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YSU students to run station
By Denise Dick
youngstowN
A new idea is developing on West Federal Street, expected to hatch in early 2011.
A jumble of boxes sits outside an office on the fourth floor of the Youngstown Business Incubator that will be home to Rookery Radio, an Internet radio station run by Youngstown State University students.
The project has two primary missions, said Adam Earnheardt, a YSU communications professor.
“The first is skill development,” he said.
Students will be able to learn the skills required in radio broadcasting as well as the business.
“The second is different from just about any college station we’ve seen,” Earnheardt said. “It’s to serve as a voice for the community — community organizations, local businesses, new and established businesses, community leaders.”
Though students are involved at WYSU, that station has a classical format. Rookery Radio will be “very much a college radio station,” the professor said.
About 85 percent of its programming will be entertainment, allowing students to showcase local talent.
“We have a burgeoning local music scene like I’ve really never seen in a town this size,” he said.
Brittany Jarrett, a sophomore communications major, looks forward to the station going online.
“I’m so excited,” she said. “Adam is giving us a great opportunity. It’s great that he’s taking the time, and it shows that he really cares about his students.”
About 50 students are involved.
Participation isn’t limited to communications majors, though; all students can get involved.
Earnheardt hopes the station starts in early January. Dry runs are planned in November, and students will get training as disc jockeys near Christmas time.
Late this month, a group of students will travel to a student-media conference in Louisville, Ky., where they’ll be able to broadcast live for two hours. It will Webcast live from the conference.
“It will give them the opportunity to showcase the Mahoning Valley and profile local artists,” Earnheardt said.
That news made Jarrett jump up and down as she rattled off the names of musical groups she would highlight.
The idea for the station started about two years ago when Earnheardt and others on campus saw a young man in front of The Butler Museum of American Art wearing a sandwich-board sign that read, “We want our student radio.”
That man’s identity remains a mystery, but Earnheardt got an e-mail from Bob Hogue, another faculty member, asking about it, and then Earnheardt and his wife, Mary Beth, a YSU English professor and adviser to the student newspaper, started talking about it.
Earnheardt met with colleagues from the Williamson College of Business to develop a business plan for the station.
The name, Rookery Radio, was selected as the winner in a naming contest among students. A rookery is a colony of birds, a nod to YSU’s mascot, the penguin. The logo also was chosen from contest entries.
The station is in the running for a $50,000 Pepsi Refresh grant for broadcasting equipment, computers, office supplies, furniture, promotions, website development and software.
To vote for Rookery Radio, visit refresheverything.com/rookeryradio or text 103199 to Pepsi at 73774.