MAY 16th - HIGH SCHOOL RADIO DAY

On May 16th, in just 5 days U.S. high school radio stations in the U.S. will join to inaugurate the first-ever High School Radio Day. So far there are only 28 stations participating, But you must remember how very few such stations still exist. One of the goals of the organizers is to raise a awareness of the ones that still exist.In fact, the date also commemorated the sign-on date of the first high school radio station; WNAS in New Albany, Indiana

Strictly speaking, there are 128 "high school" radio stations in the U.S. but not all of them have even a single high school student at the mic. Only a fraction of those are operated in any way by high school students. Radio stations are licensed only as commercial, and non-commercial. So my designation here is strictly by licensee. But even if you counted all 128 stations, that's 0.9% of the total licensed stations in the U.S. —no matter how you slice it, less than 1% of American radio stations are licensed by high schools. More here.

However, when you go to highschoolradioday.com the first thing you hit is a splash page with a flash script playing a clip of a Rage Against The Machine song that was a single in 1992. While [obviously] I am pro-radio... this is part of the problem. Radio is fighting an uphill branding battle that leaves the platform looking dated next to say...an iPhone. Opening with a 20-year-old single... not helping.

First High School Radio Station

For the purposes of this post, High school radio staiton will be defined as a radio station, with its studios located at a high school. It's operation by highschool students is a plus, not mandatory.

Stations like these existed in the late 1920s. but there is very little recorded about these stations,much like other LP broadcasters of the era. It goes without saying that the schedules were erratic, the off air tie was greater than on air time and that it was all live. In 1934 that nifty communications act knocked nyone off air that wouldn't play by the rules. This included the hobies run stations at high schools.

By the late forties Highschool radio made a come back. WHHS 99.9 at at Haverford High. near Philadelphia was foundedin 1949 as the nation's first high school FM station. really they were the first one that was licensed but whos quibbling?
WHHS began as an experiment in radio electronics at Haverford High School. Oscar Granger, achool principal on that era decided file for a frequency. With the help of a physics teacher and a chemistry teacher, the experiment turned into a thriving success. But as a class D staiton they had little right to protect their contour. In 1992, from the FCC made them change frequencies from 89.3 FM to 107.9 FM. Only in 2005 more change ups in Philly forces them to make another move to 99.9. http://www.whhs.org/

88.1 WNAS, Nashville makes a similar claim and was founded in 1949, but actually is only the second. WHHS beats them by two months. what can I say? Highschool kids aren't so good at research.