In high school, I was a musician. Midway through school in Rush, NY - a town south of Rochester, NY - I realized that I could never make a living as a musician. Through radio I figured I could work with music and make a living. I made friends with a classmate, Doug Emblidge who was involved with our school district's radio station WRHR (now WBER). We broadcasted high school sports together. I got an airshift and later became Station Manager. When Doug went to Syracuse University, I ended up following him. That's as far as I followed, as Doug centered himself around Rochester, returning every weekend to work at WHAM. Doug landed at WOKR TV 13 in Rochester.

During my first weeks at Syracuse, there was an orientation meeting for freshmen interested in working at WAER. The meeting was held in a large auditorium in Newhouse and the room was full. At the front of the room was Patti DiSalvo and Mark Haden. They asked, "How many people are interested in being on the air at WAER?" About 50 people in the room put up their hands. Patti said, "Out of this room, one of you will be on the air within the year." It took awhile to get music clearance, but I was the one out of that whole room that became a music announcer in 1981.

In 1982 I ran for a position on the Senior Staff. As Continuity Director I was responsible for creating the copy for Public Service Announcements, and I made sure that the program log was filled out. It let me into the inner sanctum of the WAER culture.

The people at WAER were a diverse group that would never be connected without the radio station as a bond. WAER was a place to be creative, to enjoy music and share that enjoyment with others. There was a broad spectrum of cultural activity from many ethnic groups at the station. There was music from each of these groups wrapped into the format of WAER. I was exposed to many new things and I hope I was able to expose the things I learned with the people of Central New York. I truly believe that WAER as it was had a very broad and diverse audience. They were probably not the type of people that were tied to traditional "commercial" venues, be they music related or otherwise. Since the audience had "no commercial value", it wasn't hard to see that Syracuse University (a hugely commercial institution) was bound to change things.

Since a radio station lives and dies by ratings, and the university wanted a "positive community relations tool" in WAER, the existence of the station in its "Alternative" state was in jeopardy. It was a clash waiting to happen, and it wouldn't be long before the whole situation exploded.

In the 1980's, Ronald Regan was leading the charge to "stabilize" this country into a conservative paradise. He cut student loans (I had to work at a dining hall) and it seemed that the things that "radical left wing" college students fought for universally during the '60s and '70s were being taken away. Chancellor Eggers was systematically tearing down all of the university's old wooden frame buildings where student groups were housed, causing them to be disrupted, disorganized and diminished in power. Meanwhile, students were thinking more about their personal well being than for the groups that represented their interests. Put simply, college students in the 1980's were slow to stand up to an authority taking away their institutions. The vast majority were more intested in Izod tennis shirts and BMW automobiles. There was little or no protest about the Carrier Dome not being named "The Davis Dome" in honor of Ernie Davis. When the university knocked down three blocks of buildings to build a hotel (and a student center that had been promised for 15+ years) the protest was minimal. And when they came to take WAER, we all went quietly.

I knew in my heart that what were doing was right and in the best interest of the community. My hope was that the university would see it as we did, and we could reach some kind of compromise. Along the way I believed that we had a chance to make the station a better place and satisfy the demands of the community, so I started to document this period of the station's history (I have always loved true stories). In the end the story would either be that of a handful of students that beat the odds and made the station better, or the tragic story of how a university gave the students the shaft.

So I offer to you the history as I collected it. As we all know, coverage of a news event is biased based on the experiences of those who deliver the news, so I will try to be as objective as I can. Understand that many people involved with the station at this time feel very strongly about this issue. They feel that we were all treated very badly and that the university took away a big part of our lives (at the time). The truth is that we were and they did, so the emotions will naturally show through sometimes.

Make sure to visit the guest book, and tell the world what you think.

My SU ID (Photo 1980)

My FCC license (1979)

A poster circulating campus in early 1983.
The fine print says, "CALL MEL AND TELL
HIM YOU'RE NOT" (and then lists his
phone number)

Advertisement in the Daily Orange - April 8, 1983 - two weeks before the shutdown.  If my memory serves me, there were about 20  people at the protest on April 15th.