ACRN dedicates new studio to its founder
By Jason Robinaugh, Staff Writer
April 23, 2007 | 8:31 a.m.
OU’s All-Campus Radio Network held a grand opening at Baker Center on Saturday to show its new studios to alumni and to dedicate them to ACRN founder Archie Greer.
ACRN, which broadcasts online at ACRN.com, has been operating from Suite 329 in the new Baker University Center since January. For its first 35 years of broadcast, however, it was housed in the Radio-Television Building, and it was an FM station before converting to an online format in 1999.
The grand opening began with a welcoming reception on the second floor Atrium Lounge. Punch and cookies were served as ACRN’s current student members, who run all aspects of the station, and generations of alumni gathered to socialize and look at photo albums. An ACRN Mobile DJ, appropriately was present, playing popular college rock tracks at the radio station.
After the reception, the event moved to the third floor of the building for the actual dedication ceremony. With a curtain covering the window into the on-air studio, ACRN Public Relations Director Ashley Sheehan, a senior, addressed the audience. She expressed how impressed she was to “see this many people join together for a cause as important as the All-Campus Radio Network.”
“A lot of things have come up about job placement, about where to go, about who to talk to,” Sheehan said, “but no one seems to be concerned about being prepared, and I think that’s a real testament to what the All-Campus Radio Network does.”
Tim Hogan, Associate Director of Baker Center, spoke next, expressing that the Baker Center had been glad to include ACRN in its new building, commending the “vitality, youth, and energy that comes from [ACRN].”
ACRN General Manager Jason Wright, made an analogy in his speech between US Army commercials and ACRN, saying that when he hears someone ask “Are you experienced?” or “Can you handle that?” he thinks of his time at ACRN as soldiers in the Army commercials think of their military service. He continued to say that it is his and other ACRN members’ goal to continue the traditions and inside jokes that have developed through the station’s 36-year history. Wright, a junior, then introduced Greer, who founded ACRN as a faculty member in 1971.
“Everybody, no matter who they are, would like to be somehow remembered for who they are,” Greer said. “I will not be forgotten, and that’s a distinction that everybody should have.”
Greer emphasized how good it feels to be told “thank you,” saying that it makes a person’s day and that “to say thanks is not out of order.” He then elaborated on the history of ACRN.
“You’ll never know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been,” he said. Greer told about how the students on East Green in the early 1960’s had set up their own radio stations in their dorm rooms and had asked him for help and advice. By 1965, Greer said, there were about 17 dorm buildings involved in the club, either broadcasting or receiving signals, and by 1971, he had put together a sort of regulating commission to normalize the station, and he eventually allied the different stations into one studio under one frequency and commercialized ACRN.
He said that he was asked many times by the university to provide the names of those who were in charge of ACRN, to name someone to be responsible in case something went wrong. Greer said that he could never name one person because the station practically ran itself, and then said that there had not been a real reason to name someone responsible, saying, “I don’t think anything really has gone wrong.”
The ACRN students and alumni then proceeded into Suite 329 to tour the new studio and to converse more. Alumni were impressed with the size of the new space and told current students to appreciate what they had been given.
“It still has that new car smell,” Jay Kalpa, a 1997 graduate, said. “It needs some clutter.”
A dinner was held after the dedication ceremony on the second floor of Baker Center in the Multi Purpose Room. Baker Center Catering provided the food, and the remainder of the proceeds were donated to ACRN.
Following the dinner, alumni Doug Partusch and Frank Youngwerth spoke, and a slideshow was shown which was put together by a team led by ACRN alumna Andie Walla .
Although students and alumni viewed ACRN’s new station in many different ways, there was a feeling of unity and pride in everyone’s involvement in ACRN over time. Greer summed up the feeling by saying, “I could not be associated with a better group.”
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For more information on ACRN and to listen to its online stream, visit ACRN.com.