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WYSO Turns 55

Fifty-five years ago, on February 8, 1958, WYSO began broadcasting. 

It was students who did all the legwork to get the station licensed and ready.  After many years of un-licensed, unofficial broadcasting on the campus of Antioch College, WYSO went on the air with 19 watts of power.  They gathered expectantly on the second floor of the student union building in the new studios.  At 8pm, Bruce Johanson, script in hand, stepped up to the microphone.

"Good evening.  At this time Antioch College begins its first transmission on FM.  This is station WYSO, owned and operated by Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio with studios and transmitter on the campus of Antioch College operating on a frequency of 91.5 megacycles by authority of the Federal Communications Commission.  For its first program, the Antioch Broadcasting System will bring you the official opening and dedication of its broadcast facilities in the Antioch Union."

At first they were on the air for just hours a day, playing classical music, jazz, news and information programs about books and local education issues.

In their first program guide, they said, "we wish to emphasize that this will be a community radio station."

And now, 55 years later, it is still that.

All this year, we'll be celebrating our anniversary with audio from our digital archives.  And starting today, with the illustrated timeline below.

Neenah Ellis has been a radio producer most of her life. She began her career at a small commercial station in northern Indiana and later worked as a producer for National Public Radio in Washington, DC. She came to WYSO in 2009 and served as General Manager until she became the Executive Director of The Eichelberger Center for Community Voices where she works with her colleagues to train and support local producers and has a chance to be a radio producer again. She is also the author of a New York Times best-seller called “If I Live to Be 100: Lessons from the Centenarians.”