The Johnsonian

Issue date: 9/20/06 Section: Lifestyles

Media Credit: Jen Kerrick Jennifer Potts, sophomore biology major, works at WINR as a DJ. Her radio segment airs on Friday nights at 8 p.m. The radio station acts as a classroom for mass communication students during the day and allows real world experience in the afternoons.

Winthrop has a radio station that is completely student run, student managed and student programmed. On top of that, they do it for free.

Faculty, staff and students can tune in on campus via the television, on cable channel 99. Off-campus, people can tune in online by going to Birdnest.org/WINR.

Students can apply to work with WINR during their first semester at the university. Haney Howell, associate mass communication professor and faculty supervisor for the radio station, said this is a big draw for people considering attending Winthrop.

"I can't tell you how many students said they came here when they learned they could apply to work at the station from day one," Howell said.

Howell was instrumental in getting Andrew Kiel, a sophomore integrated marketing communication major and now the general manager for WINR, to come to Winthrop and work with the station.

"I came to Winthrop for a campus tour the February of my senior year in high school, and after the tour my parents had scheduled a meeting with Haney Howell," Kiel said. "He was really excited to show my family and me the station, and we kept in touch over the spring and summer."

Kiel took MCOM 205, introduction to mass communication, with Howell, and they continued to discuss the campus radio station. Early in Fall 2005, Kiel started doing a show on the air. By October, then station manager, senior mass communication major Corey Brunk, asked Kiel to join the management team at the station.

His passion for radio started before college, however.

"I was bitten by the radio bug sometime in middle school," Kiel said.

His senior year of high school, Kiel worked for Clear Channel Radio in Charleston. He did promotions, ran the board and was on the air doing weeknights on the oldies station between 7 p.m. and midnight.

"It was a lot of fun and I learned so much working there," Kiel said. "My experience working for a corporate radio station has given me a great insight on how a smaller station such as WINR should be run."

Continued...

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