WNHU Celebrates 50 Years On Air

This past weekend saw 88.7 FM WNHU, the award-winning venerable radio station of the University of New Haven, kicking off a yearlong celebration of its 50th anniversary with three days of alumni events that included a banquet, panel discussions, on-air reunions, and a shared hopefulness about the future of college radio. 

Alumni included a wide range of former students from over the past five decades, including many who were there building the station from the ground up both literally and figuratively in 1973. Saturday afternoon saw them, as well as alumni from the 1990s and as recently as 10 years ago, converging at the studio’s latest location on Ruden Street in West Haven to talk music, play music, and reminisce about their experiences at the ​“number one college radio station in CT.”

According to Rob Toller, WNHU and its 1700 watts of power went on the air for the first time on June 4, 1973 at 4 p.m., serving New Haven County and even portions of Long Island. The first general manager was Dick Gelgauda, who Toller said ​“was really the one who got students together” to ​“make the pitch to the UNH administration the need for a student-operated radio station.”

“The whole vision,” said Toller, was ​“to be able to provide alternative information, alternative entertainment, really just alternative shows based around really the boundless energy of the young students.”

Toller was one of those students who came to UNH as a ​“big music fan.” He spoke to Dick Kalt, then general manager of WPLR, who also was teaching at UNH about how to get into radio. Toller ended up attending the school and becoming a part of WNHU, his first show ​“B The T” airing in January 1978. ​“I was known as Bob back in those days,” said Toller. ​“My favorite has always been the Beatles and Murray the K was one of the most famous DJs, so somehow, I came up with B the T.”

Toller recalled playing music off a playlist featuring mostly new artists but also recalled that ​“if you had a Police album and it was up on the playlist, you could play whatever song off that album. It didn’t have to be what the other DJs were playing, which was a wonderful opportunity. You could move different things in.” 

Many local bands were played during that time as well, including The Furors, Poodle Boys, The Saucers, and The Snotz. He even recalled ​“local New Haven legend Michael Boloton” coming in to promote his latest project and playing live on air as one of many ​“wonderful memories of local musicians playing in the studio, just coming up to talk to us.”

Recalling the club scene of that era, which included Oxford Ale House, the Grotto, the Arcadia Ballroom, and Toad’s Place, as well as record stores such as Cutler’s, Rhymes, and Festoons, Toller noted that everyone helped each other and supported one another.

“It was an incredible, very invigorating ecosystem,” he said. ​“WNHU was a part of it.… We weren’t the mainstream, so it was an opportunity for us to respond to the students and to the community at large. It really was a wonderful time to be in New Haven from 1977 to 1981.”

Original staff member Joe Cieplak from the class of 1972, who was also director of public relations at the time, recalled that what he found the most unique about WNHU was that it was ​“all student run and initiated.”

“The driving force was the students,” he said. ​“The students made this happen.” Most college radio stations are 10 to 20 watts, he noted, while WNHU’s 1700 watts afforded them a greater reach. He had a show called Dinner with Joe and Lucy (Lucy being his girlfriend at the time) that focused on the blues. He also did some news reporting and sports broadcasting, including all the home and away UNH football and hockey games. Back then, he recalled, everything had to go through a hard phone line, which had him climbing up a pole at one game to get through and even going through a pay phone another time. 

“I have absolutely good memories,” Cieplak added. ​“It was a key part of my upbringing, made me more outgoing, and gave me lifelong friends.” 

Many of those friends gathered on Friday and Saturday. They were referred to as ​“the founding fathers” by Dan ​“Riff” Fertman, who said he was one of 25 to 30 students who helped WNHU come to fruition. They even helped build the original location that housed the station in the student center back in 1973. 

“There are guys I know here for 50 years, and we get together periodically and the years melt away,” he added. ​“We’re family.”

Fertman’s show, which ran from 1973 to 1983, was called The Pop Shoppe. It featured primarily power pop of the time, such as Big Star and Cheap Trick. He was also the station’s second program director, noting that working at the station helped him learn about managing people and other skills he utilized in bands he was in over the years as well as when he worked for the Subway Corporation for many years as that business grew. He was excited for his on-air time that would occur later that day.

Doreen Richardson also had a portion of on-air time on Saturday, briefly recreating her show Blues Haven, which ran from 1991 to 1998. A community volunteer, she spoke of her time at WNHU as ​“a gift,” noting how there had also been Italian, Irish, Polish and Slavic music shows keeping the community music ​“alive” during that time. She chose local legend Rocky Lawrence as her final song of her set, and mentioned on air that he had played live on her show back in the day. 

Richardson was joined in the studio Saturday by Class of 2013 WNHU alumni Matthew Heath and Nate Lacey, who had their own show during their sophomore and junior years called ​“Kang and Kodos Take Over.” It featured mainly classic rock. The two — who were also joined by former roommate Tom Branden — had only found out on this day about being able to have studio time and jumped on the chance to try the new location. When they were students, the studio was a ​“little basement,” but also adding that it was always ​“a good time.”

Three alumni from the early 1990s also spoke of their good times at WNHU. Damon Lucibello has been a DJ at the station since 1992; his most current show is ​“The Show with No Name,” which he said has a ​“freeform” format, ​“whatever I feel like playing.” He originally had a metal show that continued for about 12 years. 

Irene Parisi, who like Lucibello attended UNH from 1990 to 1995, had a show called ​“Midnight Madam,” an alternative music show, and was music director from 1991 to 1993.

“It was a great time to be in radio then,” she said, noting that it was the heyday for alternative music and grunge. She said that she generated her own playlist and ​“that was the beauty of it.”

Liz Waytkus, who attended from 1991 to 1995, said working at WNHU was ​“the best part of being here.” As music director from 1993 to 1995, she reviewed the 40 to 100 CDs that came every week, checking each for explicit language so they knew which parts of which songs to mute on air. 

She had two shows herself, one that focused on new music and one called The New Haven Beat that featured ska. 

“Ska was huge, really huge, here,” she said, adding that they did a lot of promotion for clubs and other venues including ticket and album giveaways. 

“We lived the scene,” Parisi added. ​“And we lived at the radio station.” 

“People still stop me and tell me they still listen to the show,” added Lucibello. ​“They thank me for exposing them to bands they wouldn’t know about.”

Local radio legend Bruce Barber has been general manager of WNHU since 2016 and is ​“just loving it,” he said.

“I tell people all the time I’ve had the most bizarre media career because I’ve gone from the ​’90s shock jock to public radio — I’m still doing voice overs and production for WNPR — but then now for the past seven-and-a-half years running WNHU and teaching podcasting and broadcasting,” he said.

When Barber joined WNHU, the station had departed from its core mission of being a student-run station. 

“It was wonderful, but it was very much a community station,” he said. When he listened to the station he had noted the wealth of ​“great” community programs but also noted the dearth of student shows. 

“My goal was to make it return its focus to its original focus, which is a student-run radio station, and that’s what we’ve really gotten back to, which is great.”

As of last semester, the station had about 30 student shows and about 8 community programs. The community programs — ​“still a great eclectic mix” — are mostly on Sundays.

Barber was also set to lead a panel discussion on the future of WNHU on Sunday, and spoke of what he hoped the future would hold for the award-winning station as it heads into its next 50 years.

“It’s been about being a student-run station,” he said. ​“I continue to want to foster that, but I think what you’re noticing with students and now with alumni coming back, the technology has changed. So my view of the future is: listen to the students, how they’re consuming music, what they’re listening to, what their interests are. Saying, ​‘OK, it’s your station.’ I tell my students all the time: I work for you, so you tell us what this is and what it should be.”

Barber feels he can bring his knowledge of being a DJ in the ​’70s, ​’80s and ​’90s to the students, and they can teach him what it’s like to be a DJ now. He enjoys the give and take he has with them.

“I’m really learning from the students, and then I hope I have something to teach them as well,” he said. He is seeing the marrying of older approaches, such as the return of the popularity of vinyl and the use of a turntable in the studio, with newer approaches like access to millions of songs on Spotify and other streaming services. It makes this an exciting time in broadcasting, but one that is also rooted in the time-honored tradition of connection through words and music.

“That’s the future of college radio,” he said. ​“It’s really taking all of those amazing elements that have always been there: the sense of community, the sense of finding yourself, the ability to share the music that you love with other people, the ability to learn to be comfortable behind a microphone, all those things that are great on their own. Now you have the new technology.”

Two current students were on site Saturday celebrating with the alumni and talking about their experiences at WNHU thus far. J.J. Dionisio, Class of 2025, is the station’s current program director. He has a show called The Kitchen Sink he cohosts with Logan Dumas that he calls ​“a variety show” with a different theme each week, including as much discussion of music as the music itself.

“I love it,” he said with a big smile. ​“It’s my favorite thing here.” 

Jess Finn, Class of 2024, is WNHU’s current station manager. ​“This is my home. It was the first club I joined and the one I stuck with most,” she said. Her show is called Good Company, cohosted with her best friend Hayley Angelillo, and the music they play is determined by ​“the day we had.” 

Finn is helping to foster the inclusive communal nature that WNHU has always been about in her own unique way. ​“My motto is there’s always a place for you here,” she said. ​“Anyone, any year, any experience, we can find a way to get you involved.”

Toller had spoken in a similar vein about why people should tune in to WNHU if they had not listened in years, or maybe never before, citing the uniqueness and commitment of the people involved.

“Because you’re going to hear things you never heard before,” he said. ​“You’re going to get information that you never heard before, without commercials, without trying to sell you something. It’s people’s artistry. It’s people’s passion that is coming through the radio.” 

“It allowed me to do so many things and allowed me to understand how to motivate people,” he continued. ​“The past 20 years of my career, I’ve been teaching leadership, and there’s no doubt that leadership came from learning leadership from Dick Gelgauda and, really, the founders at WNHU.… It’s exciting for me to be a part of something that’s lasted 50 years and will be around another 50 years.”

WNHU can be found on your FM dial at 88.7 or can be accessed online. More information about the year-long celebration and getting involved with the station can also be found at their website.