by Chris Wissmann
I wasn’t interested in radio per se. I had done radio speaking for my high school speech team, mainly because I had a crush on one of the girls on the team—and nobody else wanted to do radio, so I was on the team. Neither of those things worked out—I was terrible at that kind of speech competition and the girl left the team. But I got to spend a few extra Saturdays with one of my best high school friends, Jeff Whitten, who also started competing in radio.
After high school I came to SIU in 1987, and Jeff went to Augustana in Rock Island, where he started DJing for his college station, WAUG. Jeff encouraged me to see if SIU had any similar opportunities—and it turned out it did.
I came to WIDB in spring 1988, my second semester at SIU. The only thing I knew about it was that WIDB was on the Student Center’s fourth floor. I still didn’t care about radio. I was just interested in music—mainly recording engineering, because I can’t play an instrument or sing—and thought that ‘IDB might get me moving in the right direction while giving me access to an amazing record library.
What WIDB was playing when Chris came
Sure enough, it did. The music was amazing—records by bands I read about but had never even found in record stores, let alone had a chance to hear anywhere else. And it was all there for us to play.
Chris and Kevin (Tyrant) Lange at WIDB
About a year later, I was able to join radio with recording engineering and began a local band show where I recorded and mixed live performances for broadcast.
But most importantly, WIDB was populated by an amazing assortment of freaks and geeks with whom I fit in perfectly. It was home. Starting in my junior year, I lived with WIDB coworkers and former coworkers until a few years after I graduated. I formed most of my best and deepest friendships—particularly with Mark Venegas, Kevin Lange, and Jeff Stapleton—at WIDB.
Chris (left), Slimb, Jazzy Jeff, Kevin (right) and Mark Venegas, foreground
I can’t wait to see them, or many others I befriended over the years, in 2020.
