Stories from WGCS staff and students
On this page you will find some stories shared by the WGCS - The Globe staff (students and faculty), about their experiences.
If you've been part of it and have a story to share, please contact us
and we'll post it.
Fancheon (Emmert) Ressler, ('59)
I was the first student program director of WGCS. Since I was also Dr. Roy Umble's student assistant my senior year, the two of us spent a lot of time together. I do have a 1959 newspaper article picturing Dr. Umble and me from the Goshen News; it told of the new Goshen College radio station.
As program director I helped select classical music and crop the news that came in over the wire service. The very talented Dale Sloat was student engineer; we worked closely together. And I can still recite our sign-on: "Good evening! This is WGCS, the radio voice of Goshen College. WGCS is owned and operated by the Goshen College Broadcasting Corporation and operates on a frequency of 91.1 megacycles by authority of the Federal Communications Commission. We begin our program with . . ."(I learned to pronounce a lot of composers' names!)
Did anyone after us of those early years spend the night out on the roof of the Union Building after being in charge of the evening's broadcast? Or did anyone else get locked out there? Those are some of the memories I smile about.
Glen ('98) & Chrissy (Kilmer '99) Kauffmann
We have numerous stories we could share, but here are a few...
Satellite G4 crashed affecting WGCS, but also several other public radio stations around the US. We recorded something like 3 programs off of that satellite and had to quickly find something to replace that programming. We have a button that says "I survived the G4 Crash".
We both were summer staff in 1997 when the station's air conditioning wasn't working and the temp outside was over 90 degrees. The transmitter room was over 100 degrees. As Glen was leaving his shift and Chrissy was coming on the transmitter began to overheat. Before shutting down the transmitter we were broadcasting on 92.3 FM - a slight FCC violation. That afternoon we weren't on the air much. There were other hot days the transmitter overheated, but not that bad.
Glen helped with re-wiring and equipment as we changed over to the new transmitter (now on CR 21) and we watched the old one leave the building. We also watched as the current tower was built from the ground up and then turned on. Jon Kauffmann-Kennel took all the student managers out to the future tower site and I remember the vehicle getting stuck or almost getting stuck in the mud.
Glen and Chrissy met there as summer staff '97. Over the next school year we became friends related to station activities. A year after meeting at WGCS we began dating. After both graduating from GC, we stayed on as community volunteers each hosting a Crossings shift. One evening while Glen was playing a song on the air, he proposed to Chrissy in Studio B and did not let onto listeners what had just happened.
Nate Kaufman ('86)
Working at WGCS is one of my favorite memories of Goshen. Along with the typical classical shift, I also worked basketball games and a late night punk/rock shift. To get people to stay up and listen to me, I decided to create a little controversy by starting the Ice Cream Report. While definitely juvenile and absolutely “politically incorrect”, the Ice Cream Report was developed after countless discussions in the dining hall about the “Freshman 15” syndrome. Essentially we started counting how many women versus men showed up for ice cream after dinner and then reporting the findings on a weekly basis. The lead up to the report was, by all accounts, probably offensive. We did notice a marked decrease in the ice cream line though.
Ask anyone who went to Goshen in that time frame, and they will probably recall the Ice Cream Report. I think that there is a little irony in the fact that I now have four daughters of my own…..
Kendal Sommers ('90)
I was a student announcer 1987-1990. GM at the time was Stan Martin, followed by Ron Johnson. One of those years I was also student engineer, helping maintain equipment with WGCS engineer "Brother Bob" Baker. Anyone who worked at WGCS back then will remember Brother Bob. I also had the privilege of being in the studio when Jason Samuel made his on-air debut at WGCS.
Jacqueline Bhuyan
Congratulations on the 50th Anniversary of WGCS !..
My year as Director of Programming at WGCS was a great experience as I worked to provide interesting music of good quality in a variety of styles and genres to the Goshen community. It was a highlight of my time at Goshen College and of my life.
Gerald (Tony) Hurst ('65)
I'm looking forward to the 50th Anniversary Open House during alumni weekend. My stint at WGCS was limited to two years, 1962-63. I did general announcing scheduled several evenings a week for the classical music broadcasts. On weekend nights, either Friday or Saturday, I had a two hour program called Campus Notes during which I was allowed to play bluegrass and folk music which was hitting a high in popularity in our country. My intro theme was Flatt and Scrugs "Foggy Mountain Break Down". My brother Ron broadcast jazz on the alternating weekend nights. Both these genre were quite new to WGCS listeners and did create some discussion about their appropriateness coming from a "classical" station. Also during the basketball season John Zook, my brother Ron and I did a number of court side live broadcast of Maple Leaf games.
The faculty advisor for WGCS was Roy Umble, of blessed memory. We always had the feeling that Dr. Umble was looking over our shoulder and some of my humorous memories revolve around his overseeing. The Russian composer Dimitri Shostokovich played a part in two incidences. One evening I had to quickly announce the next composition and the pronunciation came out "Shaw stock' o victch". There was that immediate phone call from Dr. Umble correcting my mispronunciation. Another time after my roommate Jim Mininger, one of this year's Culture for Service honorees, and I were eating pizza and joking about possible errors in pronunciation, I introduced the next selection by the Russian composer Dimitri "Shystakovich". I quickly reached over and took the receiver off the phone eliminating the inevitable call from Dr. Umble. Trying to eliminate gaffs in foreign pronunciations station manager Bill Davidson arranged for announcers to attend a pronunciation workshop.
I thoroughly enjoyed my two years at WGCS but was unable to continue announcing during my last year in college due to the demands of changing majors and student teaching.
Curt Holsopple
I was a student who benefitted from the WGCS experience 1969 to 1973. I came back and served as chief engineer from fall 1978 to spring 1983. During that time, we raised power from the original 250 watts to the 5000 watt transmitter, and we increased our broadcast day to being on the air at least 12 hours daily, 365 days a year. While I was CE of the station, I was rummaging through a box of junk in the back of the fan room next to the studios, and I found the venerable old RCA microphone used by WGCS during its first two decades of operation. Since it was destined for the trash (in others' eyes, anyway), I adopted it, did some restoration, and I still have it. I've used it as a display item all these years. Here it is as a stage decoration for a "radio show" play at Yoder Barn in Newport News, Virginia. I'm the guy in the vest at left. I've considered myself a steward, rather than the owner. These microphones are something of a collector's item now, going for roughly $2500. This mic hasn't worked in a long time, and restoration of the ribbon element typically runs about $250. So at this point, it's a display item for a secure showcase rather than a useful piece of equipment.
John Kaufman
On April 11 1965, I was at home in Middlebury, Ind. In the afternoon, we had thunderstorms with hail. Later the sky was a yellowish-green hue. Since it was spring vacation, I was elected to go to the radio station to broadcast the evening service from the College Mennonite Church. (As a freshman, I had taken and passed the 3rd Class Radio Engineer exam and had that license.)
The practice at the time, I believe, was to arrive just early enough to sign-on the station and play a little prelude music until the evening service started. Soon after I arrived at the station, a thunderstorm began. I was unable to make contact with anyone at the sound booth at the church sanctuary. In a few minutes, the transmitter turned off as the result of a severe lightning strike. I duly noted this occurrence in the station log, waited the prescribed time, and restarted the transmitter. While turning on the transmitter, I noticed that the sky was severely dark and that it was raining heavily. I could also see the trees blowing quite a bit. Back in the control room, I signed on again, but still could not reach anyone in the sound booth at the sanctuary. In just a minute or two, the transmitter turned itself off again because of the electrical storm. I duly noted this occurrence in the log book for the second time and decided that they had apparently canceled church because of the storm. By the time I had turned everything off and closed up and locked and went downstairs to my car, the sun was beginning to come out.
Since I was at the college anyhow, I decided to see who was still in the dorms because of not being able to go home for spring vacation. There were two other students in the Kratz lounge watching TV. When they saw me, with surprise, they asked, "What are you doing here?" I then told them about my assignment of broadcasting the evening church service and the ensuing events of the storm and the transmitter turning itself off. When they realized I had been in the radio station control room during the storm, their faces turned quite white. They then told me that there had been a series of tornadoes and that they had watched one of them come across the hospital and lift up and pass over the Union Building. We then watched WSBT-TV. Their announcer was stating at that time that Goshen had apparently been wiped off the map because they were unable to reach any emergency personnel in Goshen.
The other students and myself then went to the north end of the top floor of Kratz Hall where we could see the tornadoes going through Dunlap. I remember remarking to the other students that the tornado must have hit the Midway trailer court because I thought I could see sides of mobile homes circling at the top of the visible tornado.
Those of us who were students at that time are able to remember many stories that we heard in the following weeks and months about the Palm Sunday tornadoes.