CHAPTER 11
CASUAL COMMENT LEADS TO YEARS-LONG BATTLE

After Charlie Muren, WIDB GM, mentioned to Dean of Students Wilbur Moulton in May that WIDB would be selling advertising in the fall of ’71, Dean Moulton requested a written proposal with details about the operation of selling commercials. So Charlie and Robbie Davis (WIDB’s first Sales Manager) put together a many-page typed document explaining what WIDB was, what WIDB wanted to do and why, and some details how it would be done. A proposed rate card would be included.

Click here for entire Sales Proposal

It did leave some gaps. There was no proposed “sales contract” just a statement that “SIU Legal Counsel would have to prepare” the contract. It also argued that WIDB presented no competition with the local commercial stations. Bring that up to dismiss it handily was thought to be a stratagem to put the issue to bed early on. Instead it foreshadowed a major contrived controversy that dogged WIDB for years to come.

After reviewing the proposal, Dean Moulton suggested that area broadcasters be contacted to seek their opinion about WIDB selling advertising. So, before the end of spring quarter, Robbie dutifully visited or called representatives of the DE, the Southern Illinoisan, WCIL, WINI, and WJPF. All of them were positive about WIDB advertising. Some of these stations had already hired on-air people because of their experience at WIDB. It was thought that this would pave the way for WIDB sales to be approved. Robbie’s contacts were made in early June and then he left for the summer. Charlie left too. So, Joel was in charge.

Despite the positive response of area media representatives in June, by July it was a different story. Local broadcasters, led by Dale Adkins of WINI, Murphysboro, protested to Dean Moulton that “since WIDB was subsidized by state taxes, it was unfair competition for WIDB to compete with local stations such as WINI.” The area broadcasters demanded a meeting with Dean Moulton, but he was on vacation. Joel took this delay to see if he could drum up some support.

Joel turned to Dr. John Kurtz, a respected R-T faculty member, whose area of expertise was sales. At that time Dr. Kurtz was also the SIU Broadcast Service Director. Joel was convinced that Dr. Kurtz would fully support what would be a broadcast sales lab so students could learn and practice a major broadcast skill, a lucrative employable broadcast skill – which was completely unavailable from the R-T Department or the Broadcast Service. In fact, at that time – 1971 – it could be argued that lack of a sales training facility was the main and only defect in an otherwise stellar R-T curriculum.

Joel was floored when Dr. Kurtz opposed WIDB’s advertising. Dr. Kurtz sided with the area broadcasters’ profits over student development and employability. He cited the “tax dollars” that “artificially subsidized” WIDB, which made it improper to compete with commercial business that had no such “artificial subsidy.”

Dr. Kurtz was a beloved professor and mentored many students into very successful sales and broadcast executive careers (many of whom worked first at WIDB). But it is astounding that a professor, whose central purpose is to facilitate student development, opposed student development, opposed student opportunities, opposed resume building, and discouraged student initiative because of his concern that a few thousand dollars in revenue might be lost to local broadcasters who had no connection to the university at all. This is another example of rogue university employees ignoring the university’s mission to serve student needs and instead advancing a secret agenda to benefit themselves and/or connected area locals. Dr. Kurtz was not malicious, just a company man who followed the rogue agenda set from his superiors. Years later, he came around and did support the WIDB Sales Proposal. But his 1971 attitude lined up with the university culture of ignoring student needs (even to the point of letting students die until it cost too much) and it seems painfully obvious that many university employees were involved in a cooperative effort to keep students controlled despite the employees’ wholesale perversion of the university’s state-ordained mission.

The argument that WIDB was subsidized by “tax dollars” and therefore unfairly competed was completely ridiculous and pure sophistry. It was argued that even if WIDB was subsidized by Student Activity Fees (so not “taxes”). the Building it was in (Wright I) was built with tax dollars and so WIDB was “tainted” and could never compete commercially. Dr. Kurtz stated that if someone had offered use of a building, and students contributed to a fund to buy equipment and operate a station. Dr. Kurtz would support sales, as that would not be “unfair competition.” But even one tax dollar made it improper.

Using this logic, all Illinois state universities must shut down because they are using “tax dollars” to compete against “for-profit” colleges, such as Kaplan, Westwood One and even private universities, such as Northwestern. But this argument was only applied to WIDB when there were student interests to suppress.

Only 30 days had passed since Joel became summer GM. Now he was astounded by Dr. Kurtz’s opposition, so much so that it was hard to frame the response. But Joel did his best in one of his first written arguments he presented in his July 23, 1971 letter to Dr. Kurtz.

Joel was only 19 at this time, and he did not have the skill acquired in later years to be able to zoom back to see what was really happening. Plus, no one at that time could believe that the SIU administration could be so proudly and notoriously disdainful of obvious student needs. Joel tried to explain and educate Dr. Kurtz so he would absorb the actual details and then understand. Of course the truth had nothing to do with any of this. Joel was learning fast, and he was starting to get irritated.

CHAPTER 12
OPPOSITION GATHERS AND JOEL GETS ACTIVATED

Dr. Moulton returned from vacation and met with the area broadcasters August 18. The broadcasters claimed that the “tax subsidized” competition would put them out of business. They demanded to meet with the acting SIU president Robert G. Layer, which happened September 20, 1971.

The argument that WIDB selling time would put other stations out of business is also complete sophistry. WINI was a daytime AM whose signal barely reached Carbondale. Its format was “MOR-country” playing Dean Martin, Ferlin Husky, Robert Goulet, Perry Como, Jerry Vale, etc, with 30-40 minutes of commercials each hour. WCIL was about the same, except it featured shows like “Coffee with Larry” and “The Trading Post.” No students were listening longer than 30 seconds. (WCIL did have a mono FM that had a top-40 show at night, but they were not nearly as concerned, at first, as WINI).

The claim that they would go out of business from WIDB’s competition is like saying the sun won’t rise if WIDB advertises. It had never happened before, but why take a chance?

Joel tried logic. In other Illinois University towns, such as Champaign or DeKalb, there were no problems at all with a student open air station competing with the others. In fact, the Champaign commercial station owners Joel contacted scoffed at the claims and competence of the Southern Illinois Broadcasters. The Champaign owners said if the Southern Illinois owners can’t figure out a way to program to audience needs if other stations change the market, then those incompetent owners SHOULD go out of business and let someone else serve the public.

But the SIU administration had no interest in serving the public or serving students. The SIU administration was only interested in serving incompetent area broadcasters, a misuse of state funds for an unauthorized purpose completely contrary to their job descriptions and the state-mandated duties and purposes of the university.

Joel’s letter to Dr. Kurtz in July, 1971 showed a new and different Joel. Pretty much content to dutifully show up and do his weekly news shift and maybe attend a station party or two in March and April, now Joel was getting pissed off. Part of it was disbelief that a state-funded institution could so blatantly disregard its purpose and betray those it was paid to serve. Sometime during these summer and fall months of 1971, Joel became steadfast in his determination that they weren’t going to get away with it.

But in July, 1971, there was little Joel could do personally at that moment other than prepare the letter and stay in touch with Robbie and other staff heads who were all up north for the summer. Joel’s letter shows whom he cc’d, and it was the nucleus of WIDB at that time, who were also board members. Bob Huntington had become GM since Charlie had left. Robbie was included, as well as Tom Scheithe (Program Director) Dr. Dave Terwische (Faculty Advisor) and Jack Baier (Fiscal Officer).

Dean Moulton met with the area broadcasters on August 20. No one from WIDB was invited nor allowed to attend. The broadcasters wanted to meet with SIU President Layer and did so on September 20. No one from WIDB was invited or allowed to attend. The broadcasters continued to recruit and organize. Dale Atkins called station owners as far away as Centralia (100 miles from C’dale) and told them the state was trying to take away all of their money and property. The broadcasters continued to organize. They had a meeting in November 16 in Centralia (at WILY) and Mr. S. A. Hassan, General Manager of WILY, sent his letter to President Layer demanding answers about “carrier current broadcasting,” (WIDB was never mentioned by name).

It is doubtful that any of the “Southern Illinois Broadcasting Association” members had any idea how carrier current broadcasting worked nor what regulations did or didn’t apply. It is also likely that they had learned whatever they knew about radio from actual experience, not classroom training. Note the letter is on the WILY, Centralia letterhead and the so-called “Southern Illinois Broadcasters Association” had no letterhead and did not really exist.

The questions in the letter, all loaded and suggestive, very much parallel the feelings and concerns during the riots. Examples: (a) “Is the station operating completely unregulated…?; (b) “is the station operating with university funds…in university buildings…and university equipment;” (c) “is the station soliciting commercially…with all the ramifications this entails?;” (d) “Finally, what and where is the responsibility fixed in reference to liability?”

Earlier in this history it was established that as a result of the SIU riots (and other national events) many locals, administrators, and even legislators wanted the students to be “taught a lesson.” In the fall of 1971 the main riots had only been 18 months before (which is half a generation to 18 year olds, but very recent to locals). The language “completely unregulated” sounds suspiciously like the fears of student “chaos and anarchy” just a few months before. The phrase “…soliciting commercially…with all of the ramifications this entails” stokes paranoid fears of the unknown, especially at the end “…where is accounting and responsibility fixed for liability??”

So we have “completely unregulated…all the ramifications this entails…where is accounting, responsibility..and liability?” Translated: Students must be controlled…or else there will be upheavals and disasters (riots, chaos, anarchy, etc.)…you are with us or against us and we will hold YOU responsible if you are against us.

There is another factor to consider in perspective. Remember that although it was 1971, the university had less than 6,000 students and most of campus had not been built only 7 years before. Things had been pretty sleepy before that. So this big change was still pretty recent for the middle-aged locals. Area businessmen may have been intimidated by the huge influx of Chicago students (“outsiders”) and that may have been a factor.

CHAPTER 13
THERE’S A STATION TO RUN–REMEMBER?

Meanwhile, there was still college to attend and a station to run. Fall quarter began September 22, 1971 and while it was disappointing that WIDB could not sell advertising, the show had to go on. Someone had to be at the station in the morning to open it up and sign on. Every 3-hour shift was supposed to have a jock, board operator and a newsperson. There had to be a playlist with records set out for airplay. The jingles and produced IDs, promos, and other items had to be ready. And all of this was to be ready and rolling BEFORE the dorms opened.

Tom Scheithe was Program Director. Jim Hoffman had left as Music Director and there was no replacement, so Tom had to do that too. Sam Glick was Operations Director, which meant he had to audition, approve, and schedule jocks. No one was serving as News Director. John Melin was Chief Engineer, and one of his duties was to recruit, train and schedule board operators, Jim Rohr was Public Relations Director, Pat Becker was Office Manager.

Somehow, Tom got the station up and running by September 20. It was a Top-40 format with jingles, with “underground” most nights and “Pillowtalk” on weekend nights. News was supposed to be every hour, but there was no UPI (teletype) machine, so, if anyone showed up to do news, stories had to be read from newspapers or SIU press releases.

New students made a beeline to WIDB and started filling shifts. Gary West did 14 newscasts on September 20. Justin Case came from Louisville and was installed as a 7-10pm jock. Harry Staffileno and Jim Alchenberger were his board operators. Luther Thompson briefly tried that slot, but was replaced by Ed Clanton (Brother EC). So Justin Case and Brother EC alternated evenings, during highest listenership. Kevin J. Potts, Dennis Lyle, and Todd Cave all got midday slots. Other new persons included newspeople Katie O’Neill, Don Graf, Phil Kline, and engineers Ed Kasovic and Phil Hejtmanek.

Returning jocks included Roger (“Ramjet”) Davis, Robbie Davis, Mike Murphy, Keith Weinman, Sam, Tom, even Joel, Jim Walsh, Woody Mosgers, underground jocks Harvey (Michaels) Welstein, David R. Eads, Clyde Swanson, Pillowtalk Susie Meyers (“Stacey Brennan”) and Kay Kessler (“Jennifer”), and board operators Jim Alchenberger, Dave Silver, Craig Hunsley, and newsmen Pete Jaegar and the legendary Allan J,. Friedman. Many jocks such as Roger, Todd, Dennis, Keith and others also did news and sports. Here is an edited “slice of life” to show how WIDB sounded Fall 71.

The station quickly became a hotbed of activity. Keep in mind that the station had only the “studio” space (activity room) on only one side of Wright I and there were no “offices across the hall.” Plus, there was always a jock in one studio, a newsman in the other, a board op in master control and a couple people in the production room and everyone else in the “main” room, (where the water fountain was), Next to the mailboxes for staff heads were the three weekly schedules: Jocks, News, Board Ops. There were 3 desks and at least 3 multi-line phones in the main room, but maybe 3 chairs. If you wanted to hang out, you had to stand or maybe sit on desk. Some people had 3 or more shifts each week and still hung out for more time, just in case something came up to do.

Meanwhile, at the high levels of WIDB administration, Charlie had left somewhat abruptly in June and placed his friend Bob Huntington in charge, but Bob left for the summer. Bob had been Chief Engineer after Dan left in February. But Joel had been summer GM, gotten caught up in the effort to get advertising and Joel had exhibited some major leadership qualities which greatly impressed Tom and Robbie.

There was no UPI machine for news and the Board needed to authorize payment to UPI so news could be broadcast on WIDB. Some wanted to spend the money on a “Field Strength Meter” which would be used to see if WIDB’s signal radiated beyond the dorms. But if the FSM was purchased there would be no news, maybe for the rest of the year. Frank Mazzocco was ready to become news director, but he demanded that the UPI be funded first. (Remember the priority news had had during the war, riots, draft, etc.) Tom was a board member since he was Program Director, and he was in favor of UPI. The board voted to fund UPI. Frank became news director, and was one of the best WIDB ever had at an important time for news. WIDB became the “go-to” news and information source for most students, and this never would have happened if not the UPI and Frank.

Meanwhile Joel, Robbie, Sam, Tom, and Pat wanted to push forward with the sales proposal. Joel and Robbie decided to “survey” Carbondale merchants to see if they would advertise on WIDB and if so, would that divert money they were already spending for advertising elsewhere. So one Saturday morning in early October Joel, Pat and Robbie appeared dressed up at the station and prepared to “cold call” the merchants. In some cases, surveys were left and returned by mail.

At a WIDB Board meeting October 14, 1971, it was agreed that a new position would be created, that of “Station Manager”, officially an assistant to the GM. But everyone knew Bob was done and Joel was in charge. As Station Manager, Joel could officially represent the station to others as well as lead from within. Bob left officially a few months later and Joel officially became GM. There was no need for a Station Manager now. But there was no bad blood between Bob and Joel. They started a company together, “New Dimensions Media,” which, by the following spring, had the first telephone answering machine in Southern Illinois.

Meanwhile, station programming was improving and becoming more consistent. Shifts were filled, even news. The talk show Anodyne (on Monday evenings) was usually hosted by Bob and featured guests with involvement in students, such as Dean Justice (who booked acts like the Carpenters and “Up with People” at the Arena), and Brooks High, an executive with General Telephone Company, which controlled all telephones in Carbondale at that time. (There had been dial service in Carbondale less than 10 years and touch tone service was still years away.) Bob snagged an interview with Bill Chase and his group after they played the Arena. The Carpenters played the Arena for Homecoming, but no one at the station brought them over for interviews.

Wally Wawro became music director. The station remained top 40 with jingles, and the famous ID “WIDB…Carbondale…is…together” was over top songs every hour during top 40. Here is a playlist from that time of the Roger Ramjet show:

Here is a “slice of life” from a Roger Ramjet show. He did a six-hour shift each Sunday.

In addition to Pillowtalk, underground and Anodyne, there was one other specialty show. Rob “Ol’ Blood” White had demanded programming for Blacks the year before and Howie gave him a show, But now Rob was gone and in his place came Leo Knott (The Dynamic LTL). Leo needed an engineer (board operator) and everybody knew nobody listened to the “soul show,” especially since it was on Friday 10pm-1am. Nobody wanted to engineer the show. So it fell to the youngest and newest engineer, who could not refuse the assignment. Just like Tom Sawyer painting the fence, this shift became the most coveted in the station. By spring, many were begging to do the show.

The main reason was Leo. He was very personable, charming, engaging and positive. He voluntarily promoted the rest of the station on his show. He complimented listeners who called in and made requests. He told jokes that were actually funny. He provided “features” such as “Black News” and “Yesterday in Afro-American History” (which were articles read from Jet magazine). He played music that everyone liked (much of soul music was mainstream then, such as Jackson 5, Four Tops, 5th Dimension, Bill Withers, Chi-lites, etc.)

Leo’s engineer was a 17-year-old freshman, who liked soul music, could run a “tight board,” and had some production skills. Taking a cue from Tom Scheithe’s “hatchet job” on the “Beat Goes On” jingles for WIDB’s Top-40 format, Leo’s engineer found useful jingles from Chicago’s main black radio station, WVON. Cutting out the call letters, Leo’s engineer created useful “Soulful Weekend,” “More Soul Power” and “Soul City” jingles, as well as ID’s and exits for the features.

It had been expected that only Black students would be listening, if anyone was. But by November, lots of others were listening too. There were requests for particular jingles. There were calls from dorm rooms that were crowded with people all listening to the WIDB Soul Show with the Dynamic LTL.

Leo’s engineer was Gary West. “We seemed to have a special bond. We each had skills that complimented the other. It was exciting to produce jingles and get compliments. It was exciting to run a “tight board” and people would recognize this. Leo would be tight I would be tight, we were all learning and improving, and so many people enjoyed the show every week.”

Here is an edited slice of life from the Dynamic LTL Soul Show. Listen to how engaging Leo is, mentioning callers, complementing other station members coming to visit at 1 am Wednesday.

But part of the Soul Show discussed controversial issues. When Tom Scheithe chose Leo, Tom realized Leo was not the personality to address controversial issues (and there were plenty at that time, racial and otherwise). So Tom decided that 30 minutes of Leo’s show would be a “Black Talk/Black News” show within a show. Tom selected Ken Davis for this part of the show.

No one at WIDB was sure what to make of Ken Davis. He didn’t talk much to anyone on the staff, even Leo. He just came and did his show. In hindsight, he did seem to make a good-faith effort to deal with the issues of the day (which is the main purpose of radio). And like the rest of us, he was young and he was learning too.

One Friday in the fall of 71, Ken decided to address interracial dating on his show. By then he was calling himself “K-Rap” and he was calling his portion of the show the “K-Rap Rap Line, the show for you, you the people.” K-Rap decided to take phone calls from listeners and air them without screening the calls. There was no delay system, despite repeated begging from the engineer. K-Rap decided to get things going by announcing that he had no interest in dating any Black girls since “they have too many diseases.” The phones lit up and there were more than several expletives aired. Luckily the engineer recorded the show. Here is an excerpt:

The next week the engineer discussed the show with Tom:

ENGINEER: Say Tom, by any chance, did you happen to listen to the Soul Show Friday?
TOM: No, why, should I have?
ENGINEER: Uh, you might want to listen to the “K-Rap” portion. You may want to take some action. Here’s the tape.

All of this only increased interest in the Soul Show. It was moved to Tuesdays and given an extra hour (but K-Rap still got only 30 minutes). Even though it was Tuesdays the “Soulful Weekend” jingle remained. By spring, the station became a “social center” during the LTL show, with other WIDB jocks and even the Student Body President coming down to hang at 1am Wednesday.

CHAPTER 14
SOCIAL BONDING AND SURPRISE DEVELOPMENT AT WIDB

There was an emerging social “scene” at the station. It was surprising that freshmen and other new persons would all be invited to station parties. The best ones had to be off campus, which meant hosting by the older members (had to be a junior or 21 to live off campus). Your writer’s first WIDB party was at Pat Becker’s and Kay Kessler’s on College Street. There was no smoking, except cigarettes. The music consisted of Turtles and Supremes albums stacked on the phonograph. Your writer had a porcelain-bowl worshipping experience involving Seagrams 7 (which he never consumed again) and waking up on the floor.

Less than 15 months later, your writer hosted his first “All U can smoke and drink for $1” party (with party tapes), which quickly morphed into the 40 keg “Cast of Thousands” parties at Lewis Park. But the 1971 party at Pat and Kay’s on College Street was exciting enough for a geeky 17-year -old freshman, who was flattered to be invited.

There were personal connections that resulted in station productivity. Robbie Davis and Katy O’Neill made a personal connection in December, 1971, which resulted in this:

This demonstrates the “all departments in motion” and the “hotbed of activity” that WIDB was. Almost every member was in late adolescence (or transitioning out of late adolescence) and thus encountering social, sexual, and other rites of passage. At the same time, there were radio and broadcast rites of passage, such as learning the concept of “tightness,” production skills, microphone technique, news gathering and reporting skills, people management skills, the art of the segue, and many other things useful not only for a future broadcast career but just about any career.

Far more important than the personal and career skills, WIDB offered rigorous training and experience in political, legal and bureaucratic skills, which were perhaps the most valuable and accidental education any of us could have received from the university. These came from the things we learned or had to learn to fight for WIDB’s survival and independence. None of those involved in this lengthy battle expected to be involved as they came to SIU and WIDB. People were dragged into this battle reluctantly. Most people just wanted to be regular students, and do their regular shift at WIDB, come to a meeting and/or party and that was the extent of it. That’s what Joel was doing in the spring of 71. Within less than 6 months, Joel was activated, pissed off, and leading the charge. What Joel went thru during that 6 months many of us also experienced. We started as just “regular students and members,” but then we got activated, pissed off, and joined the cause.

How did all of this come about? Recall the efforts to have a student radio station at SIU that started in 1959. Those who naively expected the university to quickly respond positively and in good faith were frustrated and disillusioned when they got indifference, incompetence, and outright hostility instead. It was obvious that many SIU professors and administrators cared very little about student development and student needs. Too many professors and administrators existed only to enhance their personal prestige and fiefdoms and to restrict and control students as much as possible. The university’s response strategy to student proposals was not much different than its response to any proposal for change from faculty or non-local public. The “playbook” was consistently applied and is in use to this day.

Although the purpose of this process is to cause improvements by facilitating and implementing meritorious proposals, this purpose was completely perverted. Instead, it became defending against and avoiding change, since change irritates the neuroses and insecurities of faculty, administrators, and sometimes locals and legislators. So with this in mind, this was the playbook:

1. Require that proposal be submitted in writing.
2. (After written proposal submitted) Deny it was received and/or require revisions and then deny that was received.
3. (After repeated submissions) Send letter acknowledging receipt, claim proposal is lengthy, will take long time (unspecified) to review
4. Do nothing further. Upon inquiry, claim it is “still being studied.”
5. (After repeated inquiries) claim “we already responded.” (Which turns out is original “it will take a long time to review” letter)
6. (After many more inquiries) claim actual response was completed, but lost. Do nothing further.
7. (After complaints filed, many more inquiries) Claim actual response was “found.” It says that “after extensive review, it is our reasoned determination that more study is needed.” Do nothing further.
8. (After repeated inquiries) Claim it is “still being studied,” When asked “By whom? When will they finish?” say you will check. Do nothing further.
9. (After repeated complaints and inquiries) Claim that “a committee is being assembled to study the proposal.” When asked “Who will be on the committee? Who will assemble it?” say you will check. Do nothing further.
10. (After repeated complaints and inquiries) Committee finally formed. Do nothing further.
11. (After repeated complaints and inquiries) Schedule first committee meeting.
12. Make sure committee has no regularly scheduled meetings by cancelling them at last minute. Have “informal meetings” instead when the “key members” have time.
13. (After repeated complaints and inquiries) Issue committee report, “After our lengthy and careful consideration, it is our learned determination that this matter needs more study.”
14. Do nothing further.

This is an extreme version of the “procrastinate, stall and delay” strategy. It is designed to discourage, frustrate and generally disabuse anyone seeking changes. It does make sense to deliberately make it difficult to make changes in foundational powers and goals (such as constitutions). This can help maintain consistency at a basic level for a nation, corporation, or other organization. It certainly makes sense to set a high bar to amend the US Constitution, for example, since changes must be carefully considered and be supported by a broad consensus.

It might also make sense, in a university setting, to consider carefully changes to its primary mission or basic policies of fairness and due process. But SIU chose to make it very easy to change its core mission and foundational policies by ignoring and selectively enforcing them (as well as inconsistently interpreting them). Thus, the “rules” meant to restrict powers of SIU officials were perverted for repeated abuses of power, overtly and tacitly supported by trustees and legislators. Even worse, the rules and tactics to discourage change were strictly enforced against those who had the greatest desire for change (and power too–more later). Something had to give, and it would not be the students.

All of us at WIDB in 1971 had been educated in the ’60s where we were indoctrinated with our “constitutional rights” and freedom of expression was a big one. Many of us had attended high schools where newspapers were impounded and friends were suspended or expelled for just wearing an armband. At some of our radio stations, music was censored. That was high school, and now at college, (perhaps as an adolescent rite of passage) we wanted to be in charge of the music we played and info we disseminated. We also wanted to be in charge of assessing and programming students’ needs. Judging by the survey results, we were very successful.

But almost everyone at WIDB was primarily focused on music, news, national events, on-air personnel, station sound, their personal skills, advancement of goals, and social things. Many came to WIDB with these things in mind. No one came to WIDB to be in a bureaucratic war or learn the skills needed to defeat an entrenched dysfunctional perverted bureaucracy. But, just as in the past, the university’s intransigence and distain for student needs and rights aroused what the university most feared.

in 1966 the university’s intransigence in reinstating the expelled panty raiders led to the “First Annual SIU Riots” with student mobs overturning and burning National Guard jeeps. When “law and order” advocates had their way in 1970, refusing to close the school and ordering police to gas the dorms and beat the students as they ran for their lives, it did not, by any measure, solve the problem, quell the disturbance, nor did it “teach students a lesson” about who had the power. Instead, as we know, 10,000 students took over the city and university and forced the university to close.

To this day, it is felt by many that the administration and President Morris “caved” to the students and “betrayed” the local citizens, police and troops by rewarding criminal activity. Many felt that anyone against the war was a communist, terrorist, traitor, criminal, unpatriotic, and should be attacked, arrested and/or deported to Russia. They did not understand why the 10,000 who defied curfew were not arrested, expelled and deported. Many of these supported the martial Law that was declared in Carbondale, and felt this should be in effect all the time, to keep students under control.

But no one in Southern Illinois or even Chicago had a place to process and incarcerate 10,000 arrestees. There were 6 jail cells at the Carbondale police station, maybe another 30 at Jackson County jail. What about the other 9,960 arrestees? Take them to St Louis? About 200 buses would be needed. Also, about 7,000 more police would be needed. The bottom line is that if almost 50% of the population jointly defies authority and law, it is impossible to prosecute more than a small percentage. it does not matter what the law happens to be, it is just reality.

The “law and order” folks could not accept this. Someone sold them out. The violators must be punished. President Morris was blamed for not maintaining the police state in Carbondale, not suddenly hiring 7,000 police and not immediately creating the largest prison in Illinois. After the greatest 22 years of SIU, Morris was pushed out in less than a year. The “law and order” people wanted new leadership to be “tough on students” and “teach students who is the boss.”

Just as President Morris was deposed and the “law and order” forces were gaining influence, WIDB submitted its proposal to sell advertising. Just as the proposal was being considered, Wilbur Molton (who had been helpful to WIDB) was encouraged to leave and was ultimately replaced by new hardliner George Mace, who masterminded deliberate disruptions in the student fee allocations designed to strangle student informational, expression, and political activities. Many students were unaware of this history and its implications.

Joel certainly was aware that the riots happened, that they helped establish WIDB, that the school was forced to close, and that was over a year before, (a very long time when you’re not yet 20). So it seemed like ancient history to Joel, Robbie and Charlie when the first proposal was submitted in the summer. No one was aware of this “full head of steam” that was gathering to, essentially, passive-aggressively and sometimes even directly “counter-attack” students.

The whole idea of “counter-attacking the students” is completely illogical. The students who took the streets and closed the school were mostly gone by Fall ’71, so the students they were “counter-attacking” just got the message that the university, locals, and police hated students. After this “counter-attack against students” began, enrollment dropped over 20% in 30 months, and the new “law and order” SIU President was forced to resign in disgrace. So the “law and order” approach failed in 1966, failed miserably in 1970, and then failed again in 1971-74. Each time it was tried, it damaged the university. It made no sense to keep trying it when it was so flawed and costly, so contrary to the mission and policies of the university and state, and so completely out of step with everyone but an isolated small number of locals, administrators trustees and legislators who were determined to misuse state money to advance their personal social and political goals. And they did it repeatedly, flagrantly, and at times, notoriously.

To everyone at WIDB’s knowledge, no one at WIDB was involved in any criminal activity during the riots in 1970. There was no “WIDB Float” in the march of 10,000 that defied the curfew. Things had been quiet (over 15 months) since that time. No one at WIDB could conceive how or why the administration would take a hard line against WIDB. But this unexpected hard line was exactly what was needed to arouse and motivate WIDB to fight its longest and most significant battle. After the initial shock of Dr. Kurtz’s opposition to WIDB sales, only a few senior WIDB members were involved. Robbie was impatient to start selling, and he had a low tolerance to getting the runaround. Pat Becker was Office Manager – though she was interested in sales – and helped Robbie and Joel survey the Carbondale merchants.

The sales proposal was revised and approved by the WIDB Board at its meeting on October 14. It was submitted to the future new hard-line Dean of Students George Mace (then he was an Assistant to the President) later in October. Then came the so-called Southern Illinois Broadcasters Association letter to President Layer in mid-November, with Layer responding in December apologizing to the SIBA and offering to meet with them. WIDB was not even allowed to communicate with the president, let alone meet with him, let alone having him apologize and roll out the red carpet.

At the very same time WIDB was revising, passing, and advocating the Advertising Proposal, (Mid-October-November), SIU’s search for President Morris’ replacement continued to use up thousands of dollars. The highly paid executive search firm Richard Quaintane and Associates had won an extension of their SIU contract since they were not able to find anyone who wanted the SIU job or was tough enough against students. They finally found a candidate for SIU President that seemed to fit the trustees’ bill and was willing to take the job.

After this “nationwide search,” the Board of Trustees finally selected David R. Derge, a refugee from the Nixon administration. Derge was hired from Indiana University, where he gained a reputation for crushing protests to “teach students a lesson.” As a Vice President there, he forced police to arrest students for protesting a 67% tuition increase (of course all were acquitted and sued the school). But Derge, fresh from the “law and order” Nixon administration and using state resources to crush students, was the darling of the SIU Trustees who were determined to bang their heads against the wall in yet another failed effort costing millions of state dollars to advance their personal agendas to “teach students a lesson.”

Some perspective: Morris became SIU’s leader in 1948 and embarked on a 22 year very successful mission to expand a small rural college into a modern University. Enrollment increased over 600%. Morris expanded educational offerings kept tuition low and oversaw a transition where students were recognized as adults and afforded more power, resources and freedom by the university. SIU was (at Morris’ departure) the 18th largest university in the US.

Derge became SIU’s leader in February 1972 and embarked on a 25 month war on students, faculty, and administrators. He hired people like John Huffman (who was facing a lawsuit for his role in the student murders and repression at Kent State). Derge reduced educational offerings, fired 50% of administrators, and 103 tenured faculty who dared to disagree with him. Student clubs were suddenly not allowed to copy anything “that might reflect poorly on the university.” Students were threatened with arrest for attempting to get something copied. Derge encouraged arresting authorities to be as tough on students as possible. Police viciously attacked a WIDB newsman in May, presumably fueled by Derge’s general orders.

Derge had turned a relatively sedate functional and nurturing SIU into a war zone of fear and loathing. Within 12 months, enrollment plummeted 20%. Within 25 months, the Board of Trustees forced Derge to resign (University propaganda fraudulently claims he “retired”) and embarked on another hundred-thousand dollar multi-year “search” for a new president.

It was this mentality to misappropriate state funds to “punish students” that was SIU’s downfall that has continued to this day. FY2020 enrollment is 70% down from when Derge came in, due to a steady decline starting in 1972 (there was an uptick in the 80’s but after the Board brought in John Guyon to outlaw Halloween and punish students, enrollment resumed plummeting.)

CHAPTER 15
JOEL’S FIRST 11 WEEKS AS GM BRING BREATHTAKING WIDB ADVANCES

But winter Quarter 1972 still began January 2 at WIDB with some significant schedule and staff changes. In the fall. mornings had been done by Robbie and Woody Mosgers (Woody’s World). Woody was talkative, irreverent, and foreshadowed a “morning zoo” format. Woody left a few weeks before the end of the year and his shift was taken by Joel himself. Joel billed himself as the “Virgin Jock,” and one memorable highlight of his show was perusing the Sun-Times, noting “Bargain-Town” ads. No recordings have ever surfaced of any Virgin Jock shows.

During the 11 weeks of Winter Quarter, WIDB made breathtaking strides. These were also Joel’s initial 11 weeks as GM. WIDB expanded to 24-hour operation. Coverage expanded to the Student Center, Carbondale Cable channel 13, and Cable FM 104.1. There was a new Music Director, new on-air talent, and it seemed that more and more students knew about and/or listened to WIDB.

Joel knew his future did not lie in jocking, so in January, Mike Murphy started mornings. “Murph” came from WLTL, Lyons, was a Bleacher Bum Cubs fan, and loved Wally Phillips (who did mornings on WGN). Since Wally was getting 50+ share in Chicago, Murf followed Wally’s ideas of using drop ins and taking phone calls. Ed Kasovic became his engineer and essentially Murph’s producer. Morning audiences soared for WIDB in 1972. Here is a “slice of life” from one of Murf’s first morning shows on WIDB.

Meanwhile, WIDB’s Wally, Wally Wawro, left as Music Director. Wally had always been more of a jazz guy and WIDB was still mainly top-40. Wally may well have been ahead of his time. In 1975, for example, when WIDB played a lot more jazz, Wally would have been a much better fit. But in 1972 Tom wanted WIDB to emulate WLS and WCFL’s top-40 sound, which was not Wally’s favorite. Wally went on to work at TM Productions in Dallas for many years.

But in January 1972 Tom appointed a new Music Director who was an extremely enthusiastic 18 year old freshman who loved the Turtles and the Jackson Five and wore his Captain America shirt at the station. He ended up having the greatest influence on WIDB’s music and programming over the next five years, greater than any other person. His name was Todd Cave.

Even though these were the last few months of WIDB’s top-40 programming, most members were solidly behind it and embraced top-40 skills and priorities. “Tightness” and “flow” were important in programming, which required matching the right jingle with songs, for example. When it came to music, there was a 40 song playlist. Except for 3 “oldies” per hour, all music came from the playlist, from 7am-10pm every day. The 40 songs were selected each week by the music director. So almost 90% of WIDB music was selected by one person.

In January, 1972, that person was a barely 18 year old freshman. He liked Chicago, the Turtles, Beach Boys, Jackson 5, even Donny Osmond. But he also liked Aretha Franklin, Temptations, Todd Rundgren, Yes, Paul Simon, Neil Young, T Rex, Bill Withers, Billy Preston, and Grand Funk. Here is how Todd sounded on WIDB in his first few weeks.

At that time the shared aspiration was to sound like the great top-40 stations, WLS, WCFL, WABC, CKLW, KHJ, etc. There was a constant flow of airchecks from these stations; many wanted to listen and learn what was new at these stations.

We learned that there were constant innovations in Top-40 music, programming, jingles, production styles, etc. We wanted to keep up so we would be ready to work at the highest level. So when it came to programming music, it was more about “being like the big stations” rather than selecting music suitable for the audience. The “big stations” tried to program records that would become big hits, and the earlier they played them (and the more success the records would have) would be a mark of success and pride for the Music Director. The MD was supposed to use his own judgment and not wait for the record to prove itself at other stations before deciding to play it.

Before he left WIDB, Wally Wawro selected music he liked for the playlist, such as “Tightrope Ride,” by The Doors and “Behind Blue Eyes,” by Who. But many of the ones he selected were not hits (“Went nowhere,” we would say) and Wally was shown the door.

With that backdrop, Todd knew he would have a short leash and better not screw up. One of the toughest challenges for Music Directors in Todd’s position was to select an artist that had no prior hit or track record. It was usually safer to play artists with established names. But Wally had played the Who and Doors and it didn’t work.

In his first quarter as Music Director Todd demonstrated an uncanny knack for picking first hit artists. He played “Roundabout” by Yes, “Horse With No Name” by America, “Heart of Gold” by Neil Young. Todd would play these months and weeks before other stations. The result was WIDB always sounded brighter than WLS, etc, because WLS was playing WIDB’s songs from months ago, and sounded old and dead. In the spring he played Roberta Flack (“First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”) Bill Withers (“Lean on Me”) Todd Rundgren (“I Saw the Light”) Jackson Browne (“Doctor My Eyes”). Everyone played these songs eventually, but Todd and WIDB were weeks and months ahead.

The first WIDB shirts were printed and distributed in March. It was a navy kissing twins logo on a yellow shirt. These shirts were the only WIDB thing we had, and the shirts were worn to death. Your author’s shirt was only off for washing. Only one of them survived 1972.

Of the second shirt generation we have the navy on green (not pictured)and the third generation, white on red.

WIDB also was cementing its its role in the lifestyles of students. On February 2, 1972 (Wednesday) your author arrived at the station about 11 am to find a complete hotbed of activity. All phones were manned, all lines lit, and the calls kept coming in over and over. “What happened?” I wondered. A riot? A disaster? No one could answer me because the calls kept coming in. Finally I figured out that the draft lottery for those born in 1953 had just come over the UPI wire. (This did not apply to your author, thus off his radar).

Why was this of such crucial importance to so many? The war was still going on, and they were still drafting. If you were drafted, you could be in Vietnam in 30 days, and we saw (and heard from) the vet students who survived and then came to SIU. Almost all of them looked like (and told you) they were scarred for life, inside and out. There were many many other reasons people thought the draft was wrong but almost everyone thought being drafted was “not good.”

Prior to 1970 or so, there was a system of deferments that allowed, for example, a full time student at SIU who kept a “C” average to be exempt. This swelled the ranks at easy-admission low-tuition SIU. But starting in 1969, there was a draft lottery every so often for separate birth years.

This is how it worked. On February 2, 1972, they picked the numbers for birth year 1953. this meant that if you were born in 1953, and your birthday was picked first, you were going to Vietnam FOR SURE and probably RIGHT AWAY. It did not matter if you had paid tuition, a housing contract, a girlfriend, etc. However, if you were picked after 100 or so, you were probably safe. They had to take all the people on the first birthday, then move to the second one, etc, until the quota was reached.

So on February 2, 1972, these numbers were drawn at 11am EST in Washington, DC and would appear in the newspaper the next day. Few wanted to wait. They did not call WSIU, WCIL, University News Service, the Daily Egyptian, or the Southern Illinoisian. They called WIDB. What was their boyfriend’s number, their own number, their friend, roommate’s number. It went on all day long, and into the evening.

Your author ran into a fellow student that evening who was on his way to Canada because he had been picked #1. Just halfway thru the quarter, he was never seen on campus again.

This was very important, perhaps THE most important thing that day to students, and where did they turn? WIDB. Only 5 weeks later students also turned to WIDB for immediate information when the crane collapsed on a crowd of students. WIDB was established as the “go-to” place for info important to students.

WIDB extended itself in yet another way. Joel finally secured the “across the hall” temporary space for WIDB. It was designed as living quarters for up to 8 men, with closets and its own bathroom and shower. There was a front (smaller) room where the bathroom was, and there was a wall dorm phone. The back room was much larger with curtains, closets, and windows overlooking the wooded area between Boomer & Wright. There was room for 6 desks and a couch! Staff meetings did not have to be in the laundry room any more.

At this point WIDB had signed on less than two years ago. Not on during summers, breaks, or when SIU closed, WIDB had only programmed about 15 months. Yet WIDB was substantially integrated into student life. It was heard behind many doors in dorms. It was sought out for information. People knew about WIDB.

This confirmed almost everything the proponents of SIU student broadcasting had expressed since 1959. There were important student needs not being served that could and should be served by students. Remember SIU’s broadcasting expert, Buren C. Robbins’ claim that “WSIU would serve students’ needs.” When the crane crashed on March 6, 1972 at 10am, WIDB had news bulletins and a person on the scene in minutes, as well as numerous follow-up comprehensive reports minutes and hours later. No one at WSIU knew about the crane crash until about 4pm, when someone looked at the teletype. Several surveys done over the years never showed WSIU with more than 6% student audience, with WIDB getting 60-80% in dorms.

Remember Robbins’ idea for the university to pay for FM radios in every dorm room tuned only to WSIU? If that had been done instead of WIDB, no one would have known for hours that students had been severely injured and killed, and power was off on much of the campus.

It appears this very success, students developing employable skills and careers, was what the administration sought to extinguish.

Meanwhile, WIDB expanded its programming reach. By February, Joel was able to somehow cajole Doc Daugherty into allowing WIDB to be carried over the Student Center speakers. (Previously WCIL “Muzak” ie. “elevator music” had been used). The station was not only in hallways but piped into student activities, student government, etc. Also, where the bookstore is now used to be a lounge for students (“Magnolia Lounge”) with couches and fireplaces. WIDB was piped in there, at higher volume than the hallways.

This was good and bad. When the construction crane collapsed on a crowd of students near the Student Center at 10 am on Monday, March 6, 1972, students crowded into the Magnolia Lounge to hear the WIDB news reports about the students who were killed. That was good. (Not the students being killed, but the reliance on WIDB). But in April, when Joel wanted the WIDB working paper revisions approved by the Student Senate, WIDB news featured New Horizons Party candidates, political opponents of Joel’s allies, who were listening in the student government offices. Even worse, the opponents dissed Joel’s allies and the newsperson did not seek a response. This was bad, leading to the attached letter from Joel’s guy, Sen. Buzz Talbot. The Working papers revisions were passed, but Joel had to do some “leaning” which led to fallout.

During April, there were Student Government Elections. Joel had to use up some favors to get the Working Papers amendments thru the Senate, so Joel kind of “owed” Vice-president Jim Peters of the Student Involvement party , who was running for president against Jon Taylor of the New Horizons Party. When he had them down to the station for an “Anodyne” show, he showed some favor to Peters by having Peters in the studio with him (Joel) while John Taylor had to sit outside.

Dave Silver observed this obvious favoritism during the live show and said “Peters better win this election or Joel and WIDB will be in trouble.”

Jon Taylor won the election, which was fraught with controversy. One example is ballots found in a Wall Street ditch where they had apparently been thrown by Election Committee workers en route from a polling place to election central. Another example was months of contentious hearings challenging Taylor’s eligibility. But Taylor eventually became president and Joel, somewhat red-faced, had to make amends. It turned out easier than he could have imagined.

Remember the Dynamic LTL and the Soul show? By May, this was one of the most popular shows on WIDB, Tuesdays 10pm-2am. One of the first Tuesdays after the election, Jon Taylor shows up at WIDB at 1am during the Soul Show. Of course, we immediately put him on the air and you can hear what he had to say about WIDB here:

Your writer feels unqualified to characterize or comment on the special social fabric black students had at SIU. But your writer did observe it occasionally.

Jon Taylor was the first black student body president SIU ever had. One of the first things he did was to come to WIDB to address the audience of the Soul Show. This was very flattering to WIDB and the Dynamic LTL, especially in view of the WIDB News episode. Joel’s problem got solved by the Dynamic LTL.

Carbondale actually had cable TV by 1972, and Joel arranged for WIDB to be carried on the FM. The original frequency was 104.1, and the audio was all mono. But now the station could be heard off campus. At that time, very few people had cable, few had FM, and almost no one hooked up the cable to the FM to get WIDB. So it seemed far-fetched that being on the cable would ever do much for WIDB. To increase WIDB’s reach thru the cable, Joel got the cable system to carry WIDB on Channel 13. This may not seem much by today’s standards, but at the time it was a huge step for WIDB.

When Carbondale Cablevision started in 1972, there were only 13 VHF channels. There was no cable box. You attached the “cable” to your 13 channel rotary-tuner TV to get the local stations (Harrisburg, Paducah, Cape Girardeau, and WSIU) but also the St. Louis Stations (KMOX, KTVI, KPLR, and their PBS channel) one channel on the cable was “local” programming, and channel 13 was the weather dials.

The “weather dials” were a row of meteorological meters (temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed & direction, etc). An automated camera would zoom in on each meter and pan slowly back and forth, 24 hours a day. And WIDB was the audio.

Keep in mind that just as few had FM at that time on their radios, most TV’s were only channel 2-13. All TV’s had mono speakers. The motivation to get the cable was to access the St Louis stations, but while sitting around engaging in the usual libations, watching the weather dials and listening to WIDB became very convenient and appealing.

With these new outlets for WIDB, Joel felt it was important to program 24 hours. The station had been signing off from 2-7am weekdays and 4-10 am weekends. It did not seem feasible to fill shifts during these “late night” hours. So Joel found “Tape-a-Thon” at Trueblood. Tape-a-Thon was a reel-to-reel tape player only, played at 3.75 IPS and had two important features: it used 10.5″ reels and it reversed automatically. Thus,it would play up to 6 hours of recorded program. This may seem basic and stupid by today’s standards, but in 1972 the only automation systems were all reel tapes and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Joel got the Tape-a-Thon for nothing. But the programs had to be recorded.

So “All Night Music” was born. Katy Jascula, under Tom’s direction, recorded numerous liner/ID’s which were assembled on one long cart. The format was just to segue generally downbeat music and play a liner/ID every 1/4 hour. No other talking or announcing songs. The shows were recorded in 3 hour segments (one side of a 10.5″ tape). After two weeks of recording live shows, there were about 10 6-hour tapes in the can. Here is a brief excerpt of the transition into All Night Music at 2am:

It worked good, in future years this time slot would be called “Pillowtalk” and was done live. But in 1972 it allowed the station to be 24 hour for the first time.

As the weather turned warm in March, thoughts turned to Campus Beach. The lake was (relatively) clean then and it was a pleasure to swim. There was a large wooden raft about 100 yards out, that could accommodate 10-15 people. Some of us went to the beach and came back to report it was great but there was no music we could get on the radio. And that was true. In the daytime, with an AM transistor radio, you probably couldn’t even get KXOK, there was no WTAO yet. So enterprising WIDB engineers decided to address this problem. A phone line was installed to carry the audio, the spare 4-watt transmitter made its way to the beach and voila: WIDB was REALLY on the air at 600AM.

It worked great. We did get some calls from people wondering how they got it in their cars. We would just ask “Are you near any utility lines?” and they would say “Oh yes, I can see some over yonder,” and we would tell them it was leaking from the lines.

Your author would bring his transistor radio out to the beach Sunday morning in a plastic bag for the 100-yard swim to the raft, and then lay on the raft and listen to WIDB. People could use the beach house phone to call in requests. There was a WIDB sign on the beach house with the request line #. It is a great memory. Pirate mentality lived on into the ’70s.

As spring and even summer weather extended into May, national events triggered local protests. President Richard Nixon announced increased bombing of North Vietnam and mining of harbors. During the first week in May protest rallies were organized at SIU. Just as in 1970 (when students murdered at Kent State triggered a nationwide response), there was great concern at SIU about extreme responses to protests elsewhere.

The WIDB news department (with help from those who knew a few phone tricks) was able to send and receive lengthy reports of protests and extreme responses from all over the country. Here is a 9:45 WIDB extended newscast from that time with Chris Bury, Katy O’Neill and Mike Slabik. (In fact, the SIU march, planned for the next night, is mentioned in this newscast):

Here is a follow up “news bulletin” aired at 1am with Assistant News Director Chris Bury:

Here is another at 1:30 am with News Director Frank Mazzocco:

You may ask, “Why are Frank and Chris at the station at 1:30 am doing this?” The answer is that they had the highest dedication to their job, to keep students informed as professionally as possible. There was no newsperson scheduled, so Chris and Frank came in. That’s the kind of leader Frank was. That’s the kind of dedication Chris had. A fantastic example for the news staff.

The SIU protest march happened the next night. It was supposed to start at 9pm and come to the Towers. Around 9:30 pm, your author and Harvey Michaels walked over to the Schneider/Mae Smith area and looked north.

At that time there was a large vacant field from there to across Grand Avenue. A few years before, this had been a trailer court called “sin city,” and Howie Karlin had lived there. A few years later, the co-rec center was built on the north side of Grand. But in 1972, there was nothing there, and one could stand between the towers, look north, and see almost all the way to Hester street, past Grand.

That’s what Harvey and your author were doing, as we were advised that the protest march was supposed to come towards the towers, from the north.

It was a candlelit march. At first we saw a few candles in the distance, on the far side of Grand. Then there were more and more candles, spilling into the open fields. More and more kept coming from the north, all holding candles. Now there were thousands of candle holding protesters, completely filling this square-block field. we could see their faces and hear their yelling.

The field was jammed and more kept coming from the north. The crowd moved towards the towers. Harvey went back to the station because his show started at 10. Your author went into Schneider to use the lobby phone to call the station to give a news report about the protest event. While giving the report live on WIDB, your author noticed a protester pulling the fire alarm. Thinking fast, your author reported not a false alarm (because there could have been an actual fire somewhere in the building) but that “I just saw someone pull the fire alarm and I do not see any smoke or fire here,” which was true and accurate.

The purpose of pulling the alarm was to get everyone out of the dorms to join the crowd, which then moved to the strip.

Your author returned to the station as the 9:45 newscast finished and Harvey was starting his show. “It’s 10 O’clock Carbondale…and there’s a riot going on!” Then he played “There’s a Riot Going On” by Sly & Family Stone, then “Volunteers” by Jefferson Airplane and then “Street Fighting Man” by the Rolling Stones. “Everybody into the streets! The Revolution is here,” announced Harvey.

Just hanging out and taking all of this in, your author asked:

YA: Gosh Harv, do you really think this is a good idea?

Harv: What do you mean? It’s the revolution!!

YA: Oh, I didn’t know….I guess it’s OK then.

Meanwhile, at Schneider, a cadre of over two dozen SIU, Carbondale and State police with weapons drawn, formed a blockade around the building and dared residents to come out. When they did not, police tear gassed Schneider and physically attacked any student they could find.

Kevin J. Potts was on the 14th floor of Schneider at the time. “I’ll never forget seeing the police in armor and helmets drawing their weapons, and their hate filled faces daring us to come out so they could try to kill or injure us. And we were just sitting in our room, doing nothing. The message was loud and clear. No student was welcome in Carbondale. The police and SIU authorities will put student lives in danger and want enrollment to drop to zero.”

Tim Carvis provided this recording of police scanners from this exact moment:

Kevin was not injured but the same police viciously attacked a WIDB newsman. More details here in the posting of the victim, WIDB Newsman Ron Kritzman.

Things looked like they were bad and would never change. No one knew that within 10 months, the draft and war would be over and protests would be replaced by streaking.

During May, the strip was closed to cars weekend nights. WIDB Newsmen Tim Carvis and Alan Wood were on the strip interviewing an Illinois State Policeman videotaping the crowd for evidence. Al interviewed Mayor Neil Eckert too. Here are the excerpts:

It had been about a year since Charlie casually mentioned to Dean Molton that WIDB would be advertising. Now the battle lines were drawn, and the university and Derge were about to be set on their collective ear by Joel and WIDB.

But during this time, WIDB had still been a radio station, 24 hours/day, 18 newscasts/day, people coming and going, learning and developing their acumen and talents, despite SIU administrators. Sam Glick became Program Director. He changed some of the jingles. Murph and Robbie were still doing mornings, Justin Case and Brother EC were doing evenings, and WIDB was firmly established on campus. Many staffers mentioned that when they walked down the halls of their dorm (or another dorm that they were visiting). they heard WIDB on behind every other door. Surveys showed WIDB had an 80 share and a 30 rating in dorms on weekday evenings. WIDB was consistent, reliable, and the best thing students in the dorms could get on radio.

CHAPTER 16
UNIVERSITY MOVES FINANCIAL GOALPOSTS

As March unfolded, Joel prepared WIDB’s annual budget and fee allocation request. As explained before, the process required the applications and budgets to be submitted, then the Finance Committee of Student Senate would have hearings and issue recommendations, which were sent to the full senate for approval. Then it was sent to the Dean of Students, the Vice President for Student Affairs (if any), and then the SIU president for presentation and approval to the Board of Trustees (which was almost always pro forma). The process was supposed to start in March and be completely done before the end of the fiscal year June 30.

On the one hand this was a great learning exercise and experience for students. They were deciding for themselves how to allocate their own resources (these were student fees they were allocating) and students had to figure out a way to do this without acrimony among themselves. But the educational experience only works when the university backs it up and follows its own rules.

No one at WIDB in March 1972 knew that the administration deliberately planned to sabotage this process to strangle or exterminate the activities as well as to get the students to fight among themselves. This was a fallout of the riots, another doomed effort to misappropriate state property to advance personal agendas to “punish the students.”

But even Joel was not able to see this from a March, 1972 perspective. Derge had just ascended a few weeks before. Your writer had info on Derge from his friends at Indiana University, but no one knew how this would play out at SIU.

Joel was determined to get a large fee allocation for WIDB for FY 73. But he had never done this before. Joel knew that merely preparing and submitting a budget was not enough. He had to get the senators who were voting on WIDB’s side. Joel invited the Student Senate Finance Committee members to WIDB so they could observe how WIDB served students. Naturally after touring the facilities, some libation was in order (after all, senators were students too) and Joel was observed at the station in March and April with John Conlisk, powerful chairman of the Finance Committee and they would always be very red-eyed. John became an “honorary” WIDB member and he came to multiple reunions.

Joel’s schmoozing paid off big time as he won a huge $18,000 allocation from Student Government for WIDB for FY 73. This was celebrated at the time. But no one knew that the money would never come.

While Joel pursued activity money for WIDB, he had to keep working on getting permission for WIDB to sell advertising. After being shut out of the SIU broadcasters’ meeting with then-acting President Layer in December, Joel was referred to “Special Assistant to the President” George Mace.

Mace had come to SIU from California, and was not hired by Derge. Mace was an assistant to Derge’s predecessor. Most in that situation serve at the pleasure of the president, so when a new man comes in the assistants are swept away. But somehow, Mace gained stature under Derge. If we assume Mace knew Derge was brought in to be “tough on students” we can also assume that Mace’s promotions to Dean of Students within months and Vice President of Student Affairs shortly thereafter under Derge indicate that Mace did Derge’s bidding to “teach students a lesson.”

And here was Joel and WIDB, Advertising Proposal in hand, “assigned” to George Mace to “work out” the problem. Joel dutifully went to Mace’s office several times January-May, 1972, and Mace bandied about various ways the Southern Illinois Broadcasters’ objections could be accommodated. (“WIDB should just run student announcements, students should just start their own station, or just give up”). Although Mace’s job was to facilitate student development, he ignored that and instead illegally used state dollars to prioritize the income of private business owners miles away from the university. Mace’s illegal efforts were designed to misuse state funds to discourage student development. Mace should have been on the payroll of the broadcasters (could he have been?), not the university.

And here was Joel and WIDB, Advertising Proposal in hand, astounded by Mace’s arrogant intransigence. It was painfully obvious that Mace and Derge wanted WIDB to go away, but even then, no one realized the scope of the attack that was coming. Based on what he knew in April, Joel felt he had to “stay the course,” and keep meeting with Mace, otherwise WIDB might appear to be going away and giving up.

Meanwhile, in May, after eight weeks of contentious hearings, the Student Senate was able to hash out the slicing of the pie where everyone got something and WIDB would get $18,000. Finally there was peace among the clubs and Student Government. They met the end of May deadline, so the allocation package could be passed and the funds would come July 1, the start of FY 73.

Mace waited until everything was done and only a few days remained in Spring Quarter. Then he announced that he was “cancelling” the fee allocations because he decided they were “unfair.” Then he said he wanted students to “vote” on who should get the money. (Remember this did affect ALL student organizations, not just WIDB). There was a huge outcry. Who was going to make up the “ballots?” Who was entitled to vote? How could this be done during break? Who was going to count the ballots? What if only 50 people vote? Apparently bowing to pressure. Mace assured everyone that he would not use the ballots if there were less than 50% returned.

Mace was promoted to Dean of Students. This was a result of his blatant plan to sabotage the student activity fee allocation process.

The ballots were mailed out in August to students registered for fall. WIDB was not listed on the ballot. The ballot listed the “major” organizations first (the ones that the administration wanted to be funded) such as the DE, Obelisk (yearbook), student government. The “minor” organizations were listed in alphabetical order. Nothing was listed under “w” or “r.”

Mace’s office claimed that WIDB WAS listed. And it was. You had to look under the letter “s”, For “student radio station.” It was generally assumed that there was little chance that 50% of the ballots would be returned, (more like 10%), so there was hope that WIDB’s allocation was not in danger.

Joel had been forced to work with the same George Mace ostensibly to “refine” the ad proposal for “expedited” presentation to the Board of Trustees. Joel dutifully met with Mace as 1972 went from January to May. The Board met monthly, and it was not easy to get on the agenda. If the President’s office was pushing an item, it was in. If not, there had to be an “application” to be on the Board agenda, and there were “requirements” for the application. It was much more likely to pass quickly if the President’s office was behind it, so Joel made the attempt to “work with” the President’s representative.

Each time a Board meeting approached, Mace promised Joel it would be on the agenda. But at the last minute, Mace would say the agenda was “too full,” so it would be “next time.” The Board met in March, April, then in May. Joel (and everyone at WIDB) wanted to be ready to sell in fall. After not even being considered for the agenda in May, Joel was losing his patience. He met with Mace on June 8, 1972,

Mace told Joel that WIDB should incorporate as a separate entity from the university, to address the broadcasters’ opposition. Joel dutifully considered the idea. The main concern was (supposedly) liability for libelous broadcasts. (eg, someone on-air falsely says a particular person has syphilis and they sue for damages). But the questions of who would be directors, how the station could operate on-campus, how the station could still be a student activity, have access to funds, what rules apply to expenditures, access to campus services and events, etc, Mace avoided. He said these should be “studied.” Joel knew all too well what that meant. The Advertising proposal would die a slow and painful death.

That was the final straw for Joel. He had prepared a revised proposal, endured being shunted aside while the “important people” met, patiently tolerated Mace’s apparent flailings to try to satisfy SIBA concerns, but now there was no question that this had all been bad faith. Joel and WIDB were getting jacked around by the university, not just by the usual incompetence, but purposefully.

Having run out of excuses for putting Joel off, Mace now decided that unless WIDB would incorporate (presumably, a not-for-profit corporation somehow separate from the university), Mace and the President would not support WIDB. This was obviously half-baked, and intended only to make WIDB give up and go away.

Joel was flabbergasted, angry, and somewhat chagrined all at the same time. The sheer audacity to throw a major monkey wrench one year into the process took Joel’s breath away in exposing the illegal destructive agenda Mace was advancing. Joel was also chagrined because at least part of him was naively hoping that some of these administrators might actually do their jobs part of the time. It had now become painfully obvious that those hopes were completely ridiculous to have had in the first place.

As the school year wound down for summer (remember, on quarters, exams ended about June 15), Joel had some very important decisions to make. Everyone at WIDB was so ready to sell commercials right away. Joel had worked with the administration for a whole year, which resulted in going backwards; more obstacles had been erected from Mace and the president’s office.

Joel returned to LaGrange (a Chicago Western suburb) for the summer. He stewed about this for a few days. This was a bad situation. WIDB was “so ready” to sell commercials and solve its financial issues. Program Director Sam Glick was so fully charged (as only Sam could be) spending the summer designing a format with “stop sets’ for commercials. A sales contract was prepared. Robbie Davis was Sales Manager, and a cadre of sales people were ready. But Joel couldn’t even get it on the Board agenda.

CHAPTER 17
JOEL PREPARES TO DRAW LINE IN SAND

In July, 1972, WIDB was at a critical juncture. On the one hand, WIDB was just over 2 years old and peaking. The station was off for summer but had expanded to 24-hour, on Channel 13, on cable FM, in the Student Center, at Campus Beach, doubled its office-studio size, and ingrained itself into SIU student life. The station had many new talented members, and a much improved sound. It was serving student needs on many fronts.

On the other hand, there were major storm clouds. Funding for the upcoming year (starting September) was not there and increasingly unlikely. The prospects of advertising revenue were going backwards. The WIDB staff’s expectations of a sales operation in September were dimming.

George Mace’s sudden decision (after one year of study) that WIDB must incorporate as a condition of advertising was a major hand grenade. Mace and the SIU administration had no intention of ever supporting WIDB advertising, or even WIDB’s existence, for that matter. The strategy of “working with the president’s office” had failed.

But Joel still had to respond to Mace’s “hand grenade.” Still in Chicago (LaGrange) July 12, Joel had to type his own letter to Mace, documenting what had happened, what was happening (WIDB readying itself to sell commercials), and listing all the questions Mace’s “hand grenade” raised, which would be much harder and take far more time to resolve than the present proposal. Joel requested a “speedy response.” None was forthcoming.

 

 

Joel knew that WIDB Board of Directors’ had to make a swift decision on Mace’s demand that WIDB incorporate. But Joel was in LaGrange, the WIDB Board wasn’t scheduled to meet until September, and the next SIU Board meeting was set for August.

Just at this time, the investigation of police miscounduct in May released their report. It was a committee comprised of students. locals, Carbondale and SIU representatives. The report found that the police admitted to being ordered to provoke, gas and assault and batter students who were doing nothing but studying. The report determined that the police had committed crimes and the police and those who ordered them to commit crimes (presumably President Derge, George Mace, John Huffman) and there were grounds for prosecution.

The report should have been sent to the States Attorney for investigation and prosecution. But the police, Derge, State’s Attorney and Carbondale administration were all conspiring illegally in the “War on Students.”

Instead of the report being sent to the prosecutor, it was thrown in the garbage. Carbondale City Manager Fry proudly chrortled to reporters that since the report “disappeared, everything was now a mystery.”

The message was crystal clear. Don’t come to Carbondale for any reason or the criminal police thugs will attack you with the blessing of all local authorities. The administration was officially acknowledging ALL students to be in danger of police attacks at any time “to show students who is the boss.” The message was received and enrollment started plummeting.

As Dean of Students, Mace had to be in the middle of all of this. If the administration would send police to attack students doing nothing but studying in their room, no reason or excuse was needed to cast WIDB as the enemy.

But Joel still had to go down to C’dale to have it out with Mace and meet with the WIDB Board of Directors. He went in late July. He met with Mace on the 21st and 22nd, where Mace said he would not support the proposal without incorporation of WIDB. Joel met with the WIDB Board in a special meeting July 24 and The WIDB Board unanamously rejected Mace’s demand that WIDB incorporate.

Faced with the unified WIDB Board, Mace agreed to have it placed on the August agenda under the president’s section. But it never happened. When Joel inquired, it was alleged that there were unnamed “defects.” Meetings (back in C’dale) August 17 and 21 led back to Mace and the president saying no unless there was WIDB Incorporated (with its package of questions to be studied for months or years first).

The only option now was for little student activity WIDB, 26 months old, to take on the president.

The decision to fight is always difficult, even when personal. When it involves an organization, the challenge is greater. When the members are scattered and not in touch every day, it is tougher. Keep in mind there was no email, no internet, no cell phones, just phone, mail & telegram.

Joel had to have been in touch with Robbie (Sales Manager) and Sam (Program Director) about this and knowing Sam and Robbie, they wanted to fight.

So, now what? Joel knew the Board of Trustees had to authorize WIDB advertising and to get the Board to act you had to be on the agenda for a meeting.

This was great, but there were some logistical issues. The next Board meeting was on September 15, 1972, during break (fall quarter started September 20). Joel needed to prepare the application and materials for the Board agenda (and this had to be submitted in August, far in advance of the meeting). There was an option to get on the agenda thru a public application process. There were a number of requirements. There had to be a letter detailing the rule of the board under which the applicat was choosing to proceed. Then there had to be a proposal, supplemental background and supporting materials. There had to be a proposed resolution. Joel was in LaGrange. The station was off for the summer, and no one was there.

Luckily, Barb Kessler came to the rescue. Barb, Kay’s sister was never really active at WIDB but knew everyone there. Barb was there for summer and had impeccable secretarial skills, so this is just what Joel needed. Remember, in 1972 there was no internet, no email, no faxes and not even any word processors. Photocopying was in short supply, so carbons were used. If you wanted to show someone a document and they were 300 miles away, you had to mail it to them, There was no overnight delivery either.

Going over the president’s head for the September 15 Board of Trustees meeting, Joel (working with Barb) found the specific Board policies, rules & regulations, procedures and requirements to apply to get on the agenda. An extensive application was required in advance with all backround materials and proposed resolution or policy for the Board to consider.

Joel prepared a massive lengthy package that contained a history, background, the actual proposed policy and many supporting documents such as WIDB working papers, letters from other stations similar to WIDB, letters from professors such as Dave Terwische and Charles W. Shipley.

It contained 12 typed original pages with footnotes. (Remember there were no word processors then either). The whole thing with supporting documents was over 40 pages, and seemed quite substantial. (The final version, years later totaled over 300 pages).

Joel submitted this with a request to be placed on the Board agenda August 23, 1972. It was rejected “to give the president’s office time to consider it.” Incensed, Joel reapplied and appealed and detailed the lengthy period the president had “considered” it.

Joel made it on the Board of Trustees agenda for September 15, 1972. It was the last chance to get authorization for WIDB advertising for Fall 1972. Joel worked very hard to prepare. They said he would get maybe 5-10 minutes at the meeting. There is a transcript of everything that was said at the meeting.

For the first time, WIDB, the little student activity now 30 months old, was going to be the only focus of the Board of Trustees and president and they would all have to listen to what Joel presented. This provides a first-hand view of the interplay between the sides in 1972. It also shows Joel’s incredible personal development at that time. Joel was not yet 21 years old, but his presentation was impeccable; ultra-sharp and honed and refined to perfection.

See what you think. Here is the transcript:

Chapter 18
September 1972 The Transcript Part 1

SIU BOARD OF TRUSTEES MEETING
SEPTEMBER 15, 1972
TRANSCRIPT OF ITEM J

HAROLD L. FISCHER

We will now return to item I, which we passed over 35 minutes ago for item J, “Advertising Proposals, Student Radio Station WIDB, SIU-C, General Manager Joel Preston, WIDB has asked to present this.

JOEL PRESTON

My name is Joel Preston. I’m Chairman of the WIDB Board of Directors and General Manager of WIDB. Sitting next to me is Robbie Davis, the Sales Manager, should this proposal be approved.
I am here to speak on behalf of the matter before you, the WIDB Sales Proposal.

WIDB is a carrier-current radio station which broadcasts with low power to the on-campus dorms in Carbondale. Our programming is top 40 and progressive music, integrated with a heavy concentration of news of campus interest.

I hope you have had an opportunity to study the proposal. I realize it is a lengthy proposal, over 50 pages, yet the proposal itself represents a rather massive editorial selection of all the hundreds of items that we have collected over the past two and a half years. It offers the history of WIDB, an exhibit of the existence of the overwhelming community support and desire for the service proposal, and it demonstrates the educational worth of the program.

This proposal is not new. When WIDB was originally chartered in 1968, the Student Senate authorized sales for WIDB.

Dr. Wilbur Moulton, who was then Dean of Students, decided that WIDB should first establish itself and work out the organizational kinks before attempting a sales program.

WIDB went on the air in March 1970 and a year later, we wrote the first draft of a sales proposal and submitted it to Dr, Moulton. It worked its way to Dr. George Mace, at that time assistant to the Vice-President for Student Affairs under President Robert G. Layer. Since that time, the proposal has undergone scrutiny and revision. Supportive evidence has been gathered; it has survived a new campus administration and innumerable meetings and it has encountered some delays.

But the concept remained unchanged in all of these months. What you are now considering is, in my mind, perhaps the best-researched and well-thought out proposal originated by a student group.

We have followed the appropriate administrative channels…step by step…checked every possible point of contention. We never resorted to publicity tactics or personal attacks or embarrassing confrontations and the like. We preferred to think that the proposal could stand on its own merit before you gentlemen, and then you’d be able to see the clear thinking of the proposal, unpressured by outside influences, and reach a favorable decision.

Let’s look at WIDB’s past financing. To date we’ve depended on Student Activity Fees—about $40,000 worth in the last 3 years. It sounds like a lot of money–and it is. For the Student Activity Fee, it is a lot of money. For a radio station it is really quite small. Yet this year the Finance Committee of the Student Senate recommended an allocation of $19,000—the fifth largest among all organizations funded, surpassed only by Student Government Activities Council, Student Government itself, the Black Affairs Council, and the Daily Egyptian. We looked on that recognition by our peers of WIDB as an essential program and a vote of confidence for a job well done.

But running an operation like WIDB, which services 6400 students 24 hours a day, costs a large amount of money. Even a small radio budget is a massive outlay of funds for Student Activities. We recognize this. We also recognize that there must be a continuing flow of funds…year to year….if the program is to enjoy continuing health.

That is the reason for the proposal. We want to relieve ourselves as a burden to Student Activities, at least partially. We also want to run a radio station…and run it right!

In reviewing the optional sources of funding, we have determined that establishing a sales program could provide these extra monies, as much as $8,000 in the first 9 months. In future years, we’d be able to ask for less and less money, thereby freeing more money to be used effectively in other areas. It is reliably estimated that in 3 to 5 years, WIDB would need only a small allocation to be used as insurance against the possibility of a “bad” year, when sales income might drop below estimated receipts. The primary concept of the proposal is to relieve ourselves as a burden to Student Activities, and turn ourselves into an asset.

It is important to add at this point that this idea is by no means without precedent. There are over 400 carrier-current radio stations similar in organization and purpose to WIDB throughout the United States which bring in varying amounts of sales income to supplement other revenue.

And, in Illinois, every state school which has an operation like ours has given the station the right to solicit and receive advertising revenue. Notably WKDI at Northern Illinois University will bring in $30,000 this coming year. Only three years ago they were in our situation and started their sales program by bringing in $4,000. Such is the potential of this sales program. WIDB may not seek to make $30,000….we seek to cover our operational expenses.

There are precedents on the Carbondale campus. The Daily Egyptian in 1970-71 covered 62% of its $300,000 in operating costs by selling space in the newspaper, while Student Activities paid 17% of that cost. That’s what this proposal would do…cover operation costs by selling time in our programming to local merchants. Surveys indicate that these merchants are jumping at the chance to reach our listeners.

A small staff of student salesmen under a sales manager appointed by myself would solicit businessmen in specific and assigned areas in Carbondale. Contracts for this service would be approved by University Legal Counsel and authorized affidavits of proof of performance would be sent to clients to assure compliance with the agreements. We would sell at a rate closely aligned with local media, so as to not unfairly undercut them.

What would the money be used for? Operational costs, such as United Press International news service, repair and maintenance of equipment, extension of our presently unattractive facilities, and most important, at least to me, salaries for staff heads. A core group of about 80 people who work at WIDB put in from 20 to 30 hours a week there, and presently receive no financial remuneration. Those students could spend those hours studying a little harder or earning money in a student work position to help finance their education. They prefer to seek the experience of WIDB.

Under this proposal, these staff heads would become student workers through the supervisory control of the Student Activities Office and complying with all applicable University and Student Work office policies and regulations. The Daily Egyptian employs 90 students…we would employ 11.

Keeping in mind our desire to relieve ourselves as a financial burden on Student Activity fees (a problem this Board, Student Government and Dr. Mace’s office has been recently struggling with) I would state that this proposal is a step in the right direction. There is much to gain and virtually no risk.

The wheels and the gears are assembled for the sales department, the system has gone thru a dry run, and this proposed sales department is ready to be integrated into WIDB, which already has proved itself to be an essential service to SIU-Carbondale students.

I thank you for the time and opportunity to address you, but also the experience of learning the ins and outs of the University system. I learned more about dealing with the system than I intended to when I started out so long ago. After following this proposal for many, many months…we now await your decision. If you have any questions I will answer them as briefly as possible right now.

QUESTIONS FROM THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES:

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

If you are ever going into broadcasting, you’ve got a valuable experience, if you are going to deal with the FCC.

JOEL PRESTON

Yes, I will agree.

MARTIN VAN BROWN

Do you get paid?

JOEL PRESTON

No I do not.

MARTIN VAN BROWN

Neither one of you. Do you do this for love?

JOEL PRESTON

It’s called “for love only” in the radio broadcasting business.

MARTIN VAN BROWN

Who is the Fiscal Officer for WIDB?

JOEL PRESTON

Fiscal officer at the present time is Robert Saieg. He is also in the Student Activities Office.

WILLIAN W. ALLEN

Mr. Preston, you have done a great deal of work, and it’s well done. There are some questions still unanswered. I have some technical ones. In the dormitories which you serve on your common-carrier system, do these students have available to them standard AM-FM broadcasts? Or is the structure of some of the buildings such that it is difficult to receive standard AM-FM reception?

JOEL PRESTON

The WIDB programming is received on standard AM receiver, along with all the other radio stations which are similarly available on the band.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

No that isn’t my question.

JOEL PRESTON

Some of the buildings, it is true, are constructed in such a manner that distant stations have poor reception. They are not necessarily unreceivable, but they have poor reception.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

How about the local stations? Could I receive WCIL anyplace in any dorm?

JOEL PRESTON

To my knowledge, yes, I can’t really say, but yes.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

Then the other question here: does the station have the same sort of educational relationship to the university as the Daily Egyptian? You have drawn this as a precedent and a parallel.

JOEL PRESTON

No sir. Strictly speaking, the Daily Egyptian is also used as a laboratory for the Journalism department and receives academic funds. They have three sources; three primary sources of income; We now seek to have two rather than one.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

And the additional funds which you hope to raise through the sale of advertising, what percentage of that goes to the various items you have outlined? You outlined a UPI wire, and I assume you operated not without a wire?

JOEL PRESTON

No, we have a UPI wire service. I have mentioned those items strictly as giving you an idea of what types of items had costs on a radio station.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

What will he additional revenue be used for?

JOEL PRESTON

The additional revenue will be used to pay staff heads, a student work position.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

Okay, what percentage goes to salary?

JOEL PRESTON

I wouldn’t be able to tell you. As I said—

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

More than half, less than half?

JOEL PRESTON

Less than half, much less than half.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

All right, then the rest of the money would be used as a direct reduction of your Student Activity grant.

JOEL PRESTON

That’s correct. Not necessarily this year, because this year costs will be involved in implementing the sales program. In future years we hope to be able to ask for less money from Student Activities.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

You receive about $9,000 a year from Student Activities?

JOEL PRESTON

Last year we received about $9,000. The recommendation this year was $19,000.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

Okay, and what other subsidies do you receive from the university?

JOEL PRESTON

Strictly from the University there are none.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

From any source whatsoever?

JOEL PRESTON

Okay, strictly from the University, we are in housing facilities built by housing bonds, so that’s not necessarily University; it is University-related.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

No, that’s the Board of Trustees.

JOEL PRESTON

Okay, Board of Trustees University as a student would see it. We have access to Physical Plant maintenance for which we pay. We have access to all of the supportive services of the University: Purchasing, General Stores, and those items. And that’s about it.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

Do you pay a fee for your use of telephone lines in your common-carrier system? Do you pay a fee to the Telephone Company or to the University for the use of these lines?

JOEL PRESTON

We pay a fee to the telephone company.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

For the use of those lines, or other services?

JOEL PRESTON

For the use of those lines.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

How large is that fee?

JOEL PRESTON

It is $10 per line. And the normal radio station would only have one or two lines to its transmitters. We have a number of transmitters, therefore, we have ten lines.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

But this is ten lines from your board to the transmitter, and you’re paying no fee for the common-carrier system since you really don’t have a standard AM transmitter.

JOEL PRESTON

We pay for the telephone lines. That is all.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

This is the telephone “B” loop from your station to your transmitter, a broadcast quality line.

JOEL PRESTON

That’s correct.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

It’s not a standard telephone transmission line.

JOEL PRESTON

Right.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

But the signal is carried on the telephone lines that go through the building.

JOEL PRESTON

No sir.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

Oh, it is not!

JOEL PRESTON

The signal is carried throughout the building on the electrical system. Any AM radio which is near the electrical system will pick up the station.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

Sure, I misunderstood. I thought you were using telephone carrier.

JOEL PRESTON

It is possible for stations to use those, yes.

EARL WALKER

How many of the individuals involved in managing the broadcasting associated with this program how many of the students are going into broadcasting?

JOEL PRESTON

We have 80 students working with us. I would say (the last time I checked was Spring Quarter) but about 50 of them are registered or intend to major in Radio-Television.

MARTIN VAN BROWN

If this proposal goes thru, you two fellows are going to get a raise in pay.

JOEL PRESTON

Not a raise in pay. Well, a raise from nothing to $1.60 an hour for fourteen hours a week. It’s not necessarily indicative of the hours we put in.

DONALD FAUTS

And even though there is no academic credit attached to the activities, at least as you are proposing it now, you do feel that the program would be of academic benefit to the participants.

JOEL PRESTON

Yes, because presently the Radio-TV Department at SIU can offer no practical experience in the operation of a strictly commercial station. By reason of their classification of their FCC license, they have to maintain educational, non-commercial. We’d like to get experience in running a commercial operation, balancing the budget bringing in the receipts.

DONALD FAUTS

It is also possible that eventually credit courses might be designed to be built around this core.

JOEL PRESTON

It is possible, but no conversation with any of the gentlemen from the Radio-TV Department has taken place.

W. VICTOR ROUSE

Have you attempted any?

JOEL PRESTON

Only on a very casual basis. They would like to see utilizing the facilities of WIDB in conjunction with some courses, but not necessarily for course credit. For instance, a course on how to write a spot, a commercial announcement, it is possible that some of our work could be taken off and given to students in that course so they could actually how to write a commercial announcement, with all the things it entails. But I think that the Radio-TV Department is reluctant to enter into that type of proposition that the Journalism Department has with the Daily Egyptian, where WIDB, which is a student activity, would become academically involved.

W. VICTOR ROUSE

Why do you think that’s true?

JOEL PRESTON

There is the whole idea of WIDB…that it is student oriented, and student managed, and student owned. And there is a tendency on both the Student Government and the WIDB Board of Directors and the Radio-TV Department not to involve each other, except on an informal basis.

W. VICTOR ROUSE

So you really don’t want that involvement either?

JOEL PRESTON

Not necessarily, I would consider it, but it brings in some experience that I know when you bring in the Department and the General Manager is no longer the General Manager, the General Manager is the person acting on behalf of the faculty member.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

Who holds the FCC…it’s not a license I believe, it’s a permit?

JOEL PRESTON

No sir, there is no licensing or permit from the Federal Communications Commission. By virtue of our low power, we fall under the regulations of the FCC. We aren’t strong enough. The FCC can step in and shut us down if we go over that power or interfere with other radio stations.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

Who’s liable in your judgment, and I want Mr. Gruny to respond to this from his point of view, do you have a judgment on who would be liable if you committed libel?

JOEL PRESTON

I would have to say, quite frankly, it would be the University since WIDB is a student activity and the University is responsible for any action of the student activities.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

Mr. Gruny, agree?

C. RICHARD GRUNY, SIU LEGAL COUNSEL

Yes, sir.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

So if someone on the station over which the University has no direct or indirect controls commits a libel, the University and the Board of Trustees would be liable for libel?

C. RICHARD GRUNY

Well, I would have to quarrel with part of the way your question is raised. The Student Activity money belongs to the Board of Trustees, and the Board of Trustees has a fiscal officer who is supposed to be responsible to them. So the Board of Trustees does have indirect, through its agents, control over the station. Whether they exercise it or not is something else.

JOEL PRESTON

I would also like to add that liability for libelous statements is present now and really doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not we are given the right to solicit commercial advertising.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

It does when you come to the question of who really is the owner of the station or who are the owners of the station, for the reason that, I believe a state body is precluded from entering into competitive business.

JOEL PRESTON

It would be our contention that we would not be entering to competitive business any more than other student activities such as the Daily Egyptian. If we would be competing with local radio stations, it would be our contention that the Daily Egyptian competes with the Southern Illinoisan and other local newspapers.

DONALD FAUTS

You’ve mentioned that there are student radio stations at other institutions in this state which do sell time for commercial advertising including WDKI (sic) at Northern Illinois University. In their experience, have they run into any difficulties in terms of the community or whatever? Have they opened themselves to charges of unfair competition or whatever?

JOEL PRESTON

No, sir, actually everybody there that we’ve contacted is surprised that this concern is evident. The only thing they have problems with the local radio stations is that the local radio stations like to hire their talent away from them.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

Then you have talked with WLBK?

JOEL PRESTON

WKDI, yes.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

WLBK, the local commercial station in Dekalb?

JOEL PRESTON

No sir, I have not.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

Well, his question was: did WLBK object to the competition?

JOEL PRESTON

In speaking with WKDI, we ascertained, and I would trust them because they…

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

That’s their viewpoint.

JOEL PRESTON

Okay.

IVAN A. ELLIOTT

You say you have 80 people working on WIDB this year. Is that approximately correct?

JOEL PRESTON

Eighty people walk in and out of our doors each week.

IVAN A. ELLIOTT

Do you have adequate volunteer help to run your transmitter and your program?

JOEL PRESTON

We have first-class, first class not in the jargon term, but first class as in FCC rating, first-class engineers to handle our transmitting equipment and programming is handled by students who are primarily involved in Radio-Television.

IVAN A. ELLIOTT

Well if you have enough volunteers to conduct your program…

JOEL PRESTON

Eighty people is sufficient to run a 24 hour operation. It is a large staff.

IVAN A ELLIOTT

You haven’t had any shortage of people. Volunteers to run your program.

JOEL PRESTON

No, it seems people enjoy working with us in a casual atmosphere reaping quite a few educational…a line on a resume actually.

IVAN A. ELLIOT

From what I’ve heard about it, they’ve had fun in this casual atmosphere. Is that right?

JOEL PRESTON

I wouldn’t deny it—yes, we enjoy each others company and it’s conducive to making friends among the staff members.

IVAN A. ELLIOTT

And if this becomes commercial from the standpoint of salaries, do you think there might be a danger of losing some of this casual atmosphere that you’ve had, and has been so much fun for those of you who have worked with it?

JOEL PRESTON

Well we figure fun is more or less a by-product and our stated purpose is to serve the students of Carbondale. And we will sacrifice if we can more effectively serve the students. A question Mr. Fischer?

HAROLD R. FISCHER

How do you figure you could become more effective serve the students? I thought you were doing a good job for them.

JOEL PRESTON

We are, we are doing it under a lot of stress.

IVAN A.ELLIOTT

Well, let’s ask a question in that regard. If you accept advertising, do you have a standard of how many minutes of ads you have per hour…you can have per hour, such as those faced by other regular stations?

JOEL PRESTON

Yes sir, we are members of an organization called the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System Inc. It is an organization which lays down strict engineering standards and strict programming standards, and we have a self-imposed standard that we are not going to put on any more than eight spots per hour, eight minutes of spots, eight spots.

IVAN A. ELLIOTT

But this self-imposed…so that if you decide you want to have fifty-eight minutes of ads and two minutes of music you have no restrictions except your self-imposed restrictions, is that right?

JOEL PRESTON

Except for the fact that we are Radio-TV students and know it is a stab in your own back. We know that defeats—

IVAN A. ELLIOTT

Well I’ll ask you something.

JOEL PRESTON

Nobody listens to your station if it has 58 minutes of ads.

IVAN A. ELLIOTT

Being an occasional radio and television watcher, it seems to me that the popcorn breaks are getting pretty long and some of them pretty obnoxious.

JOEL PRESTON

I would agree, yes.

IVAN A. ELLIOTT

Especially during the Olympics. And I wonder if this is really to the student’s benefit to have advertising to break the continuity of what would be pleasurable programming for students. You might lower in your quality and you don’t need to lower in your quality in order to maintain your service. You’ve got enough people doing the job. Have you considered this distraction?

JOEL PRESTON

We have enough people, but one of the other sources we need is sufficient funding and continuous funding year to year. Funds for WIDB have been sporadic and—

IVAN A. ELLIOTT

You’ve been in existence for two years and funded twice.

JOEL PRESTON

Three times.

IVAN A. ELLIOTT

Three years.

JOEL PRESTON

Yes. the problem is that people work there for fun, but also work there long hours…20 to 30 hours a week and, as I said I personally could be studying harder, getting better grades in my major, or I could be working at a local radio station. I prefer not to, mainly because I feel WIDB is a better experience.

IVAN A. ELLIOTT

If you become a commercial station, will you still be able to get records from record companies at no cost?

JOEL PRESTON

Yes sir, that is the standard procedure. If the record company feels you are reaching a large enough audience, and effectively, they’ll give you free record transcriptions.

ROBBIE DAVIS (WIDB Sales Manager)

I might add that they look forward to us selling time because they have a lot of commercials they’d like us to air for them.

EARL E. WALKER

Mr. Chairman.

IVAN A. ELLIOTT

How about the type of commercials that you take? Have you no restrictions except your self-imposed restrictions that you comment about in your materials on the type of commercials you accept?

JOEL PRESTON

I would draw your attention to the Working Papers in which we say that we would accept commercial advertising except in the following categories: distilled alcoholic beverages, funeral services, or articles of sexual hygene. And furthermore, there is no indication of endorsement of products or services advertised to be intended by either Southern Illinois University, the Student Senate or the radio station. To change that we would have to go through a very long procedure in the Student Senate.

IVAN A. ELLIOTT

Is there an implication of endorsement of a product by accepting advertising? Sort of a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval thing by accepting advertising on a…

JOEL PRESTON

No sir, all radio stations put that in their policy: that there is no endorsement of products. It’s merely that they are making their media available to advertisers.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

But does the public catch this implication? No matter what policy in a book in your office might say.

JOEL PRESTON

No, I think that the public is well aware that by the mere volume of announcements, that the local station is not endorsing any of those products.

HAROLD R. FISCHER

Dr. Walker.

EARL WALKER

First of all, I want to commend you highly in your presentation. I would hope that President Derge has been watching you perform. We need individuals who present themselves as ably and steadily and persistently, honestly and straightforward as you have presented it. The one problem I have is in the competition that this may or may not set up in private enterprise. I can see that this may exist in several things that we have and I’d like very much to see this supported. But at this point I find myself saying we need a general review of the entire policy of the University in advertising and selling spots in all of the agencies of the University for advertising. So until a general policy is set I think we really can’t decide with fairness on this one issue. I’d like to make a proposal that we defer further consideration on this issue until we have a recommendation by the administration at to whether we continue to sell advertising for any of the agencies of the University or whether we continue to support it. In that case I would like to say that we have no alternative but to support you.

JOEL PRESTON

May I ask a question Dr. Walker? Would this review apply to all of the University services which conceivable compete…including the bookstore and…

EARL WALKER

Right, that’s what I’d like.

JOEL PRESTON

Would that also apply to Student Activities running motion pictures for no cost or little cost which conceivably competes with local theaters?

EARL WLAKER

That too. I was thinking primarily of the Egyptian.

Chapter 19
September 1972 The Transcript Part 2

IVAN A. ELLIOTT

Well, the Egyptian is in a little different category since it does have academic programs which grant academic credit having to do with advertising. Isn’t that correct?

JOEL PRESTON

That’s correct, but I don’t see the connection where that has anything to do whether or not they should be allowed to make money by selling space in their newspaper.

EARL WALKER

It’s the competition of the allotted dollar I’m thinking of. That every industry, I assume, or agency in private enterprise allots a certain dollar to advertising, and if the Egyptian or the radio station of anybody else if making some of these dollars this is competition.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

Why have you, or have you considered the possibility that you would not have to come to this Board for consent? This is a method open to you of not-for-profit corporation which would allow you to do…it would require that you do it in one fell swoop. What you are proposing to do anyway, and that is finance the station ultimately, totally from advertising revenue, if I read it correctly.

JOEL PRESTON

At least partially was the only intention this proposal was ever submitted. We want to relieve ourselves, at least partially, as a burden on the Student Activity fees. We never want to separate ourselves, or claim ourselves independent of the Student Activities program. It’s too strong a program. Plus, incorporating as a not-for-profit corporation would completely sever the ties between such services as Telephone Service, General Stores, and University Legal Counsel. We would no longer be associated with Southern Illinois University. What this proposal seeks is to set up an alternate source of funding. If we were to incorporate, we would have to set up an entire corporate structure.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

Sure, I understand that. What are the chances of getting the funding from Student Fees that you need? As I understand it, your principal motivation is to get proper funding. Your secondary consideration if that it provides a better learning experience by having the full gamut of commercial operation techniques; the production and sale of time.

JOEL PRESTON

That’s correct. There are the two.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

What are your chances, do you feel, of getting a full funding from Student Activities?

JOEL PRESTON

Last June I would have said that it would have been quite good, because we had talked to the Finance Committee and talked to the Student Senate and received what we felt was a justified allocation; a reward for what we’d done and a reward for the fact we’re completely student organized, that we serve our students. We are going to be receiving $19,000. I would have no assurance of proper funding now that the new fee allocation system has been introduced.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

Well, I have listened to your station, and I must commend you on its programming. It’s good, high quality programming of the type. It isn’t the type I would listen to but I don’t live in the dorm. But it’s kind of well done and I commend you for it. It’s clean it’s clean and timely and it’s professionally done. The level of professional competency is high. But I am concerned as Dr. Walker is about this whole bag and you’ve got a very mixed bag in your case. We have a situation where the University collects fees from students and transmits some of these fees to you and you want to get a very mixed situation of income here. Some of it competitive, some of it university subsidized, and I’m really with Dr. Walker on this thing. I’m a bit confused by it. It seems to me that you want to maintain some of your independence from the University academic programs.

JOEL PRESTON

That’s correct.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

Then you only have one choice and that’s a profit or not-for-profit corporation, which does put some burden on you that you do not now have, I recognize that.

JOEL PRESTON

I would submit that if we had wanted to organize as a not-for-profit organization, we would have done so instead of becoming a student-recognized organization. We want to be in the Student Activities structure.

IVAN A. ELLIOTT

Well, it seems to me that your program is at the present time well done and well run, your volunteers are having fun doing it, you’re not subjecting a captive audience to unwanted commercials. You have a better program now than you could hope to have from the standpoint of the listeners after you go to fees. If you can’t get the fees it would be different. So far you have been able to get from student activity fees and is seems to me that the students in the dorms will suffer from advertising instead of benefiting.

JOEL PRESTON

Well, I would disagree.

HAROLD R. FISCHER

May I cut you short, we have given you almost 40 minutes, you have done an excellent presentation, we’ve got another Trustee who’s been trying to get in here.

HARRIS ROWE

Well I have no problem if we want to look at it but I would submit to the Trustees but I’m not really suggesting in plowing new ground as I think we were trying to make it. We’ve long since crossed this problem, it seems to me of permitting advertising in our Athletic programs. And many of these other things which would be still with someone else’s advertising dollar. That to me is no bug-a-boo at all. And we very well know the change and the uncertainty and the change that may be taking place as we give the students more and more opportunity to determine where their student activity money is to go. And so they’ve come up with a plan which in my opinion the other advertisers would hardly notice at all. That’s just my guess but I think that’s probably been true at Northern. Once again we’re not plowing new ground as far as other state universities are concerned So I, me, want to be compensated in a small way for what they’re doing, and enjoying doing it isn’t any mortal sin and is no more than what they should be entitled to, and I for one would like to give them an opportunity to go ahead.

HAROLD R. FISCHER

We also have three representatives from three broadcasting stations which have asked permission to speak. Do you three gentlemen have a spokesman or can one of you speak for the three of you? We don’t want to be unreasonable on time. We’ve come a long way but we don’t have to have each of you repeat the same statement.

PAUL MCCROY

We have sort of a tri-parte presentation here each one of us.

HAROLD R. FISCHER

How much time do you…

PAUL MCCROY

Oh, about ten minutes.

HAROLD R. FISCHER

For the three of you?

PAUL MCCROY

Right.

HAROLD R. FISCHER

Fine, come in, let’s thank you young men Mr. Preston and Mr. Davis have done an excellent job. You’re to be commended for your efforts today. If your spokesman there, if you’ll introduce yourselves, proceed. You requested ten minutes and we’ll be glad to give it to you.

PAUL MCCROY

Well, I’m Paul McCroy, I’m the manager of the radio station WCIL in Carbondale and to my right is Dale Adkins, who is the manager of WINI in Murphysboro and to his right is George Dodd the manager of WGGH in Marion. We represent the Southern Illinois Broadcasters which is really all the commercial broadcasters south of Route 50. I think there are about 20 all together. Now we have met several times on this problem. We’ve been following it and we request the opportunity of presenting the viewpoint of the commercial broadcasters to the proposition. Let me say that we do appreciate very much your holding this up until we could get here. We came by separate cars. It was my first experience coming here and I was in the lead car and we saw about 20 minutes of your campus before we finally located the right place.

HAROLD R. FISCHER

You enjoyed the campus I hope.

PAUL MCCROY

We did very much. We regret really to find ourselves opposing the aspirations of these obviously dedicated and able young people here. But out position is one of opposing this. Now we have not had much time to prepare something here, we thought we would break this up into three parts. My part would simply be to look at their proposal and point out certain things that seem pertinent to us. Mr. Adkins is going to present the reason why commercial broadcasters oppose having this station become commercial. Mr. Dodd is going to come up with a recommendation which we think pretty well summarizes the thinking of the commercial broadcasters in the area. In looking thru the proposal, the pages were labeled or numbered but to be able to refer to it I put numbers there and I don’t know whether you have these proposals in front of you or not, but just to go quickly thru some things which we think might not have a completely clear impression of the stand of broadcasters at stake have taken. On page 8 they make some little bit there that the fact that other media, referring to commercial radio, did not respond. In fact this really is the sequence of events leading up to this point. Bob (sic) Davis, who represented himself as sales manager of WIDB called on the managers of several area stations the summer of 1971 requesting us to contact Dean Moulton to express our views on WIDB selling commercials. So we did request such a conference and we met with Dean Moulton, Jack Beier, and we expressed our opposition to the selling of commercials on WIDB and requested that Moulton set up a meeting with President Layer and the conference with Layer did take place about a month later. Attending that meeting were managers from ten Southern Illinois Stations, Harrisburg, Fairfield, Marion, DuQuoin, Salem, McLeansboro, Murphysboro and Carbondale. Attending also was Senator Gene John Richard Darby, and here again we expressed opposition to competing with SIU and commercial broadcasting, and we expressed a number of concerns and we were assured that we would be rather we would be advised when and if further consideration would be given to WIDB to become commercial. And that of course we are here today. We hope that adequately expresses the concern that we’ve had and the fact that we have been following this, and that we have been objecting all along. On page 8 it says and it says that the Southern Illinoisian’s reaction was favorable. I talked to John Gardner and I think John has written a letter to James Brown clarifying his views and I presume this letter is here, perhaps.

JAMES BROWN (Chief of Staff, Board of Trustees)

That letter has been distributed to members of the Board.

PAUL MCCROY

In other words, I’m sure when we read it, it was not endorsing this idea at all. The chamber of commerce letter was quoted in there and the statement was made in quotes that the Chamber of Council Executive members were very receptive and endorsed our program as helpful to the Carbondale area. I checked with both the President of the Chamber and the secretary to Ray Leck and I have here a letter which points out that there was no intention of endorsement that the letter simply stated that these people did appear. I’d be glad to give this letter to anyone on of your board should have it. I have it right here and available. Now ion [page 215 the case is made that this would not be competition in Southern Illinois stations and rather unhappily it refers to WCIL, which I own and manage, and it says that WCIL is sold out several months in advance. I wish that was the situation, but unhappily that is not so. As a matter of fact we’ve had 3 or 4 staff meetings in he past month to see what we could to to increase our sales from 8pm to 2am which is rock programming which we do for the university students. We’re trying very hard to make the FM operation break even. We would consider this very direct and probably significant competition. We notice on page 10 and 51, in discussing their rate structure, I’m quoting here again, “so long as the campus station WIDB keeps its rates near the rate of WCIL and WTAO, which is a new all-rock station operating in Murphysboro, as long as they keep their rates near the rates of these stations, unfair competition will not result. This unfair competition would only result if the campus station had rates which would significantly undercut a local station. They correctly quote WCIL’s rate as $3.90 and WTAO’s rate as $8.00. Then they show on page 51 their proposed rate card which shows selling a 30 second spot for 80 cents. There again our cost for that same spot would be $3.90 so I think you can see the sort of competition we could see on the streets of Carbondale. On page 12, they make some point of the fact that there’s an opportunity for commercial experience for students interested in Radio-TV. I’ve checked back in our own records during the fall quarter of last year. Of 19 employees we had at WCIL only 5 were not students. Of the 14 that were students most were Radio-TV majors and two of them were selling advertising. My point is that there is a broad opportunity for Radio-TV majors out there to work in area commercial radio stations, as many of them do. We’re a little bit interested in the statistics that WIDB uses in justifying the fact that they would simply one of many selling commercials. On page 7, WIDB is represented as being one of 400 college stations similar in purpose. On page 54, reference is made to the Ford Foundation Report on college radio. The third paragraph states that most carrier-current stations labeled themselves as commercial. However of the 136 that did so, only 104 reported advertising as a budget source. They’re using the quoted figure here of 136 or 104. Now the world almanac lists 1,400 senior colleges in the United States. Therefore it’s obvious that it’s about no more than one in 10 colleges that even claim they’re commercial. And, of these, we have no information about how many are private institutions, that is , not tax supported. We also have no information on how many of these colleges carry on no other broadcasting activity such as Southern Illinois University does in Carbondale. Now we note with come interest that on page 51, reference is made to WKDI, DeKalb, the student radio station at Northern Illinois University. We checked a little bit on this and find out that Northern Illinois University is scarcely in the broadcast business at all. They have no TV station there nor do they have a Radio-TV training school, at least in any measure comparable to Southern Illinois. Its FM station is low power. It’s 2.5 kilowatts, with very limited programming and coverage. Also, to get to the attitude of the commercial broadcasters up there, I called Jerome Cerney, who is the manager of WLBK, to see what he thinks about this and he said very unfortunately he just got there five years ago. But that WKDI started some sort of operation 8 years ago. He was there too late to be in a position to make any objection to it but that he hoped that some sort of action would take place down here that could help him up there. There is no question that it a commercial type of—that is a type of commercial competition. Now, just a couple of other comments, on page 32, they make a statement about commentaries, which would cause me considerable concern if I were sitting where you are. They say it shall be the policy of the station to air commentaries on issues or events of campus or national nature. The WIDB Radio Board, the Student Government and Southern Illinois University do not assume responsibility for views expressed in commentaries. Spokesmen for opposing viewpoints shall be given a reasonable opportunity to reply. Those of us in commercial broadcasting know that we can simply not relieve ourselves of responsibility for any viewpoints expressed on there, except politicians speaking on their own behalf while running for office. I don’t think you can side step that one!

HAROLD R. FISCHER

That’s very interesting. The fellow on your right is going to pick up now….is that it? Or have you taken care of all three of you?

PAUL MCCROY

No let me give you one…one other quick thing we think about then the fellows on my right will pick up. Both of us will have short statements. We think if WIDB sells commercials, ASCAP, BMI and SESAC music license fees will have to be paid. We’ve contacted ASCAP to find out about that and they said yes. Now this required accounting system with 100% correlation between the program logs and commercial contracts. Now WIDB will be subject to periodic audits We wonder also if you start paying anyone at WIDB, whether you’ll be able to use free employees any longer. I hope I did not run over too long.

DALE ADKINS

I’ll try to make up some lost time, Mr. Fischer.

HAROLD R. FISCHER

Now let’s see, you said you were going to take ten minutes. You’ve had 15 minutes. I thought that the 3 of you were going to go.

DALE ADKINS

I’ll try to be brief and leave you a copy of what I’m about to say so I won’t have to go thru all of it. We object on three grounds I think, all of which were raised in some discussion earlier. I think all of which were raised in some discussion earlier. I wish to point out though, for one thing, even though the potential audience of WIDB will be small in some comparisons, 6400 persons, all adults whose halls are now wired into the system form a population larger than Chester, or Du Quoin, or Sparta or Benton, or many of our Southern Illinois cities which are considered markets in themselves. And there is also the possibility of wiring additional dormitories and buildings in the system to create larger audience. Through more sophisticated means, there is a possibility of extending service outside the limits of the campus. Now the proposal in front of you estimates advertising sales of $8,000 the first year, but as indicated in their petition, and by the spokesmen here, this would only be the beginning. Once this proposal is approved, I sure that none of us in this room would expect sales to go down. The natural thing for ambitious people to increase sales year after year., and then I’m sure this would become $15,000 and then $20,000 perhaps $50,000 a year. And my friends much of that revenue would be obtained at the expense of other businessmen in the area. Not just radio operators like ourselves, but printers, signpainters, specialty advertising companies television stations, newspapers and the like. We’re opposed to the entry of the University into non-teaching enterprises which compete with private business. And even though the argument is presented that WIDB does not make use of tax revenue, well that’s no denial that WIDB is a function of the University and that’s tax supported. Assisted by University faculty and administration representatives owing its very existence to the fact of the University. So that point is merely lost in the technicality of the argument. Addressing for just a moment to the comparison of WIDB to the Daily Egyptian, there’s really not much parallel, because the Egyptian is relaly a laboratory of the Journalism Department. WIDB on the other hand is an extracirricular organization. The Egyptian operates a teaching situation with a teacher-instructor relationship. WIDB offers no qualified instruction for those who participate. The Egyptian is guided by trained experienced Journalists and faculty,. WIDB is governed by a Board of Directors most of whom are Undergraduate students that have no experience in the field of broadcasting. In other words there is no real governing body that knows whether they are doing a good job or what they’re doing. Now we as broadcasters and as citizens who have some knowledge in the field of communication are also very concerned about another aspect of closed circuit campus radio. The operation of the station is neither licensed by the Federal bureau of communications commission (sic) nor really governed by any department of the University which is involved in teaching. Since it is wired into the dormitories, none of you board members have a chance to listen to know what it being broadcast. You or I have no way of knowing what’s on the air on this station unless we go there and listen. It’s not monitored by faculty, it’s not monitored by the administration. It is not monitored by the general public. So there is the question of what is being broadcast. What news stories are being covered and what discussion of what topics are being aired. Who are the guest interviewees. I think it might be well to look into it a little further. There are some serious things about the operation as to who are the 80 volunteer workers, who staffs the station, if they are all students of if some of the 80 might be notable non-students. If 80 people walk in and out the door every week and the station has received funds totaling $27,000 during the past 2 years and another $19,000 this year it might be wise to seek a close accounting of the expenditure of that $45,000. Now as one who has spent his entire adult life in broadcasting I have some serious question as to whether those expenditures are serving a worthwhile purpose on the campus. I’ll conclude with that and let Mr. Dodd have a couple of minutes here.

GEORGE DODD

Mr. Chairman, clock me at two and one-half minutes. Gentlemen the tax payers of the State of Illinois have helped to provide Southern Illinois University with one of the finest, most thoroughly-equipped Radio and Television Departments in the nation. The university is a licensee of a VHF television station in Carbondale. a UHF television station in Olney and two high powered FM stations in Carbondale and Edwardsville. The Radio-TV Department is staffed with people we know will be highly capable and qualified faculty members. We feel that if a student desires to learn about Radio and Television broadcasting he should pursue his studies at the University Radio and TV Department where he can be taught by qualified instructors. We believe that it is far better for them to learn the basic elements of the industry through quality instruction, rather then in a undisciplined, unguided atmosphere on a closed or rather a campus closed circuit station which is WIDB. Furthermore there is a broad opportunity for Radio and TV majors to secure part time employment at the area radio stations working n all phases including sales. This approach makes SIU and the commercial broadcasters partners rather than competitors and antagonists. Therefore we urge the Board of Trustees to deny the request of WIDB to engage in the sale of advertising. We further Recommend that serious thought be given to the termination of the entire WIDB operation, with students encouraged to enroll in the school of Radio and TV where they can develop a well-rounded background in broadcasting. Thank you gentlemen.

HAROLD R. FISCHER

Thank you gentlemen. President Derge do you have any comments on questions before we…

SIU PRESIDENT DAVID R. DERGE

If the Board wishes to have any background on the conversation between WIDB and my staff, Dr. Mace, Dean of Students would be prepared to answer any questions you might have.

HAROLD R. FISCHER

Thank you gentlemen. Mr. McCroy, thank you for your time.

PAUL MCCROY

We have copies of everything we said, we would be happy to file with you people.

HAROLD R. FISCHER

Alright, leave them here with the secretary.

PAUL MCCROY

And thanks much.

HAROLD R. FISCHER

Thank you. Mr. Mace do you have any comments you want to add to that or just…

GEORGE MACE (Dean of Students)

Yes sir I would please. This is an interesting position that the Office of Student Affairs objects to the proposal. However the objection is not rooted in the testimony that has been given to this point. I think it should not pass with notice that WIDB is a first rate station,. I think part of the difficulty here is not the question of competition which I think the gentlemen have adequately demonstrated exists, it could cut into their commercial advertising, it would cut into the money that they need to run their stations,. The question I think however is one of unfair competition. And therefore I think the board should consider and the matter should turn on that. The reason the Office of Student Affairs could not support this particular proposal was because of two questions: one is a matter of liability the other is a question of equity. With respect to the matter of liability, it is indeed a fact that the Board of Trustees is liable for such things that may occur on WIDB. It is not correct to say WIDB is not monitored, that there is not oversight. In fact, in point of fact, WIDB is channeled into the Student Center and so for a certain number of hours of the day, more than just administrators and fiscal officers and faculty advisors monitor those broadcasts. They also without being required keep all the logs required by the FCC and these are open for investigation for any time should anyone care to view them. In the letter of November 2, 1971, I asked Mr. Adkins to come and consult with us and particularly invited him or a member of his Southern Illinois Broadcasters to think in terms of perhaps participating with WIDB. Our intent was to try the closest possible kind of consultation with them. That letter was not answered; nor were telephone calls following from that letter being unanswered. The basic problem as I see it is, first of all, a matter =of liability. Second is a matter of equity. It is true that the radio station has received to this point $35,000 in student activity fee support. If this is considered to be University funds and subsidy unquestionably we have the same problem perhaps as might exist with the Daily Egyptian. But I think that the theory of advertising is really not the issue, Dr. Walker. In think the theory of advertising when it becomes unfair is the issue, and I think that there are means where WIDB could be brought into the situation where it would be fair competition. As it stands now, I do not believe this is fair competition, but by the same token, the service that is provided by this station is a very fine one. The individuals who have been involved in it are very responsible. I’m most impressed with them and their efforts to this point.

HARRIS ROWE

How is your liability program any different than the Daily Egyptian?

GEORGE MACE

I think the liability program is not any different. Probably the best arrangement that exists in this state is the University of Illinois. The student radio station WPGU I believe, it is, PGU was an outgrowth of the Ilini. Both are not-for-profit corporations. I believe that is correct. I know they are.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

Both are operated by Ilini Publishing Company, separate entity, fully owned by the university.

GEORGE MACE

This was the primary objection my office had to it.

MARTIN VAN BROWN

I have one question about, I noticed Mr. Major, ASCAP, BMI SESAC, if this goes commercial do we have to establish a set of books and a set of audits and a set of accounting procedures?

GEORGE MACE

Those procedures exist now as with any student organization I have the printouts if the board would care to examine them.

MARTIN VAN BUREN

Well, what about the royalties?

GEORGE MACE

The advertising fees?

MARTIN VAN BROWN

No, royalties for playing the music.

GEORGE MACE

The royalties for the present time are I think only the fact that they receive the records.

MARTIN VAN BROWN

They don’t pay any royalties now?

GEORGE MACE

Oh, you mean for the companies involved? Dick, can you answer?

RICHARD MAJOR, SIU Legal Counsel

I think the point was made that ASCAP fees would have to be paid for records.

MARTIN VAN BROWN

The other question, about the wage-hour law. If this station goes commercial, do you have to abide by the wage-hour law?

RICHARD MAJOR

Dr. Brown, the question is if we have some employees can we even accept volunteer labor? The fair labor standards act says you’ll not suffer or permit anybody to be employed unless they are paid the same as others doing the same work.

MARTIN VAN BROWN

You can’t accept volunteer labor if this goes commercial.

RICHARD MAJOR

That is a possibility. I haven’t examined it in depth but off hand you’re correct.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

I would like to get one point that has been rolled out here about the differences between liability. There’s no difference in liability, it’s been pointed out, there’s a considerable difference in control between the the Daily Egyptian and WIDB. The Daily Egyptian is at least assigned to the administrative control of the School of Communications. Is this not correct? Now whether or not this is properly expressed is another question. At least the publisher which is the eight men at this table have a way to express itself. This is not the case, however, in the present structure of WIDB. It could, as Mr. Gruney points out, exercise that control through the granting of funds and any strings the board sought to place on any Student Activity Fund which has been an item of other consideration of this board.

MARTIN VAN BROWN

Would you recommend that, I noticed one of the broadcasters recommended that this be placed in the School of Communications? And you as Dean of Students, since you don’t support this, you wouldn’t recommend that this operation be placed under communications?

GEORGE MACE

No sir, I would not. I think that one of the other reservations I have concerning the academic aspect of the radio station, I think there are other alternatives that could be pictured. I think I would disagree with Mr. Major with the fact that you cannot voluntarily work because we can arrange for example to have practicums where in which student credit is granted for people who pursue work with a radio station. We’re presently attempting to put together a program whereby we have a competitive program in an ongoing fashion with local industry and it would seem to me that this would apply to the radio stations also.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

We make a specific exclusion in those cases where there is no academic program. You’re describing one in which there is an academic program, the parallel is not correct.

GEORGE MACE

Right. The second thing is that it would seem to me at that point to enter upon duplication. I think that the kind of service that WIDB is giving is primarily a service. I do not see it as an academic function. It is true that some who participate obviously learn from their experience as we all do. But I think that our present radio and broadcast systems are sufficient to provide what we need by way of academic concerns and education.

HAROLD R. FISCHER

Yes.

RICHARD GRUNEY

Mr. Chairman I would like to point out that this question of the fair labor standards act is a very involved one. But even where we have had an academic program, in our present broadcasting program and specifically in television I spent a great many hours with the federal wage and hour boys about a year ago and in fact they made us pay back wages to some of these people in spite of the fact that it was tied to an academic program. Now I can’t make a catagorical statement as to this particular operation until I know all opf the patrticulars of how it will operate, but that is a very real posiblity.

HAROLD R. FISCHER

Dr. Walker, you had a question.

EARL WALKER

Sir I was wondering if one of the board members is going to be willing to move that this resolution is going to be approved so we can get it before…

HAROLD R. FISCHER

I don’t know, do you want to make the motion?

EARL WALKER

No.

HARRIS ROWE

I will but I’m afraid I can’t get a second.

HAROLD R. FISCHER

Are you making the motion?

HARRIS ROWE

I move the resolution be adopted.

HAROLD R. FISCHER

Is there a second to the motion? I’m afraid we’re lost for a lack of a second. Again, I thank everybody for their excellent presentation. Appreciate the way.

IVAN ELLIOTT JR.

Don’t interpret this as a lack of interest in your station,,. I think the comment has been made several times that you have done a fine job.; But we hope you will continue to do a fine job, and I would like to reiterate the comment I made a minute ago you have been well staffed, have had fun, I hope you can continue doing so and we hope we can see that you are funded some other way.

WILLIAM W. ALLEN

I’m sure what’s been said here on the record in terms of that operation would auger well for this board’s sympathetic attitude towards proper funding through student fees.

HAROLD R. FISCHER

Thank you immensely.

Chapter 20
WIDB LOST BATTLE BUT WAR IS JUST BEGINNING

The WIDB Advertising proposal, the massive sales campaign to sell commercials, WIDB’s financial security and even short term prospects for financial survival ended at the end of the transcript. The official term was “died for lack of a second.”

Joel had failed. He placed his faith in his hopes that the board members would understand logic and efficiency and be impressed by Joel’s complete razor-sharp professional presentation. He was right about that–the members were impressed and did understand the logic and efficiency of the station paying for itself. Joel knew he had beaten the president’s office and George Mace on this one.

But Joel underestimated the deference the board would show to area broadcasters and how that would completely blot out any consideration of student needs. Joel was not fully conversant with the close-knit social-economic fabric among white males born 1910-1930 in southern small towns. This is where these board members grew up. Almost all of them were from towns across Illinois such as Harrisburg, Carmi, and Edwardsville.

Your author is far from an expert, but has observed that there seemed to be an unwritten more for locals to draw together against “outsiders” and help each other to secure and/or maintain economic benefits for local and connected residents. That is how Southern Illinois University had been built in the 50’s and 60’s. During that time, when SIU wanted to expand, then President Morris would personally visit the landowner to make a handshake deal. There was an unstated promise that SIU would never force its hand with area locals, but SIU would use its force and power against students to assist or protect area residents.

Thus, the forced departure of President Morris (for “betraying” the locals during the riots by not having all students arrested and jailed), the selection of Morris’ replacement David R. Derge, who immediately started the university’s “War on students”, and, later that same year, the police attack on the dorms, the beating of WIDB newsman Ron Kritzman, censorship of student copying, the deliberate sabotage of the FY1973 Student Fee Allocations, and the denial of WIDB’s Advertising proposal. Only after many decades has this come into perspective, but from today’s vantage point they all seem connected.

Notice in the transcript that when the local broadcasters come in, there is a social discussion. Apparently the entire board proceeding was held up because they were over 30 minutes late. The trustees stated that they “hoped the broadcasters liked the campus.” It sounded so folksy and down home. It would not be surprising if many of the broadcasters and trustees were in clubs together, such as golf, country, Lions, Rotary, etc. or church, or school, (or their wives were) and had had relationships for decades. The worst thing the trustees could do for their social or political futures was to come down against these good ol’ local broadcast magnates. That is not done in small town scenarios, because it always comes back around.

But coming down against students? They were outsiders, not politically connected, didn’t know anybody. So there was no problem. Thus, no one asked Joel how he liked the campus, and Joel was cross-examined tag team for 30 minutes.

Too bad Joel was not allowed a rebuttal after the area broadcasters. After they claimed that they had credibility due to their broadcast training and experience, they determined that only credentialed professors in a structured ciriculum could properly teach broadcasting, (never a place like WIDB). None of these broadcasters ever attended even one class from a credentialed professor in a structured ciriculum, so they either had no credibility or were living proof they were wrong.

And wasn’t it hilarious when none of these bozos had any idea what they were talking about with ASACAP BMI etc. fees and licensing? The station was paying the fee at the time, and George Mace, trying to impress the trustees with his monitoring of WIDB’s finances, had absolutely no idea what WIDB had or what it was paying for. It had been in the budget for years. And the broadcasters are trying to scare the board that ASCAP and BMI required “records” and “audits.” They thought it was about accounting for money! Actually the “records” are the playlists, and the “audits” are spot-check shadow playlist to be sure reporting is accurate (which might be done at WLS but never at a place like WIDB).

And when Ivan Elliott Jr. (he was from Carmi) is complaining to Joel about too many popcorn breaks on TV, especially during the Olympics, so WIDB should not advertise, it shows how disconnected at least some of the trustees were to what was happening at SIU.

So in the wisdom of the 1972 Board of Trustees, advertising in the DE was no problem. advertising at the Arena and in game programs, media guides broadcasts, etc. was no problem. Why? Because these were local connected people, nobody complained (because they were local connected people) and nobody asked permission. Those were the real reasons, but no one could say that on the record.

Meanwhile NOBODY from WIDB was local connected people. And WIDB asked permission. WIDB, in perception thru local filters of the time, bore far more resemblance to the proverbial “drug-crazed hippie outside agitators” who busted windows downtown, and who were perceived as solely responsible for the riots and the closing of the school.

Joel was very far from looking or acting like a drug crazed hippie agitator, but there were only 2 categories: (A) Good ol’ local boys asking for a favor; or (B) Drug crazed hippie. There was no (C) Erstwhile students assertively requesting the university to deliver on its promise to provide education and experience. Joel could not be a good ol’ boy, so he had to be the enemy.

The broadcasters tried in thinly veiled ways to fan these flames. Paul McCroy quoting the WIDB working papers, expressed concern that it was WIDB’s policy “to air commentaries on issues or events of campus or national interest.” McCroy says “{This} would cause me considerable concern if I was sitting where you (trustees) are.” He is suggesting that the trustees should be disregarding University policies, as well as the Illinois and even the US Constitution in favoring the whims of locals against student outsiders. There was also a reference to “Senator” Gene John Richard Darby (he would be a state senator) attending one of the broadcasters meetings in 1971, which implies that the broadcasters can put “legislative heat” on the board members.

These points were not directly responded to at the meeting, but the university almost immediately moved to silence WIDB forever by cutting off funding, refusing to allow sale of commercials, and demanding WIDB pay money it did not have to “use” its own space. It was going to be war, the battle lines were drawn, and Fall Quarter was just starting.

Just at this time, Mace announced the results of his “ballots” to determine student fee allocation. Predictably, the official announcement was that only 12% of the ballots were returned. Mace’s office refused to let anyone inspect the ballots. Ignoring his promise to disregard the results if less than 50% were returned, Mace decided that 12% was “good enough” and he would determine the allocations based on that.

Mace decided that instead of the $18,000 that Student Government wanted WIDB to have, WIDB would get $6225. For the year. A 67% reduction. Enough to fund WIDB for about a quarter.

Meanwhile Mace’s office announced that it would seek an “immediate reduction” in the student activity fee to be charged in order to decrease all allocations 20% further and withhold all funds indefinitely until this could be resolved, (which could be months).

So WIDB’s allocation was further reduced to $5005. WIDB would be off the air within weeks. There is no other conclusion to draw that this was done intentionally to get rid of WIDB.

At this point, WIDB had been prohibited from selling, even doing trade-outs (ie. run commercials in exchange for tickets or merchandise to give to listeners), and now the administration was withholding its duly-allocated budget. Involved at every step was President Derge’s fair-haired “special assistant” George Mace, who was promoted every time he sabotaged student efforts.

The SIU administration was trying to kill WIDB by refusing to fund WIDB and preventing WIDB from selling commercials to fund itself. This was done two ways: (1) Deliberate and calculated sabotage and embargo of student activity fee allocations for FY 73: and (2) Deliberate and calculated obfuscation and stalling on WIDB’s proposal to sell advertising.

The solution had to be the selling of time. WIDB could not go on every year with these administrative funding sabotage games.

At this time, mid-September, 1972, your author’s attention was very far away from Joel’s efforts and the crisis facing WIDB. Your author came to SIU a week early and stayed at the station with Todd Cave, Music Director to get the station ready to hit the air. We did production, carted music, practice shows, wrote copy, helped test equipment, etc. While Joel and Robbie were at the meeting, your author (after one year in school and at age 18) was moving into his off-campus apartment with 3 roomates.

But shortly thereafter, there was a very sad meeting at the station. Frank Mazzocco quit as News Director to become the same at WSIU. Your author was devastated by this, as Frank was one of WIDB’s best teachers and News Directors. Sam was mad, as usual, but this time he really had a good reason. Allan J. Friedman’s famous quote “The station will never get sales,” came at that time. For those in the inner circle, or who otherwise were up to date, it was a very sad time.

But even though this was only the third September where there was a WIDB to greet students, everyone seemed to know about WIDB, especially on campus, and especially on east campus. The transmitters were working good, this was the first school year starting with WIDB on in the Student Center and on the cable for off-campus coverage. It seemed like there were oodles of listeners. Applicants for news, DJ, sports, everything, were streaming in. Many had to audition multiple times before acceptance.

This reminded all of us that WIDB was important to a lot of people and they wanted it to keep going. It was not just about the WIDB members. This planted a seed in Joel’s mind.

As the quarter started, Joel immediately went on the warpath with on-air attacks against George Mace. Twice an hour a “PSA” was read about how Mace had thrown out the Student Fee decisions and refused to fund WIDB and other important student clubs. The listener was urged to call the “Mace Fee-back line” at WIDB to record their angst for Mace. and we would air these every hour. (Kind of like on the old WCFL News “talk back” line). Here is an edited excerpt from Fall 72 including the “Mini-Cool Munchie Contest” with Cheech & Chong and a rare “Underground” break with Walt Leisering (who eventually replaced Todd as Music Director), in his first few weeks at WIDB:

This shows there was an even greater “hotbed of activity” just a week into the quarter. Even as there were staff changes (Cliff Albert became News Director) there were production, on-air shifts and promotion to do. One of the great promotions conceived by Jim Rohr was the table tents promoting WIDB for Grinnell and Trueblood. They sat on the tables and everyone stared at them while they ate. And every single person there could receive the station. But even as programming improved and listenership increased, WIDB was about to run out of money. Joel had to beat the drums to get everyone ready for battle because the survival of WIDB, at its peak, was at stake.

Joel sent a scathing letter to (now) Dr. Mace with thinly veiled threats. But WIDB was not the only ones pissed at Mace. Remember, Mace had sabotaged the allocations for ALL Student Activities. Each and every student organization hated Mace and united against him. The Egyptian ran daily articles about the hardships to student clubs and activities, halting of free drug testing (not what you think–the purpose of this testing was to be sure drugs were pure so there were no “bad trips”). WIDB regularly ran reports about possible lawsuits and student protests of Mace’s actions.

Only 2 months before, Joel was meeting with Mace in his office and Joel congratulated Mace on his promotion and ended the letter “Cordially.” Now Joel was threatening Mace’s (which meant President Derge’s) survival. The gloves had come off.

Most WIDB staff members (and ALL staff heads) supported Joel’s efforts. A few members believed Joel’s approach was too extreme and would lead to WIDB’s demise, that WIDB existed at the whim of the university, so Joel should obey Mace, give up, and hope WIDB gets money from somewhere. Alan J. Friedman may have been the finest news announcer WIDB ever had, but he was very pessimistic about WIDB’s future. “The station will NEVER get sales.” Al would say over and over. “They will shut it down first.” But Al still did his news shifts. Other than Frank, almost no one else left WIDB due to its failure to win approval for sales.

There were now two WIDB main purposes: (1) To be a radio station serving students; and (2) Administrative war campaign for WIDB’s survival. SIU administrators expected Joel and WIDB to give up and go away. Instead, this activated the slumbering mass of students (which is exactly what the “War on Students” was supposed to prevent) and even more foreboding to the administrators, it activated Joel’s genius.