How my life interweaves with U92 The Moose
A story about West Virginia University's radio station
Eric Nuttall has a tattoo of U92’s Moose logo on his right forearm.
Last December, he learned he would be hired as the next General Manager at WWVU 91.7 FM — “U92” — West Virginia University’s radio station. Eric sought out and listened to U92’s students to find out what they wanted, what they needed. One student said they needed someone who is really committed to U92.
So Eric got a tattoo. Showed up with it on day 1 of his job. The students didn’t believe it was a real tattoo, figured he drew it on. But no, it’s a real tattoo. They joked that they were about to change the mascot to an elephant.
Eric was in.
* * * * *
It’s November 1998. For about a month, I’ve been hosting my first regular radio shift: 3 - 6 a.m. on Tuesday nights / Wednesday mornings. Playing indie rock mostly, with some other genres thrown in there.
It’s not a far walk from Dadisman Hall to U92’s old studio location in the Mountainlair. But it’s the first time in my life I had seen a sidewalk so steep that it was a set of stairs.
These days, hardly any radio stations even have an overnight shift - automation fills in instead. But at U92, I’m getting an overnight music education. And also, the overnight shift is tough. I’m a sleepy boy and I sound stilted on-air. By 5 a.m., I’m struggling to stay awake. So I put on the 12-minute “Wedding Suite” by the New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars and I’m dancing around the studio in a most ridiculous fashion.
Yes, I’m sleepy. Yes, my brain is slightly on fire during my Wednesday morning biological anthropology class. But I’m having a helluva time.
And I’ve caught the bug for radio.
* * * * *
U92 went on the air in 1982, and its mascot was “The Moose” even then. Station lore is that somebody had procured a moose costume from a yard sale and wore it to U92’s early promotional events. Somehow it stuck. More serendipity than careful planning.
Except when a U92 volunteer wears the costume, there’s not a single moose in West Virginia. Not even in a zoo.
* * * * *
I was not part of U92’s sports department, but it has always been a big part of U92’s broadcasting. Students do live game calling for baseball, men’s & women’s soccer, women’s basketball, even some football games.
Not to mention a four hour sports talk show on Wednesday evenings.
Back when I was a DJ, I used to get annoyed at all the pre-emptions of my show for yet another game. But even then, I had to admit that those guys were good at what they did.
At present, there are more students at U92 doing sports radio than DJing.
* * * * *
It’s the mid-1980s. Joel Harrison came to WVU for graduate work in chemistry. He beecame pals with someone called “DJ Needle,” who encouraged him to apply to U92. He was hired as a volunteer in January 1985.
Kim Harrison (who went by a different surname then) was a broadcast journalism major who came to U92 through its news department shortly after Joel. They met in May 1985.
Joel and Kim dated, got married, built a family here. And U92 remained an important part of their entire adult lives.
Kim was hired as U92’s program assistant in 1989, promoted to General Manager in 2000. Promoted to an assistant director position with WVU Student Life in 2008, where she continued to support U92 until her retirement in 2020.
What’s the impact of U92? I ask. “More than anything, it was the friendships,” says Kim. “We had a proximity and really felt we belonged. I hesitate to say ‘land of misfit toys’ but we were kinda like that.”
Joel chimes in: “There was such a shared joy of discovering a new artist, doing a cool new thing, really hitting a great segue. And just sharing that excitement with whoever was hanging around the station.”
* * * * *
Like my fellow U92 DJs, I loved doing college radio. Loved discovering new music. Loved being a part of that land of misfit toys. And along the way, it turns out we got better at useful things. Talking to a radio audience makes you better at talking to colleagues with confidence. Avoiding dead air by managing all the tasks of analog radio DJing makes you better at organization skills and getting shit done.
A bunch of us also went on to media careers.
Chuck is a professional DJ based in Denver. Rob works at NBCUniversal in DC. Matt has been on-air talent at several stations. Brian is a program director in Pittsburgh radio. Eric is a TV news anchor. Mike did sports journalism before shifting to international news. Pogo has been a roving media pro, from producing podcasts to running tech for ESPN live broadcasts.
And those are just a few of the guys I know.
And then there’s me.
* * * * *
9/11 happened on a Tuesday. I will always remember that because I was slated to host a call-in talk show on U92 on Wednesday. No one had answers, everyone was scared. We hustled to put together a show with Morgantown’s assistant fire chief as our guest, talking about how emergency preparedness springs to action, talking about the emotions and tragedy of it all.
A week later, I was hosting a live remote broadcast from WVU’s memorial gathering on the lawn in front of Woodburn Hall. Narrating the scene in voice tones I hoped were appropriate for the moment. Rushing to finish my sentence when I realized the moment of silence had started sooner than I expected.
Two weeks after that, and separate from my U92 work, I helped organize a few dozen pro-peace protestors. War had not been officially declared yet, but everybody knew where things were heading. A handful of young people in Morgantown weren’t going to stop the war, but we needed to bear witness. We camped overnight in front of the Mountainlair. We played music. We held signs. We slept poorly.
We had the passion and energy and idealism of youth, but we also knew. We knew that wars of revenge would be interminable. We knew they would lead to so much more death and destruction. We knew that knock-down conflicts leave everybody worse off, even a country as powerful as the U.S. Especially when there’s no plan for repair, rebuilding, and restoration of trust.
* * * * *
In 2015, U92 won the “station of the year” award from College Music Journal.
In 2017, U92’s student DJs went on strike, in protest of a general manager accused of multiple allegations of sexual harrassment. It took a few months before WVU suspended that manager while undertaking a Title IX investigation. He was later reassigned and is no longer at the university.
In 2018, U92’s momentum had been sapped. There was a damage to trust that and trust is hard to rebuild. A lot of students just never came back.
Things can fall apart fast.
It took a while to get a new full-time manager in place. Just as he was getting settled, Covid-19 closed everything, including U92’s access to its own studios. Maintaining a robust media service was not in the cards, but it carried along as best it could.
In spite of its “academic transformation” that slashed jobs and morale, WVU seems to remain committed to student broadcasting at U92. The station came under a new umbrella of WVU Student Media alongside the school newspaper.
And also, this is a time of transition.
* * * * *
“I believe in community radio,” sayd Eric Nuttall, U92’s new general manager. “If a community loses its radio station, it loses its identity. I also believe in the university being a close partner with the community.”
Eric would know. Decades ago, he did sales & on-air talk on WASP in Brownsville, PA. Programming was really local, including a guy named John who would call in on Saturday mornings and tell everyone what he was having for breakfast. Eric tells me about a shop owner who told him: “I don’t need to buy ads on your station, you’ll always be there.” Three years later, an out-of-town company bought the station. Three years after that, the station was gone.
The town lost its ability to speak to itself.
Eric says U92 needs to reidentify with the WVU campus and also get out in public, meeting with people, being a part of the community. And a lot of that is dependent on getting more students involved — meeting them where they are and getting them in the room.
That means some changes. U92’s slogan for decades has been “The New Music Pioneer.” But let’s be honest, these days, the real life new music pioneers for college students are YouTube, TikTok.
I share an observation I’ve repeated often: that in nonprofit organizations and stations like ours, everything should stem from mission. And U92’s mission hasn’t been very clear for the last few years.
Eric hands me a draft mission statement that’s sitting right on his desktop. It’s about U92 being the heartbeat of music and information in Morgantown, enriching the cultural tapestry of our community.
It’s really good.
He shares his plan, and there are a lot of good elements in that plan. My favorite idea is an amusing one: dress somebody up in that moose costume, put a boombox on their shoulder, and send them walking down High Street talking to people.
Because it’s fun. Radio is fun. Community building is fun. And while we’re having that fun, we’re doing something that matters.