First Broadcast
by Moss Turpan on May 1, 1949
Posted in: Uncategorized
Founding engineer John Bowker ‘52 and original WRMC president James W. Kitchell ‘51 broadcast for the first time from a small chicken coop located in the backyard of Professor John Bowker’s house. WMCRS (Middlebury College Radio Service) began it’s daily broadcasting of six hours of music and interviews on this day.
I will be thinking about you all next Wednesday at 1:00 PM. That will be the 70th anniversary of broadcasting in Middlebury. The history is not inaccurate; there is a detail that might amuse you. All the transmitting gear was in our chicken house and nearly all the broadcasts originated from there, but the Inaugural Broadcast that afternoon originated in the large room of what is now “Bowker House”, upstairs over what was then the garage at the north end of the building.
Among the voices we put on the air that May 1st was the Dean of Women. She asked me what the room was normally used for and I truthfully told her it was my bedroom. She went ahead with the broadcast but made it clear there were to be no more co-eds allowed in that room! We moved everything on-campus part way through the next school year.
Best wishes to you all.
/John Bowker ’52