Jesse Tiffen
A&E Editor
Over the years, the College’s radio station has seen an array of general managers with varying levels of involvement, but none have been as active or prolific as Jeremy Ludemann ’14. Each year, the station’s management ebbs and flows, but this year WOO 91 has cultivated a more established presence on campus. Even though the station’s potential has not been fully realized and remains fairly underappreciated, in his time at the College, Ludemann has truly spearheaded its most successful promotions.
“I joined the first day I stepped onto campus and signed up for the practicum workshop. Six weeks later I had my first show,” said Jeremy. He remembers his first show fondly, “There was another freshman on air before me that used to play a lot of Slipknot and heavy metal, and so I liked to calm things down with some easy-listening and adult contemporary.”
However, it wasn’t until he joined the sports broadcasting team that he got hooked. Ludemann remembers commentating with Ben Christ ’12, the sports director at the time, during a basketball game. “Xavier Brown [’15] threw a buzzer beater that made the Wooster crowd go insane and Wittenberg fall absolutely silent.”
Jeremy spoke very frankly, “I probably wouldn’t have stayed at Wooster if it weren’t for WOO 91 — or it’s more that I wouldn’t have been as happy with the College.” A native of South Carolina, Jeremy recalls dealing with moments of homesickness his first year, “I did not have a varsity sport, a frat, I couldn’t play an instrument and wasn’t any good at art. In many ways, radio became my art. This was my outlet.” In a mutual love for music and broadcasting, the station draws a team of conventional and some not so conventional disc jockeys. “Every show is a unique representation of the diversity of this campus. We have everyone on air from athletes to Maxim Elrod [’15]’s satirical show to one DJ’s unique usage of the megaphone.”
For Ludemann, the station presents a taste of the College of Wooster campus in a very “ethical and inclusive way that is harder to achieve with other organizations. I hope people see the station as a place where they can just be themselves.”
It’s clear that the station serves an important function for acculturating first-year students, but for Ludemann the station’s importance stretches beyond the Wooster bubble. The station is often our only connection between the community and the school. “Majority of students don’t know anything about this town outside of our community and truthfully the College really needs to be more involved and the station should be at the forefront of it,” says Ludemann. “Some community members might occasionally read an article in The Daily Record, but the radio reaches out to more community members, in a much more exciting manner. I really think the station could fix a lot of the misunderstandings that go on.”
In the age of the Internet, the relevance and usefulness of traditional radio is often viciously criticized and disregarded. With the introduction of online streaming programs, such as Spotify and Pandora, the dollar has truly taken paramount and the DJ is slowly falling into the mire of technology. “A station without DJs is not a radio station. That’s really where radio needs to reinvent itself, reengaging that personal connection, that human connection,” Ludemann states, “because without that connection, there’s no point.”
To many, WOO 91’s FM signal is just another excessive and unnecessary expense that should be allocated to more worthy causes. However, if we were to reconsider the role the station has outside of our own ephemeral needs, we may learn to use the station to solve campus issues in unexpected ways.
Whether he likes it or not, it seems Ludemann will always be remembered as the “Radio Guy.” Now as his senior year draws to a close, Ludemann has faith that the current staff will continue the momentum he has garnered as General Manager and hopes “people have enjoyed listening to [his] voice on air.”