By Courtney Sosnowski | Reporter
After years off the air, the sound of Baylor is back. Radio BU broadcasted live from the studio in the Bill Daniel Student Center Monday morning.
The program was resurrected by motivated students, a few donations for equipment and provisions for licensing rights covered by Baylor Film and Digital Media. Fortunately, a lot of music and equipment remained from Baylor’s former radio program. In 2000, NPR acquired Baylor’s original radio station, KWBU, moving the broadcasting center away from campus. Since then, there has not been a student run radio station.
Monday through Friday, Radio BU will feature student DJs who select songs between 9 a.m. and 10 p.m. As of now, there are more than 30 students who volunteer time to manage, host, DJ, promote or produce parts of the show.
Waco senior Delany Baum grew up around her grandfather’s radio station. Although she is an environmental science major, her passion for music fueled her to volunteer as a DJ for Radio BU. She plans to give Baylor students a taste of her rock music vibe during her shift three days a week.
“We have a whole filing cabinet of albums that we’ve either bought ourselves or people have given to us and I just search it in our computer,” Baum said. “Like if I want to listen to The Killers, I just search ‘The Killers’ and it gives me every song that we have and I just drag and drop on my screen to a little playlist and it just cues it up on my screen one by one by one.”
Giving students a voice will be an important aspect of Radio BU. As a student-run organization focused on communication, the station hopes to provide opportunities for Baylor students to give input, as well as to advertise for campus activities. San Antonio sophomore Harrison White, production manager for Radio BU, described Radio BU as “a student’s take on what Baylor is to them rather than Baylor’s take on what it should be to you.”
“Everyone listening is probably going to be a student,” White said. “They might as well enjoy it.”
Belton senior Brentyn Young co-hosts the talk show “Bearly Functioning,” a sort of variety show, which will air once a week. The hour long segment will feature discussion on sports, entertainment, love and other hot topics. Young got the idea for the show during Baylor’s sexual assault scandal, because he thought that students should have an outlet to give opinions.
“For our show we have a part where students can send in stuff. So if there’s anything they’d like us to talk about or if they ever want to have their voice heard about some issue or anything, our show is probably the place where that would happen,” Young said. “This is going to be a considerably accessible way for students to put their voices out there and say what they need to say.”
Next time you pass through the SUB, peek through the widows of the studio across from the office of Multicultural Affairs to get a glimpse of the past and present Baylor in harmony with each other. To tune in or get involved, visit the Radio BU website.
“The more people [listening] the better” White said. “Honestly, it just becomes more interactive. Because you know if we get a lot of people a part of the radio, and they have friends and you have more people listening. It becomes more than just a business per se; it’s more of a community.”
