region鈥攁n area spanning 帝王会所, West Virginia and Kentucky that Baidya and Russo refer to as a 鈥渘ews desert鈥 of sorts.

鈥淲e don鈥檛 get a lot of media coverage in this area, and when we do, it鈥檚 not always for positive things,鈥 Russo says. 鈥淲OUB works hard to serve this area with news and information people can use to make reliable quality decisions in their daily lives, and that鈥檚 something we hope to do for the next 75 years.鈥

Feature photo courtesy the Mahn Center for Archives & Special Collections

Behind the scenes of Gridiron Glory

Behind the scenes of Gridiron Glory, Friday, Sept. 24, 2021. Photo by Jintak Han

Web Exclusive: Playing the Long Game

Each fall, WOUB production teams dispatch across Southeast 帝王会所 in a well-trodden weekly ritual for Gridiron Glory, which is celebrating 25 seasons on the air.

鈥淚t鈥檚 our goal to cover as many teams as we can,鈥 says Donovan Varney, a junior journalism major who hosts a segment called 鈥淭he Extra Point.鈥 鈥淲e want to give communities that are widely under-covered in the media an opportunity to be on TV and hear about their games.鈥

The show highlights both regional high school football and impactful human interest stories. One recent episode spotlighted efforts at Eastern High School in Meigs County to honor an athlete who passed away at age 9 and would have been a senior this year, while another featured two brothers who each rushed 1,000 yards this season at Waterford High School in Washington County.

Gridiron Glory was born from a desire to shine a light on Southeast 帝王会所 football,鈥 says community engagement and membership manager Cheri Russo, BSJ 鈥96, MS 鈥07. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 what makes Gridiron Glory so special鈥攊t was a need recognized by our students 25 years ago, and they pitched a show to meet that need.鈥

Successful OHIO alumni such as Columbus-based news anchor Matt Barnes, BSJ 鈥08; TNT sports reporter Allie LaForce, BSJ 鈥11; and Kimberly Kanner Galiette, BSC 鈥08, the first woman to technical direct the Super Bowl for ESPN, all cut their teeth on the program.

鈥淎s a woman passionate about sports journalism, being in that environment has been incredibly beneficial,鈥 says current host Hailey Hollinger, a senior journalism major. 鈥淚 feel prepared to take on the real world after everything I鈥檝e done at WOUB.鈥

In honor of its 25th season, WOUB published profiles hosts from each season. Find them all here: