Illinois State’s student radio station, WZND Radio, turned 30 this year. A WZND Homecoming Birthday Bash is planned to celebrate the milestone! Plan now to attend October 14 and 15.
Gather on the 14th at Firehouse Pizza in Uptown Normal for lots of food, fun, great music, and great memories! All guest deejays are invited to the mic. On October 15, join alums and staff as WZND rocks The School of Communication Tailgate. We’ll have a live broadcast of WZND’s Red Zone, our sports talk program. All alumni sportscasters are welcome to join the show.
See what’s new at WZND, where we are now one format—WZND Fuzed Radio. As a college shuffle station we play everything, even country…yes, that was hard fer me! If you have media industry wisdom to share, consider participating in our Alumni Panel on the 15th. Don’t miss your chance to tell today’s students what professional life is really like!
Whether you deejayed, covered the news, or wore the gorilla suit, be sure to join us! If you worked at WZND or WILN, we’d love to have you and your family help us celebrate. Come on back to Normal, visit old friends and see what campus is like now. After all, you can take the student out of the radio station, but you can’t take the radio station out of the student! And you know I miss you!
Register today by visiting Alumni.IllinoisState.edu/wznd!
i have no idea what WZND is. During my tenure at ISU (1969-73), the college’s carrier current station was known as WGLT-AM while the broadcast FM was WGLT-FM, both housed in Cook Hall. The offices and FM were on the second floor; the AM in a small studio on the top floor in one of the turrets. (I can send you photos.) I soent almost all my time on both stations as Program Director, Music Director, DJ/host, producer and news anchor. I must say that I learned far more about broadcasting — which I went on to make my career — making creative use of those facilities than I ever did in any of my radio classes. As PD, I airchecked everybody, and therefore currently still possess on tape in my archive at least 50 hours of sample WGLT AM and FM programming from 1969 through 1973. I have very fond memories of that experience — and in fact have been toying with a feature-length screenplay based on what happened in and around those stations during those times. One hint: on my very first day at WGLT, I was introduced to the woman who 12 years later became my wife.
Gary:
My undergraduate years at ISU were also the early 70’s and I too remember only WGLT as the call letters for ISU’s radio station then. As a French major, I was invited several times by my French instructors to broadcast “L’Heure Francaise”, a one hour program in French. I selected French songs to be played that hour and I got to be the French announcer during that time. On a couple of occasions, one of my friends, also a French major, broadcast the program with me where we played our guitars and sang French songs for that hour. I have cassette recordings of a couple of these broadcasts as mementos. They were a lot of fun! Perhaps you remember the “L’Heure Francaise”.
As an old alum, I also, don’t know WZND. It was WGLT, as Gary mentioned, but he called the station’s letters…We Greatly Love Theroux. I was fortunate enough to spend most of my college radio experience in Cook Hall…”from the castle on the quad”…culminating with my becoming the first female program director in 1973. Women then were barely allowed in broadcasting, let alone management. Thus, ISU blazes another trail!
Congrats WZND!
Dusty…get in touch.
steveharris24@gmail.com
Gary, Karen and Dusty,
You can still find WGLT broadcasting and even listen to them online. Check out WGLT.org. As for WZND, you can find more information about them at: http://www.wznd.com/