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Something for Everyone, WERU’s Motto
By Jennifer Osborn
ORLAND—Mix together
160 volunteers, a handful of paid staff, music from African to
Zydeco and all styles in between plus alternative news.
Sammy Riegel, underwriting
manager and fill-in DJ for WERU, gets time on-air Thursday at
the station headquarters in Orland. The station is run by full-
and part-timers and relies on the services of many volunteers.
STAFF PHOTO BY JOHN HUBBARD |
The result is WERU,
Maine’s only community radio station—14-years-old this year, based
in Orland since 1997.
Eclectic is perhaps
the most fitting description for WERU.
“We are just
whatever isn’t carried elsewhere,” said Denis Howard II, development
director.
This means on any
day of the week or hour of the day, people might hear jazz, Celtic,
folk, techno, reggae or rock to name a few.
The station began
in Blue Hill in 1988. Its first home was a henhouse owned by Noel
Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul and Mary.
Running a community
radio station is “probably one of the more difficult things you can
do,” Howard said.
“The problem with a
community radio station is how do you fill every hour?” asked
Howard.
WERU is on the air
eight hours a day. It is usually off between midnight and 5 a.m.
“That means you
have to get 60 to 100 volunteer DJ’s to do on-air work,” said
Howard. The average show lasts two to three hours.
“Luckily,” said
Howard, there always seems to be a continuing flow of volunteers.
Just when someone
says he needs his Saturday nights, someone new comes along, Howard
said.
“It’s very
self-maintaining,” said Howard. “But, half of it is blind luck.”
In the next year or
so, WERU may hold a fundraising campaign to replace the station’s
14-year-old transmitter.
“We send whatever’s
on through a phone line to Blue Hill Mountain and the transmitter
sends it out from Machias to Bath to Bangor and Waterville,” said
Howard.
WERU has a
“translator” in the steeple of the Union Street Brick Church in
Bangor. This device takes the signal from the Blue Hill transmitter
and transforms it into a signal that goes to 102.9, the number to
listen to WERU in Bangor, Howard said.
Listener support is
one reason WERU is still thriving.
The November 2001
pledge drive was the best ever.
“We’ve been going
strong and we seem to be improving,” said Howard.
To supplement
pledge drives, WERU holds concert fundraisers at the Bangor church.
The concerts are a
chance to listen to artists in a small, intimate setting, said
Howard.
On Saturday, Sept.
14, Richard Julian, a singer and acoustic guitar-player, will
perform at
7:30 p.m.
The annual Full
Circle Fair is another fundraiser.
It had been held in
Union for the past five or six years, Howard said, because the
largest numbers of WERU members live in the Belfast/Camden area.
But, this year, its
13th, it came back to Blue Hill because attendance in Union was less
than expected.
“We just were
cursed with weather and bad location,” said Howard. The Union
fairgrounds were beautiful but no one wanted to drive 20 minutes
inland for a fair in the middle of summer, he said.
Howard said the
station had to contend with challenging weather nearly every year of
the Union location including a hurricane, torrential rains and a
100-plus degree heat wave.
A thousand more
people attended this year’s fair in Blue Hill and there were three
times as many vendors.
“A lot of the
musicians were more willing to go to Blue Hill,” he said. “Blue
Hill’s a destination.
“That was probably
the best move we could have made.”
The fair is the
biggest day of fundraising for the station. This year’s $10,000 goal
was surpassed by $6,500.
“People come who
have never heard of WERU,” said Howard.
The fair has
musical performances, a children’s tent, vendors who range from a
Belfast midwife to a business selling biodiesel fuel.
One of the most
popular parts of the fair is a used book and music sale.
Howard described
the fair as “back to the roots” and “organic” in nature.
The planning for
next year’s fair begins Sept. 28 in Stockton Springs. Anyone
interested should contact WERU.
A challenge for the
station is publicity.
“I assume everybody
knows we’re here,” Howard said. Then, someone from Ellsworth or
Belfast will ask, ‘What’s WERU?’”
The University of
Maine did a survey about listeners a couple of years ago. The
results were “a lot of people said, ‘I’ve never heard of it,’” said
Howard.
“We don’t have a
van with our logo on the side. We’re not buying radio ads.
“We were scared
last year because the Union fair hadn’t been as successful, but
November’s pledge drive was the best ever.
“I think the
community response is growing.
“Community response
is always an unknown for us,” he added.
At times, “we think
there’s a conscious effort not to listen to those hippies,” Howard
said.
“Nobody will love
every show, but there’s something for everybody here.”
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