THE HOWARD ALLEN INTERVIEW WITH TOM FLYNN-28 MAY 2003 

Do you remember the date you signed on originally; do you remember the first day? 

As I recall, I believe it was actually in the fall, it had to be late fall, though…and…I don’t remember exactly when it was though.

Was it a situation where you went to Radio Shack thinking about getting a transmitter?

No, it was just that I met Pete Dalton (he was the only guy I knew with a car, except for my roommate). He had a little VW Bug and we just took off one evening and went over to Radio Shack and I don’t know why we went there, but I was wandering around and there was this bin of dollar grab bags, and in there was this little FM wireless mic kit and I said, “okay, what the hell, feels like fun” so I grabbed one of them–actually, I grabbed two of them as I think of it. And, went home, hooked the battery up to it, futzing around with it, and said, “I’ll see how far this guy will go.” So, I grabbed my radio and wandered around the halls and was pretty impressed; it went pretty much everywhere on the campus. And, so I said, “okay.” 

You gotta remember back in 1970, the only two radio stations that I remember on the FM band in the Maine area were WGAN, which nobody listened to, and WTOS, which was a good rock station, but is was so far away that it was kind of marginal reception, and I think WPOR, which not too many people listened to either. So, for the FM band, it was totally quiet.

The FM mic was nice because the module could be adjusted to any frequency you wanted to, so I chose what actually would later become WBLM’s frequency of 107.5, and WTOS was at 105, so I figured, you know, if anybody’s cruising around and trying to find something, maybe they’ll just fall over into my station.

So, you wanted to be heard?

Yeah, yeah, definitely, I thought it was worthwhile doing. The first year I didn’t make too much of an effort to organizing it, but at the end of year, there was a guy who worked in the AV department actually, I think he was an instructor-yeah, he was an instructor, and he taught something like preparing materials for class reviews, or something like that, his name is Hal Burgesson. And, he called a meeting to organize a radio station. And, it was in the Spring. So, there was a bunch of us that were interested, and he put together a couple of visits to Nassan College (??) in Springvale, as they had a 10–watter there, we went up to UMF to see their show, and we went up to Bowdoin to talk to those guys, all local FM stations. So, we all got kind of excited about that. We had to make a decision whether we wanted to go with a low–power FM what they call a carrier-wave AM, and the difference is carrier–wave AM can only be heard in a building that your carrier-wave transmitter is attached to. So, it’s not an open–air broadcast–it’s a closed broadcast. But, at the meeting, we decided that we wanted to go with FM and make it a real radio station that could be heard not only on campus, but also off–campus, because we wanted to reach people off–campus (not only students, but even then we were thinking of the local community). So, that was what we decided to do. Unfortunately, he left at the end of the year.

So, this was Spring of 1970?

So, basically, he and I were talking one day, and he said, “Well, it’s up to you now.” And, I kind of took it and ran with it, which was not something I would normally do, but I did. I kind of started it. The next year, basically, I started with the same group of people, a lot of which were my friends, which helps, and we tried to get a little bit more organized as time went on, and put together a regular broadcast schedule. That’s when we got permission to put the station up in the fifth floor Anderson [Hall] lounge area, which I don’t imagine exists anymore (I think they started using those for dorm rooms). That’s when we put the pole on top of the roof.

So, that was done with USM’s permission (from the start, basically)? 

Well, we have to be careful about that statement. To be very honest, USM didn’t know anything about it. Basically, what I did was I went around getting to know people at the lower eschilon (SP?), you might say, so, like, putting the pole on top of Anderson–nobody in the administration knew what was going on, but there was one guy I knew, he was the head of…I think it was Building Maintenance or something like that, and I just went in one day and I said, “you know, we’re doing a radio station, we’d like to put a pole on top of Anderson. Any problem with that?” He didn’t have a problem with that at all. So, it was like, okay. We got a hold of the janitor, and he gave us the keys, and we went up there, and bolted the thing up there. So, you know, it wasn’t until an article came out in the…I think it’s called the Westbrook Advertiser…it’s one of these little local papers…I think it still exists in Westbrook. And, I don’t know how they got wind of it, but they called me up one day and wanted an interview. And, so I did an interview with them and the paper published [the interview], and it was like the next week, I got out of classes and picked up my mail at my box and there was a note in there [that said], “you need to come see one of the Deans“-I don’t remember who it was–he was a good guy, and it didn’t say why. And, I’m thinking, okay, I’m not particularly notorious one way or the other, so, what’s going on? Anyway, so I go over there and the first thing he says is, “So, what’s this I read about a radio station in Anderson Hall; a University radio station?” And, you know, so the cat was out of the bag at that point. And I explained that it was “yours truly” who had organized a bunch of students and we were broadcasting on a pretty regular basis; a daily basis out of fifth floor Anderson. And, he said, “Well, you know, that’s the kind of undertaking that reflects on the University, and we ought to have some say in it.” And, the good thing is it kind of gave us the official recognition that we needed to keep going and to actually get more resources. One of the direct outcomes of that meeting was, “hey, I can put you in contact with Ed Winchester, who is the Maine Public Radio chief engineer, and has helped with UMF’s radio station, and up to Orono’s radio station, and, you know, he can help you in the technical aspects of getting the radio station going.” So, that was a good thing.

So, up until this point, you weren’t licensed in any way? 

No, no, and there was no license needed for that low power. But, the other thing we really needed to do was to become organized as a recognized campus entity. So, I drafted a constitution and submitted it to the…I don’t remember what the organization was…but, basically, they were the ones that funded the newspaper and they took care of the student money, the student fees and distributed to various good causes. The radio station was something that people knew about a little bit, but it wasn’t funded. So, we wanted to get it funded, because if we were going to go full blast, we were going to have to buy equipment. So, we put together an organization, got officially recognized by “student powers that be,” and I got to sit on the communications board, as I recall, which still exists.

How many people were involved at the beginning, would you say, “the core group”?

The “core group” was actually a good–sized group, which was a good thing. It was about 14-16 people. I mean, we were broadcasting probably 7 hours a day, 7 days a week, so I mean, you 

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know, everybody was on the air-except me, I wasn’t on the air. I didn’t do the on–air thing. I always stayed away from the microphone unless I needed to fill in for somebody. So, that’s what I did, I filled in for people. As you can imagine, people were away on the weekend and stuff. But, that’s one nice thing about Gorham being where it was, at the time it was–on campus, you know, people didn’t have a lot to do in the evening, so they were willing to work at the radio station.

What were the hours you broadcast?

I actually think I have a copy of the original broadcast schedule at home, but it seems to me like it was 6:00 to midnight, something like that.

Was it basically just people playing records from their own collections?

Yeah…the radio station did actually have a record library…we had written like a hundred letters to all the different record companies, and some of them actually believed that we were a real radio station, and they put us on their list, and they would send us all these promotional copies. Atlantic, Warner Bros…we got going early, a lot of it was junk, but we did get some gems. But, a lot of people brought in their own records. Pete Daiton was a classical music fan, we didn’t have any classical music, so he brought in his stuff. In fact, I think I have a tape, a little 3 1⁄2 reel–to- reel tape of his program on it, or at least part of his program.

Do you remember the first thing that was played on air?

Probably the first thing from my room back when, I had a limited repetroire of records, so I believe the first record that I played was by a group called Creem. I’ve still got the record, but I can’t remember which one it was. But, you’ve gotta figure this is 1970, right? They were probably one of my favorite groups of that time.

In the article it said that in the beginning you just put a stack of records on the turntable and let it play through.

Yeah, yeah, and that’s why I think it was late Fall when I put the thing on the air because I remember buying the record player from one of the professors. It was an old–now I can’t remember what it was–I think it was a Gerard record changer. That’s all it was a changer. I bought it for 25 bucks, or something like that. And, I just basically hooked it up to the microphone through a little switch box that I made out of a cardboard box and a washing machine, I think. It had multiple switches on it. Anyway, I didn’t talk a lot. I did have a reel–to- reel tape deck, so I did record a few announcements and that kind of thing. I also had a written agreement WCSH Channel 6, that I could use their weather forecast on my radio station, which is kind of funny.

And that pre-dated your agreement with USM even?

Yeah. 

Did you have call letters for yourself?

Oh yeah, I called it WGOR right from the start. In fact, I think I have a picture of the sign on my door–WGOR 107.5, or something like that.

Did you do news broadcasts at all, or did you pretty much stick to music? 

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I didn’t do news, no. I did the weather and I did the music thing. That was pretty much it. I remember the next year, just before we shut down broadcasting in Anderson, which we did either just before Christmas or right after Christmas. To raise money, we started soliciting advertising and there was a shop in Gorham that bought some time, and I created a commercial for them, and I think I still have that commercial on tape, too. But, basically, right around that time frame, we’d been recognized by the University, we had talked to Ed Winchester, we had decided to move forward and proceed with the license application process. And, I was very concerned that nothing we did would potentially damage getting that license, so one time I called a meeting at the station; at the studio on the 5th floor, and basically, I said, “Look guys, I think we ought to stop broadcasting because even though I think this is legal, I just want to make sure that nothing happens that would damage our possibility to actually getting a license for the University.” So, we stopped at that point. We took a vote and decided that, yeah, we’d stop. So, at that point, we had been funded. We started focusing on procuring equipment, WCSH–AM gave us some equipment, and we received some other equipment from WNBC (a couple of microphones), nothing really immediately useable; a lot of cast-off kind of stuff, which you probably still get.

Which we still get. So, how long were you down before you were back on?

Well, basically, that was it for probably a year and a half. Because, we went on the air in the Fall of ’73, and this was, pretty much as I recall, December of ’71. So, the challenge as I recognized then would be to maintain the momentum and maintain the enthusiasm for the core group to keep going, because you know, they said it would be a year or so process of getting the license, and there was stuff that needed to be done. So, we started to focus on things like, okay, where are we going to put the studio? Where are we going to put the antenna? Where are we going to put the transmitter? And, talking to people. We organized a trip to UNH-Durham, because they had a 10–watt station, and as a result of that contact we made down there, they had told us that they were in the process of going up to a 1 kilowatt transmitter. And, that their transmitter would be put on the block, so to speak. And, ultimately, that’s where we got our transmitter, from the contacts we made on that road trip. We put a bid on it, and we got the thing. We bought a board from Brunswick High School, an old RCA board they had on sale; picked up some used equipment. The Spring break I built some of the studio equipment, I built the left turntable counter. We had two turntables on one side, and the other side was in the shape of a “u” as I recall, with the board facing you and the turntables-two one one side and one on the left, and one on the other side. And I went to a junkyard and picked up a big equipment rack, a 19 inch equipment rack; and bought a nice Revox (SP?) A–77 reel–to-reel deck, put that in the rack, and started putting together some other stuff.

Slowly building…

Uh–hmmm. 

So, when the whole odyssey began, were you a freshman? A sophmore?

Freshman, yeah.

And it was on the air completely licensed before you graduated? 

Yup. I graduated in ’74, and we started right on the air the first day of school in ’73. During Freshman orientation, we were actually running our broadcast trials. We used to be hooked directly to the cafeteria sound system in Gorham. So, we had a guaranteed audience right from the beginning. One of the hardest things was getting a place for the studio. We actually had to kick the cafeteria out of their storage room because that is where we put the studio.

How long did you stay involved with the station? 

After I graduated, that was it. I didn’t have anything more to do with it.

Do you remember what you paid for the transmitter?

I think we bid 750 bucks for it. We actually paid more for our main board. That’s the one thing I wanted new. We paid 1400 bucks for the board. Then, the damn thing never worked right. You had to hit it every once in awhile to get the monitor amp to work. We could never find that loose connection in there, I know it was in there, too.

Were you pretty much the chief engineer during those start-up years? 

Yeah, I was. [During} Summer vacation, the Summer of ’73, I actually put the station together. Now, I didn’t have a car in the Summer of ’73. And, I was working second shift in a place in Kennebunk, which is where I lived. So, what I would do is, I would ride my bike from Kennebunk to Gorham, and we’re not talking motorcycle here, we’re talking 2–wheel pedal power. And, I would come up here, work on the radio station, and then go back home. I couldn’t do that today if my life depended on it!

Is that where you grew up? In Kennebunk?

No, I’m not from Maine. My dad was in the Service, that’s where he retired to. So, I worked all summer saving money for a car and working on WMPG, the studio. So, I got that all wired up, and the board hadn’t arrived. So, I was going to make due with a little 4-channel auxiliary board that we had given to us. The last day before we were going to run our trials, it showed up. And, it was the first weekend I was on campus, or something, so it worked out okay.

When you signed on officially, did you pretty much keep the same schedule (the 7- hour broadcasts)?

Yeah, we started with a limited broadcast schedule. I think we signed on at noon and signed off at midnight. As part of what we had been doing in the intervening time frame before we actually went on the air, for like a year, we had been trying to get people licensed, because back then, you had to have your third-class license with a broadcast endorsement to be on the air by yourself, otherwise you had to have someone sitting in the studio with a license. Well, they gave the FCC license exam twice a year, I think it was. And, that’s what I did, was I tried training people to learn enough to pass the three elements of the license. And, it was a difficult test. So, we weren’t real successful, we had a lot of people with provisional licenses you could put in for a one–year provisional license while you were studying to get your full license. So, I think there were like 4 or 5 of us with our full license, and then like 6 or 7 with provisional licenses. 

I talked to Bob from Enterprise Records. Do you know Bob? 

No, but I’ve been in the place. 

He was involved early on, it was probably after you had left, but he talks about those early days. He would be the DJ the signed on in the morning at 6:00 or 7:00 and he would just hope his replacement showed up, because he couldn’t leave it unattended. He pulled many 7, 8, 10–hour shifts, he said, just waiting for someone else to come in, or he’d have to sign off the station because no one showed up.

We didn’t have that problem when I was there. I mean, there were cases when people couldn’t show up, but, there always seemed to be somebody willing to jump on the mic and grab on the board and go.

Through the years, have you caught yourself listening in to WMPG and kind of tracked how it’s grown?

Yeah, I used to listen to it quite regularly, for those first four or five years. And, then I moved up to Bangor and that was it. Lost track of it completely.

Were you happy with how it was growing in those early years? 

Well, to some degree, the station never met my expectations in the early years.

Which were what? 

Given that it was a student radio station, I mean, that’s who funded it and that’s who it was for, I expected or anticipated the radio station would become diversified in terms of its audience approach, and the programming that was done on it. The radio station today is probably 90% of what I was expecting it to become. So, I think it’s very successful, at least in meeting my expectations; what that kind of radio station should be. Of course, as the years progressed, you had a lot more competition from your commercial radio stations. I remember that ’73 was the year that WBLM came on board. So, now you had a radio station that was popular with students because of the music it played, and it kind of took away from the need for WMPG to reflect that kind of music. Because, originally, a lot of people played music that was to their own taste, which was THAT kind of music. And, you didn’t hear a lot of diversity in the music. It was basically either Top 40 music or it was the hard rock and acid rock and so forth that was prevalent in those days. But, you didn’t hear a lot of blues, you didn’t hear a lot of jazz, you didn’t hear a lot of classical.

It’s something we still struggle with, is trying to strengthen the connection we have with USM, and make sure students are represented. But, one of the things that we find is there’s a lot of factors, you know, the fact that USM’s predominantly a commuter school with an average age of 28 years old; a lot of the students aren’t as involved on campus as they used to be, they’ve jobs and so forth.

That’s a transition that took place in the years.

Or students will come on as DJs and then they graduate and they stay at WMPG as their hobby. They no longer represent the student body per se, but as graduates. That’s something to this day we’re trying to come up with a plan where we can get more students on the air. Because, a great deal of our funding comes from student activity fees.

So, yeah, there’s a responsibility there. But, the population of USM has changed, as you say, and it has become more diversified. I mean, when I was there, it was basically a white campus. I mean, I can’t think of anyone of color on that campus. And, I suspect now, as you walk on that campus [of today], you’re going to see people from all kinds of racial diversity, cultural diversity.

Just like Portland itself, which is what I think is what’s great about WMPG is that it’s in the mission that we reflect the people we broadcast to, so the diversity’s incredible for a station our size. Obviously, [WMPG’s] been very well–recognized through the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, [where] we win awards almost 

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every year. I just came on the staff this year after volunteering for three years. And, I was just blown away going to my first NFCB conference, and you see how WMPG measures up against some stations that are broadcasting in cities like San Francisco, and so forth. So, it’s pretty remarkable how this station from starting in a dorm room, basically, has gotten nationwide respect.

Well, there’s certainly a consensus, I believe, among people there, that, you know, we wanted to be more than just a typical student radio station playing Top 40 and hard rock. I mean, you look at the diversity of the programs that we tried. For example, we tried broadcasting Gorham town council meetings. So, we went to the town on that. We worked with Gorham High School to encourage a Gorham High School group to participate; we gave them a block of program time, so that they could come in and run their programs.

And, this is the first year, basically, that you were on the air? 

Right, this was all in ’73-74. So, we were committed right from the very start to do those kinds of things. 

We currently have a high school program that’s a nationwide model for youth radio. It’s called BLUNT Youth Radio, and they win awards almost every year. A gal named Claire Holman, who works in USM’s English as a second language program, started it. We’ve got kids from all over. The only qualification is that you’re in high school and you’re interested in radio. And, every Monday night, they do a call–in talk show; public affairs show. They come up with the topics, they do all the research, the interviews, they host the program, and they won a couple of awards this year at the NFCB [Conference].

I would say a lot of your ideas have made it down through the years.

Well, you know, it’s one thing to have an idea, it’s another thing to be successful at executing that idea. And, I think that’s where the people that followed me really made the difference at WMPG.

In my life, I have been instrumental in organizing and getting things started. That’s what I am. But, you know, after it gets going, I’m on to the next thing. So, the year that we were on and running, I left a lot of the day–to–day administration to Wes Riley (SP?). So, he was very important to me and to the station, and he served as manager after I left for at least one year. I think he was a Junior when I was a Senior.

Is he still in the area, do you know? 

I don’t know. His dad was, I believe, an English professor with the University back in that time frame. They live somewhere over in Sebago, I think. But, that was 30 years ago.

You mentioned that it’s about 90% of what you would aspire that station to become. Are there specifics that you would like to see on WMPG that aren’t there? 

Well, I think to be THAT specific, I’d have to listen to it, and my comment is based on catching it 

once in a while over the last couple of years. So, I don’t regularly listen to the station. I mean, nothing’s ever going to be 100% of what you expect it to be.

Where do your tastes in music run these days?

C

Well, as then, my tastes are everywhere. I mean, if you look at my music collection, you’ll find…the only thing I don’t listen to is country and western music. Sorry, but it doesn’t do it for me. I don’t listen to a lot of current rock ‘n roll, or whatever you want to call it. But, I am into Jazz, I am into Blues, I like Folk, I like Classical, and I think the music I listen to the most right now is what they call contemporary Christian music. So, my favorite radio station right now is WMSJ up in Freeport. That’s a station that I’ve followed right from their early starts upstairs in the pizza hall. But, they reminded me a lot of how WMPG got started, in a small, low-powered station.

There’s a big wave of low-powered FM coming into the nation right now. It was a big topic at the NFCB conference. There’s high school programs starting with LPFM, and Indian reservations, that kind of thing, isolated mountain communities, things like that. And, there’s a whole new batch of licenses that have gone out in the last year, and are expected to come out in the next six months to a year, I guess.

I think the reason that surprises me is because of the prevalence of web broadcasting. I mean, that’s an awe–inspiring concept, to think that I could go over to Malaysia, sign onto the Internet, and listen to my favorite radio station broadcasting out of Portland, Maine or Freeport, Maine, or whatever. That’s very powerful.

That’s one of the things about WMPG’s status as a non-profit, community station is that we’re currently exempt from the licensing fees that are making it impossible for stations like WBLM and [the rest] broadcast over the Internet. And, that all can change anytime now, but it’s a real advantage to us that we are able to reach people through the Internet. We’ve seen, just in the last couple of years, our listenership grow through people working in an office building able to stream our signal into their computer, you know, and people that used to live in Portland who moved away and they want to stay up on the station. We hear from them all the time.

So, how is the relationship between the University and the radio station? 

It’s been very supportive. Since I’ve been there, we’ve got a great commitment from the University. We answer directly to the Student Senate, so there are Student Senators on the WMPG Board, and then also, the Student Communications Board, which is supposed to be like the buffer between us and the Student Senate.

Very political, huh?

Yeah, it can be. But, we’ve got really good support from the administration. Bob Caswell, who is the Media Relations guy at USM is on our Board, and he’s a big fan of the station. So, we’ve got good connections to the administration. But, you know, it’s one of those things that I think obviously could change a couple of people retired or if the wrong people came in. Because, the University DOES hold the license. I came on as Development Director in September, and one of the things I identified right away is that I would really like to see us strengthen the connections to USM and really do a better job at recruiting students, and also giving them what they want to hear. Starting this Fall, we’re going to do a big push and present some concerts on campus and things like that.

I think that kind of addresses my 10% or 90% question. A lot of times when I do listen to the radio station, I’m thinking, “okay, this is a student radio station, and it’s like, a lot of what I hear doesn’t reflect what I would anticipate students would be interested in.” So, I mean, there’s the 10% improvement, and you’ve kind of identified it.

C

Yeah, and now we just have to come up with ways to approach it. We’ve basically, in the last six months, figured out the problems we have with reaching students and getting students involved. Now, we have to put some things in place to make it easier to overcome the things that…one of the things that we’re talking about doing is, like we do with BLUNT (for the high school kids), where you’ve got a set place in the schedule for them, and there’s somebody that coordinates it, but you can have a revolving cast of high school kids who want to be involved. So, that, if we had a block that was set aside for the college students, you know, maybe they can’t commit for more than six months, but they would be able to come in and do a couple of shifts…you know, that’s the USM block, basically. So, those are the things we’re kind of working on to address that. 

Did you get any kind of negative feedback when you were first starting the station, from the administration or students? 

No. The administration, once they found out about us, were very supportive, as I think you can tell, and the students were either one of two categories: they were either complacent about or enthusiastic about it. And, I think that it’s no different than what it would be today. Either they didn’t care anything at all about it, or they wanted to become part of it, and DID become part of it. And, that was one nice thing, too. You’ve gotta remember, this was back in the early 70’s, and we actually had a good sampling of female students on the staff, when back then, I remember being surprised that there would be that many [women] interested in working on a radio station, because you didn’t hear female voices on the air. I mean, if you listened to commercial stations, I can’t think of one that had a female broadcaster. And, we had several on- air gals, and a lot of times, they’d team up, and then, also in the staff administration.

That’s another thing that we’re putting out in our next program guide, is a call to women who want to be involved, because we’re finding our schedule’s being dominated by men’s voices, and we’re wondering if it’s just a temporary thing, or if that’s always been the trend. We have a new Program Director, too, who started last year, and he’s got extensive MPR experience. He was an MPR Music Director and host at Maine MPR, so he brings a lot of professional radio experience to it, and we’re trying to keep the same casual attitude to a degree, but also realizing we’ve been here 30 years now, and Arbitron tells us we have 15,000 listeners a week and we’ve got a responsibility to the station and to the people we broadcast to, to make it as good as we can. Just because we’re non–profit doesn’t mean it has to be sloppy radio.

Which is, so often, what is typical—when you listen to student radio stations, I just could remember listening to SOME, you know, from other areas that were just–it was a party, is all it

was. 

But, I when moved here 3 years ago from Denver, Colorado. There was no radio…in Boulder, there was a station similar to WMPG, but in a city the size of Denver, there was nothing that could compare to quality and the diversity of WMPG. So, I was just blown away from the day I got here with this station. 

How did you happen to find the radio station? 

My wife and I were in a rental car. We had been to Portland a few times, and were pretty sure we were going to move here, but we wanted to come in the winter, and check it out, except the week we were here, it was in the 40’s all week…New Year’s 

week. And, we were driving around in a rental car, and I was playing around with the radio, and I came to a Hank Williams song. You don’t like country, but this is Hank, Sr., you know… 

He is the epitomy of country music.

Yeah, and I really like Hank Williams, and was listening, and it was like four songs in a row, and I said, “wow, this is incredible.” And, they came to a break and it turns out that every year, on the anniversary of Hank Williams‘ death, this guy who does an olde-time country show does a Hank Williams tribute, so it was 2 hours of Hank Williams. It was like, “this is AMAZING.” And, then that show ended, and a nationally–syndicated program that we run called “This Way Out” (it’s gay and lesbian news affairs) came on. And, I turned to my wife, and I was like, “where in the world would you hear Hank Williams going into a gay and lesbian news magazine!” It was like, “this is something else, you know?” So, I started to listen more and more.

Are there any questions you have about the station? 

What are they up to as far as the number of people involved in the station now? 

The current volunteer list is around 200, but I would say that people that are active on a weekly basis, it’s probably around 120-130. It’s definitely our strength, the people that give their time.

I remember the challenges of the Program Director back in 1974 was, trying to find people to fill the program slots. You know, it wasn’t a question of, “well, we think this program should follow this program“, it was like, “who the hell can we get to run this damn thing!” 

Well, I know up until fairly recently, that they had trouble filling the overnight slots, and made some of those a lot longer. But, since I’ve been involved, it’s been a full schedule. They haven’t had a problem filling it.

Yeah, we always went off the air at around midnight or whenever Peter White decided that he was done doing whatever he was doing.

No, we go 24/7. We’re bulging right now. We’re running out of room for our CDs. Our CD library is up over 50,000. We still have a huge vinyl library, not sure of the numbers.

Ah, yes, I’m familiar with the vinyl. Wes Riley actually scored quite a deal. There was a Westbrook radio station that, in its infinite wisdom, to go to country from rock ‘n roll. They had a 20-year accumulation of 45s. Everything you could imagine, rock ‘n roll-wise. And, they were going to get rid of it. And, Wes happened to be in the right place at the right time, and we ended up getting it. It took 3 loads–3 CAR loads–to get them into WMPG, and as we were going out for the last time, the program director [of the Westbrook radio station]-who apparently did not know that this was happening–because, he knew the manager, and ran up to the manager and said, “what the hell are you doing?” It was too late. We walked out with thousands of 45s. 

We still get donations… …and now you’re an engineer with Fairchild [Semiconductor]?

Yup. Long road.

And you’re married? 

Yup, I’ve got two kids. My wife, Phyllis, is a USM graduate, Class of ’77, so, we’ve got a 24–year- old son, and a 17-year-old daughter. I live in Limington, built 2 houses there, literally. I do everything myself. I don’t have any grease to prove it, but for the last four weekends, I’ve been working on cars and vehicles.

I run the sound system at my church, I have a board myself. I’ve played with the idea of going back to WMPG, and seeing if I could work on air, but, you really shouldn’t go back. You can’t go home. That’s what they say, and I think it’s best to not do that.

But, you were never an on–air kind of guy.

Nope, I never was. I avoided it like the plague.

Our program director did want me to ask you if you’d be interested in doing an on–air interview the week of the anniversary.

Oh, I could do that. I could tell him the story about how I sabotaged the transmitter because of a political situation…

How big was the first pole that you put on there (on the dorm)? How tall was it? 

The first pole? Gosh, it wasn’t too tall. It was about 15 feet. It wasn’t too bad. 

But, it gave you coverage for most of Gorham, probably.

Yeah, I remember jumping on my bike and taking my radio to downtown Gorham, at the intersection down there, tuning it in and being able to pick it up. I was pretty impressed, actually. At that point, it occurred to me, “hey, this is a good place for a transmitter to be.” (up on the hill.) So, I looked around and I said, “Okay, it’s going to go into the classroom building. We’re going to put that on the fifth floor. I figured out how to…I actually designed the installation up there. The engineers put their stamp of approval on it, but I told them how to do it. I’ve always been amused that they’re still using it.

Well, they’re renting it out now, part of it, for Sprint cell–phone coverage. But, they neglected to tell us they were doing that. So, we didn’t know until the day they moved ours, and knocked us off the air, which was the week of our pledge drive, too. It turned into a big nightmare. Well, now, we’ve gotten assurances that they won’t touch it again without letting us know…

…You started something pretty special, in my eyes, and I know a lot of other people’s, at least 200 other people who are big fans of what you started.

Yeah, but it’s what they’ve created out of what I started that counts. That’s really…that’s the thing that is really important. And, I said that at the 25th anniversary, I said, “this isn’t about me, it’s about what you’ve done with an idea. That’s what’s important. That’s what I’m proud of, personally…..