Isa Cruz

The red neon of the ON AIR sign and the shine of the mysterious traffic light in Dudley Coe mark WBOR, the graffitied hideaway where Bowdoin and the larger Brunswick community intermingle through music and radio waves.

The red neon of the ON AIR sign and the shine of the mysterious traffic light in Dudley Coe mark WBOR, the graffitied hideaway where Bowdoin and the larger Brunswick community intermingle through music and radio waves.

The student-led radio station has been running since 1941, aiming to provide “diverse and unique quality programming to the Midcoast area and the world-at-large” as the only free-form radio station in the region. While most of the DJs affiliated with WBOR are Bowdoin students, community DJs also play a crucial role in uniting WBOR with the greater Maine community. As WBOR faces a move to Coles Tower in January, community DJs reflect on creating their shows and engaging in the Bowdoin radio community.

WBOR Manager Mason Daugherty ’25 explained the importance of linking Bowdoin with the surrounding community through radio.

“I think at Bowdoin, obviously, it’s very easy to get into the bubble of campus and not venture outside that much,” Daugherty said. “[WBOR] is one of the most public-presenting ways that Bowdoin showcases itself, so I think it’s consequently just as important for us to embody the deep ties that Bowdoin has with the greater Brunswick community on that stage.”

Daugherty also emphasized the role local Brunswick DJs have in creating a community within WBOR.

“Many students find community alongside these community members,” Daugherty said. “We love them. We love them a lot.”

WBOR’s community DJs have come to the radio station through different pathways, bringing with them various niches, passions and experiences.

Garrett Fisher (“DJ Girlfriend”) runs the show “I Listen to Everything,” exploring various micro-genres such as Black Noise. His show takes its name from the typical reply to the question: “What do you listen to?”

“The response is, normally, ‘Oh, I listen to everything,’ which is almost always not true, because it’s unfair to assume that everyone listens to virtual utopian or any of the micro-genres. But I just thought it was a clever title, because [my] whole program is centered on exploring genres that people wouldn’t really encounter on radio,” Fisher said.

The community DJs have a colorful range of backgrounds that prompted them to join WBOR, from prior experiences working in radio to urging from friends.

Mike Halmo, who runs a show called “The Blues Highway,” inspired by his love of blues, reminisced about why he joined WBOR back in 2002.

“WBOR, as you know, is on the Bowdoin Campus, and [Bowdoin’s] always been a great neighbor to the community. I’ve been [in Brunswick] since 1991, taking a job at the local high school, and raised my three daughters here, and there was a word of mouth that WBOR had slots open for community members to join the programming,” Halmo said.

For community DJs, WBOR is often a way to engage with the broader Midcoast area. This is true for Marieke Van Der Steenhoven, the Special Collections education and engagement librarian who runs the show “Books are People Too.” She plans to invite several guests based in Maine to her show to discuss how literature and music meet, like when entire books are adapted into songs.

“I have a friend who’s a book artist who is going to be joining in December and a rare book dealer who is going to be joining in November,” Van Der Steenhoven said. “For me, it’s a really fun way to spend time with people and to talk about ways that our work overlaps but also the broad world of the book and print culture at large.”

Chris Felax, who has worked with WBOR since 2004 with his indie alternative show, “The Pulsating Sac of Sound,” expressed his hope to share a variety of music with the community while discovering new music himself—goals many of the DJs share.

“I think [my goal is] just to give people something interesting to listen to they haven’t heard before. There’s a lot of music that I don’t know about that I could enjoy,” Felax said.

Whether they’re playing the hits or digging into hidden sonic worlds, WBOR’s community DJs hold sacred the soundwaves that connect them to communities on campus and beyond.

“I think that radio is such an amazing medium, especially in an era when we often are plugged in and listening to our own curated set of music in our ears,” Van Der Steenhoven said. “It’s so powerful that WBOR invites DJs from the local community…. It’s just a really great way to connect people.”