BLACKSBURG, Va. – Music in Appalachia has a rich history, but nowadays it’s rarely talked about in the mainstream. We’re digging deep into the crates of the Blue Ridge to find some local music scenes that truly mean something to those in our area. Today, we’re checking out the world of college radio at Virginia Tech.
WUVT is the college radio station at Virginia Tech, and they’ve been going strong for over 75 years now.
“WUVT [is] a nonprofit student-run radio station right here at Virginia Tech. So we serve the greater New River Valley community and beyond, as well as Blacksburg of course, at the heart of everything. We’re right downtown, we throw events all the time, we do a lot of charity work as well.”
Kate Stanko, General Manager at WUVT
We spoke to former General Manager and current Alumni Director for the station Linda DeVito about the station’s history. She tells us that WUVT has been around since 1948, and that they’re one of the oldest college radio stations in the country. She’s also incredibly proud of the station’s reputation for playing odd, strange, and out-there music.
“[It’s] music that you don’t hear anywhere else. Music that gets mixed differently than anywhere else. We have an amazing library, from classical, to new age, to jazz, to rock, international.”
Linda DeVito, Alumni Director at WUVT
And of course, they have an incredible list of Alumni, such as the Today Show’s Hoda Kotb.
“Hoda Kotb of The Today Show cut her teeth in news here at WUVT.”
Linda DeVito, Alumni Director at WUVT
WUVT isn’t just music, though. They have multiple other departments, including their own news program. The News Director, Felix Redmond, tells us that they even held the only congressional debate for Virginia’s 9th district on air in 2024.
“Sometimes we do special programming, and when we do, I’m organizing most of that… We held a congressional debate for the ninth district of Virginia here, which was really crazy. Took a lot of organizing."
Felix Redmond, News Director at WUVT
They have their own team of engineers as well, who put in a huge load of work to keep the place up and running. Since they’re a non-profit, they take what they can get, and their talented team typically uses surplus parts to build what the station needs to function.
There’s also the Woove, which is their music-journalism branch that puts out a magazine every semester.
“I run meetings once a week, where we discuss our themes and article ideas, and towards the end of the semester, there’s a lot of work that we do on InDesign, where we put everything together, and we send it to get printed, and then it comes back and looks like this.”
Chloe Ziegler, Editor-in-Chief of the Woove
They’ve been making these magazines for over a decade now, and they receive contributions from DJs and students alike.
Many of those that we spoke to talked about the Milk Parlor, a local venue that WUVT often collaborates with to host events, like the annual Goth Formal.
“Our main thing that we do is like, shows, or Concerts. So I’ll usually find a venue first and whether that’s like, Milk Parlor downtown or some other like bar or restaurant, or like someone’s house - just in town that’s easier for students to get to. We’ll find the venue first and then depending on where it is or what type of vibe we’re going for, for the show, I’ll start talking to a lot of bands. There are a lot of bands in Blacksburg, luckily. A lot of student bands, so I’ll usually get contact with them first if I wanna get like an out-of-town band from like, Richmond or DC, we have enough of a history and a bit of a reputation that we can do that.”
Naeil Habtemichael, Events Coordinator at WUVT
The thing that holds the whole station together though, is the great sense of community.
“It really is a unique culture, and we have so many different types of people, and I’m so lucky that we’re able to call ourselves a safe space for every identity. That’s something that I really pride myself in and WUVT in.”
Kate Stanko, General Manager at WUVT
“The culture here is just something that I’ve come to appreciate a lot. Everyone here is so positive and like open-minded and it feels like you can just come in and be yourself and not really be like, judged. I’ll never like forget the kind of bonds that I’ve made here, just in this past year.”
Naeil Habtemichael, Events Coordinator at WUVT
WUVT also helps the community by doing charity events from time to time.
“One of my main goals as general manager was connecting with the community this year, in a more charitable sense, because we do have access to so many resources. Just this September we threw a show for one of our longtime DJs, Billy Goat. He was recently diagnosed with cancer, so we raised over $2000 for him at this show. We are very proud to be able to do things like that. We also had a show where we donated $1000 to Appalachian Regional Healthcare for hurricane relief efforts, and I really hope that we can keep that going, Keep giving back to the community in every way that we can.”
Kate Stanko, General Manager at WUVT
Dr. Liam Weikart, a DJ professor of sociology at Virginia Tech, also sees college radio as an important part of the university’s connection with the New River Valley as a whole.
“One of the things about Tech, I think that makes it so special (and I think this could be true of a lot of college radio) is it really forms these kind of connections between the campus and the community. Because it is student run, it’s mainly student-operated, but there’s also just a handful people who are just community members… it really forges great community connections between the campus and the town.”
Dr. Liam Weikart
Dr. Weikart also likes to spread the word about the station to his students.
“Within sociology I also teach sociology of popular music, so there’s a nice connection there as well, making my students aware of the radio station, if they didn’t already know about it. Encouraging them to explore. College radio I think brings together people, not only who may have an interest in a career in broadcast, but also people are just really big music fans, and who know that college radio as a kind of non-commercial, and kind of highly open and diverse format. It’s a place where you can hear and play music that you can’t really hear and play anywhere else, especially in the age of Spotify.”
Dr. Liam Weikart
“As long as we keep this energy up, as long as we keep engaged with the community in whatever way that we can, then I know that we can really be prosperous and super successful for the years to come.”
Kate Stanko, General Manager at WUVT