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Struthers High radio class likely to sign off next spring
The Vindicator (Youngstown)
Photo
Garrett Hart, a consultant for radio station WAPS in Akron, helps junior Drew Pearson in the WKTL booth next to Tom Krestel’s Broadcast Arts classroom at Struthers High School.
By Jeanne Starmack
STRUTHERS
Tom Krestel remembers when it used to be “the greatest thing” to carry a transistor radio.
The students in Krestel’s Broadcast Arts class at Struthers High School may know about transistors, but the pocket-sized radios that made music portable in the 1960s and 1970s aren’t a memory to them — they’re a history lesson.
Today’s technology lets kids download whatever songs they want from the Internet, said Krestel, who has taught his class at Struthers for 30 years, focusing mostly on radio and running the school’s radio station, WKTL 90.7 FM.
Kids now choose what they want, not what a radio programmer has picked for them. They simply aren’t listening to the radio much anymore, said Krestel, who acknowledged that he does, though it’s usually stations he’s found from afar over the Internet. Right now, he likes one out of Virginia.
Much has changed since Krestel quit college 38 years ago and then found himself invited to “hang around” station WFEM in Ellwood City, Pa., where he remained for eight years. There, he said in his classroom Tuesday, he did pretty much everything.
“You name it, I did it,” he said. “From morning-news guy to program director to sales.”
When he left WFEM for Struthers in 1980, his class was open only to juniors and seniors, with competition for 35 spots.
As he looks forward to retirement in June, he has 16 students, with the class now open to sophomores.
Not as much interest in radio plus an increase in credits that are required for graduation are both at the bottom of the dropoff, he said.
When he leaves in June, he’s likely taking the class out with him.
Schools Superintendent Robert Rostan said that with the dwindling interest, the loss of Krestel and upcoming state funding cuts, the class appears to be facing its demise.
“With the state budget, it’ll probably have to go,” he said. “And there’s no radio people out there to teach it.”
So what of those 16 students — what can they get out of a class that’s prep for an industry that’s changed so much there’s almost no local programming anymore, with job cuts as radio stations downsize and consolidate?
Up until last year, students still programmed WKTL and got on-air experience. Now, the Akron-based WAPS 91.3 public- radio station has taken over that programming with an adult-contemporary mix.
But rather than taking over the station completely, said Tommy Bruno, general manager of 91.3 The Summit, the Akron station has collaborated with WKTL, which will remain owned by Struthers schools. Since fall 2009, The Summit has filled air time for WKTL, which often had periods of dead air. It also will keep an ethnic music program, which is run by adults, on Saturdays, Bruno said.
For the kids who remain in Krestel’s class, on-air experience has been replaced by writing public-service announcements for an online radio station called KIDJAM!, or kidjamradio.com
“We came up with the online station because we understand this is where radio is going,” Bruno said. “We thought, ‘Why not let these kids in something that’s heard nationally, globally?’”
KIDJAM! is for kids and their parents, with songs ranging from The Beatles to Justin Bieber, he said. The PSAs, or “attitudes,” as the station calls them, are written and recorded by the kids on subjects ranging from respect to values to nutrition to bullying, he said.
Garrett Hart, a WAPS consultant who has programmed rock stations that include WDVE in Pittsburgh, works with the students on the “attitudes” and on introductions for the artists who get play on KIDJAM!
Out of a half-dozen students in Krestel’s classroom Tuesday, only one, Robert Wolford, a senior, said he wanted a broadcast career — and he’s leaning toward television. For the others, the class was an enjoyable curiosity.
“It’s a fun experience, said Alex Cifra, 15, a sophomore, who wants to be a biologist.
Brandon Whitman, a senior, said he wants to be a forensic scientist.
“Well, you can work with me, ’cause I want to be in law enforcement,” said sophomore Tyler Reble.
For junior Drew Pearson, the class was something different to try. “Not really a career,” he said.
If kids go into broadcasting, say Hart and Bruno, who has a television background and worked as a producer for a Cleveland station, they will find more limited on-air opportunities.
“The world of radio has changed dramatically — we’re all having to evolve,” said Bruno. “Talking on a microphone — those days are over, or you’re talking for four or five stations.”