“Mics are live” says a student to himself as he turns on the mics. He pauses and counts down. 3, 2, 1, and then he proclaims into his microphone, “You are listening to WMLU 91.3 the music of Longwood University and Farmville, Virginia.”
With the whole renovation of French completed, WMLU is finally settled in at its new home. Not only that but new equipment has been brought in to the station.
“This has been planned for about five or six years, and it was only in the last two years that it became final” says the stations advisor Bryan Roethel. “The former IT and radio building [Hiner] was too small to meet our needs and we were also due for an overhaul of equipment. They [Longwood] also promised us a new building to fit all our needs, as well as other groups on campus.”
According to the station’s Program Director Jason Tsai, “From a programing perspective, the new furniture and equipment will be great for students to provide new content. We have new CD decks and a turntable and we hope to encourage DJ’s to use them to create exciting shows.”
The station has come a long way to become the force it is today. According to the station’s website, they began programing in Jarman Hall after being granted permission by the FCC in 1978.
91.3 was not always their frequency. It was originally 90.1 and went under the name WLCX. The name stood for Longwood College Extreme.
In 1993, the station started a tradition that is long preserved by Longwood today. That tradition is Bandfest. Bandfest is a music festival event that coincided with another popular event, Spring Weekend. Every year, the station books a lineup of bands to come and play at Longwood and bring the student body amazing music both obscure and mainstream.
Eventually the stationed moved into the basement of Hiner in 1995, the station called Hiner its home for 17 years.
2001 was a monumental year for the station. They changed their frequency from 90.1 to 91.3. They also added 250 watts and were an NPR outlet for Harrisonburg and the Shenandoah Valley area.
The next year, the station announced that they would be supplying remote DJs that would work for free at student events. Thus the popular remotes crew was born. They have been actively lending out their services to play loud music on the commons and to help raise awareness of other organizations.
In that very same year, the station decided that they would create a mascot. That mascot became DJ Rotunda Man. DJ Rotunda Man has been a staple at campus remotes. Wearing a blue helmet with a pair of headphones, DJ Rotunda Man channels his inner Deadmau5 by dropping sick beats or showing off sweet dance moves. The campus has grown to love this charismatic mascot and he is what most people remember about the station.
The station has a long history of keeping to the college radio aesthetic. They usually focus on getting students to tune in and discover up and coming talent from all types of genres. “We have shows that focus on the new music” says Kyle Transue, the Music Director of WMLU. “Shows like Jason Tsai’s ‘A Slice of Poetry’ and Wesley Barnhill’s ‘Up in the Clouds’ all of which tend to focus on the new music that we receive form promoters or independent artists.”
The station itself has also done a lot of good for Farmville and the world. The station has been known to host acoustic concerts to help the people in Farmville who may be struggling financially. An instance of them doing well for the world would be their famous Hurricane Katrina Benefit Concert in 2005. The organization spent the whole day gathering acts to play and raising money to help the families that were victims to the horrible tragedy.
WMLU means a lot to the students involved. Some seek to follow a career as a DJ, others are using the station as their creative outlet. As Kyle Transue put it, “the station, as a whole, means a lot to everyone. Not just the board members, but the general members too.”
The radio station will continue to thrive for years to come. And as music keeps evolving, so will the station.
