WFHB Bloomington Community Radio
The history of Bloomington’s community radio station; a continuing series.
It was only an idea in the spring of 1975. A crazy idea.
Two fellows shared a makeshift apartment in a garage at 1130 W. 17th Street on the outskirts of Bloomington. Roommates Mark Hood, an audio engineer, and Jeffrey Morris, an electrician and carpenter, listened to the radio deep into the night in that garage. They enjoyed Michael Bourne’s jazz and eclectic mix on local WFIU as well as tunes for long-haul truckers on the 50,000 watt powerhouse WWL out of New Orleans. There wasn’t much else to choose from around these parts.
Hood and Morris loved music and they loved radio. They wanted more of each. One night, one said to the other — neither remembers who — Why don’t we start our own community radio station? They didn’t know the first thing about how to do it.
They learned quickly enough it’d be a monumental task. There would be a studio to build, a tower to erect, transmitters and equipment to purchase, other radio and TV stations’ signals to avoid stepping on, volunteer DJs to recruit. And, as important as anything, money to make it all happen.
Within a couple of months, Hood and Morris leaned upon their friends and colleagues in the local music scene, people like Mark Bingham, Carolyn Peyton, Bob Lucas, Willie Schwartz, Peter Gold, and MX-80, to play at a benefit to raise money for the station dream. It would be held the evening of July 9, 1975, at the Bluebird, on Walnut Street.
The next morning, Morris opened a bank account and deposited the $700 the show had earned. Bloomington’s community radio station was well on its way to hitting the airwaves, he and Hood thought.
Little did they realize their Community Radio Project would take nearly two decades, with several near-death experiences, to finally become a reality.
NEXT POST: WHAT IS COMMUNITY RADIO?
Come back for more tales from the WFHB genesis story in this space. We’ll be posting each week as WFHB celebrates its 31st year as Bloomington’s home of community radio.