News > April 10, 2008

By Caitlin Brooks | Staff writer

WFDD, the university licensed National Public Radio Station will celebrate its 60th year on campus on April 19, 2008. The celebration, slated to involve heavy Homecoming involvement in fall 2008, marks the beginning of a return to student involvement for the station, which began as an entirely student run entity and has evolved into a public business.

WFDD, originally WAKE, started as an illegal broadcast in 1946 from the dorm rooms of Alva Parris and Henry Randall. Their shows did not go very far, only 300 feet in all directions, broadcast from a five-watt wave length. In 1948, with cooperation from then president, Dr. Thurman D. Kitchin, students raised the funds to secure a full FCC license and the station became legitimate.

The station began broadcasting from the press box of old Groves Stadium with a homemade 50-watt transmitter and on April 19, 1948, the first official broadcast, featuring Roland C. “Woody” Woodard, hit the airwaves. Because the original call letters WAKE were already assigned to another station, the students adopted WFDD, Wake Forest Demon Deacons; the name stuck.

A decade passed and WFDD remained entirely student run and featured a news hour, devotional music once a week and the “Deaconlight Serenade,” a nightly show designed to “beam musical good cheer to you and yours, styled the Wake Forest way.” WFDD moved with the university from Wake Forest to Winston Salem in 1956.

In 1958, the station began to shift from student hands to an alumnus, non-student station manager, Julian Borroughs. During his time as station manager, WFDD became a non-commercial educational FM station in 1961. Six years later, with the addition of a new antenna and 36,000 watt transmitter, WFDD became the first FM stereo station in Winston-Salem. On May 3, 1971, it became a charter member of National Public Radio, the first in North Carolina.

In October 2007, the station made further strides in the radio world. HD radio enabled WFDD to split into three separate stations; WFDD1, a news station, WFDD2, a classical music outlet, and WFDD3, the newest, eclectic station. All three stations can be picked up with an HD radio or online. The last station, WFDD3 is leading the way in linking WFDD back to current university students. Wake Radio broadcasts are now being aired on WFDD3.

“Wake Radio is now connected to WFDD as never before,” current station manager Denise Franklin said. “The students are getting exposure to the latest technology that’s happening on radio, and we feel really good about that.

We’ve have workshops on production quality, how to achieve and maintain a high standard in shows and on FCC guidelines.”

“We are looking at it as a teaching opportunity and allowing them to expose their work to a wider audience. We have gotten great, great feedback from people out there in the workplace that are thrilled that this relationship, especially that the students are re-engaged with the station,” Franklin added.

“It’s great. It’s a huge step forward for Wake Radio to branch off from the internet. Hopefully it will help spread Wake Radio across and off campus,” freshman Lauren Falvo, upcoming assistant music director for Wake Radio said of the partnership. In addition to this opportunity for Wake Radio, WFDD employs five unpaid student interns every semester and encourages student volunteers to learn about the newest technology in radio and the many opportunities it provides.

WFDD is planning a huge 60th anniversary celebration beginning in May and continuing through Homecoming 2008.

The celebration kicks off in May with two events with Diane Rehm and two more events with the hosts of “The Splendid Table.” During Homecoming, WFDD will host an alumni dinner the Thursday of homecoming that will include alumni of Wake Radio and WFDD as well as current members and employees.

“It seems appropriate that the station is involved in homecoming,” Franklin said. “It’s a big round number and considering that the university owns the radio station, that it was started by students, it should be a community wide celebration. WFDD is so intrinsically tied to the university.”

88.5 WFDD currently broadcasts 24 hours a day, seven days a week and has a listening area covering 32 counties in North Carolina and Virginia.