Broadcasting From the Top of Holder Tower

Other than working Commons for my first semester, I had little interaction with Holder Hall (From the Archives, October issue) until I signed up for WPRB halfway through sophomore year. WPRB in the Holder Hall basement became one of my favorite places on campus. While there are many tales of what took place in the studios, my favorite took part at the top of Holder Tower, where the antenna for the 17,500 watts of stereo FM power was located. 

Two classmates, Tom Kendrick and John Hedeman, had a Saturday evening comedy/music show called The Funny Farm. It attracted friends and others from the staff to hang around, listen to recorded comedy and music, attempt a little live comedy or drama, and otherwise just have some beer and some fun. My role typically was the hourly news guy, ripping and reading from the AP wire. It was tough at times to do that with guys pouring beer over me as I read the latest news. 

One night, we were told the show was to broadcast from the top of Holder Tower. That sounded like fun. So four or five of us brought up the necessary equipment, hooked it up to an engineer down in the studio, and go ready for the show. It was a bit of a challenge in the dark up there.

When I asked “What can I do?”, someone reached into a storage area atop the Tower and handed me two 4-foot-long fluorescent bulbs, and told be to grasp them in the middle, one in each hand, and not knock anyone in the head with them. Then they had me turn slightly, and voila! Both bulbs lit up — unplugged — in the strong electric field of the antenna. I was the lighting guy! 

After an hour or so, I was tiring, and a younger ’PRB guy showed up and relieved me. I went down to get the midnight news, and upon my return, read it, and gave a live weather report and a live report on the traffic on Nassau Street.