By Erica Ranly
E-Ranly@onu.edu
“I never dreamed I’d be on radio, but it’s lots of fun,” said Ohio Northern senior marketing major Rachel Waugh.
Since September, Waugh, an Alger native, has worked as a part-time deejay for Yes FM, a Christian radio station in Toledo.
Waugh began working for the station at the beginning of last summer as a marketing intern. During the internship, she worked in the office and helped with the station’s many summer programs including YesFest, Servant Safaris, and Thirst Quenchers.
YesFest is an annual end-of-summer event in Toledo organized by the station. Yes FM hosts Christian bands and provides food and games to for an all-day concert event.
Thirst Quenchers was one of the station’s summer outreaches. Volunteers and station employees brought water to people in the Toledo-area, like construction workers, who were working outdoors in the hot sun. After the Blanchard River flooded Findlay this summer, the station’s staff and volunteers delivered water to many of the flood victims.
During Servant Safaris hosted during the summer months, the station coordinated volunteers to help out with special projects at various nonprofit organizations in the area. For example, Waugh helped out with one of this summer’s Servant Safaris that took place at Heartbeat of Lima, a crisis pregnancy center near the American Mall.
Waugh did not deejay at all this summer while interning, but at the end of the summer and of her internship, her boss asked her if she would like to try it out.
“He said, ‘We really want to keep you,’” Waugh explained.
She proved qualified for the task, and since September 1, has been working part-time for the station, deejaying mostly on the weekends in the early evenings.
While broadcasting live and “not goofing up on air” still makes Waugh nervous, she said deejaying really is not as hard as it would seem. In fact, Waugh usually pre-records her broadcasts. This chance to fix any mistakes before her words are released to the audience relieves her nerves.
“Automation is a lot easier than live,” Waugh said. “You can record as many times as you want over that, which is very useful. Like sometimes you’ll say, ‘That was Relient K with—Oh! Brain freeze!’”
Waugh said that when she deejays or records a segment, she always has a sheet in front of her with two or three announcements or bits of information that she has to say every hour, like community announcements. She is also expected to relay information about the different artists she plays during an hour, like when and where the artist will be in concert in the area or when the artist’s new project will be released.
“Keeping up with all the band info can be hard,” Waugh said. “When you’re on the air, you need to remember that and keep it straight so you can relay that out to people.”
In addition to relaying artist information, Waugh is required to share something from the Bible with her listeners every hour. This “opportunity to connect with people” is one of Waugh’s favorite parts of the job.
“That doesn’t seem like much,” Waugh said, “but it’s powerful for people. We get testimonies about how something one of the deejays said helped someone through a certain time in their life. The impact that we have is a lot bigger than you’ll ever think. For me, I think that’s the best part of the job. I mean, yeah, it’s fun to be on radio, but…”
Another of Waugh’s favorite activities as a deejay is participating in the station’s Friday night Party Crashers program. Every Friday night, Yes FM deejays load up their cars with cds, stereos, bumper stickers and games and head out to parties in the area (parties they have been invited to) to host a live broadcast.
“It’s so much fun,” Waugh said, “especially if you have little kids there. They get so excited when they win stuff. They’re like, ‘I won this!’”
Some of Waugh’s favorite games to play with the people at the parties she crashes are Battle of the Sexes and the duct-taped cd game, where Waugh and the other deejays wrap a couple cds in duct tape and then make the kids put on oversized gloves and try to unwrap them.
While Waugh loves being the deejay that “crashes” a party, she said being the deejay back at the station can be a bit nerve-wracking.
“It’s tough being the deejay at the station because you’re live, and you have to fit in the party crashers’ call-ins between songs and make it flow,” she said.