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REBECCA HALE
Reverb Co-Editor
Walking into the usually cozy and relaxed ambiance of Fredonia Radio Systems on a Friday afternoon proves more hectic than the average student may think.
The station — normally occupied by a few audiophiles meandering in and out, doing homework, chatting on-air or playing the traditional FRS game of “Hot Bagel” — is crammed with the campus’ most skilled audio engineers and on-air hosts, scrambling to prepare for their weekly broadcast of High Noon Friday.
High Noon is one of the longest-running radio programs in college history.
Ever since, High Noon has been kept alive since its inception and is still one of most well-known and highly-anticipated programs broadcast on both campus stations, 88.9 WCVF, “The Voice,” and 89.5 WDVL, “The Inferno.” The program is, not shockingly, broadcast every Friday of the academic year, from 12:00 p.m. until 1:00 p.m.
High Noon is a variety show, each week’s show including segments on local and national news, student-created promos and narratives, sports, current events and live interviews with well-known campus figures. (In case you missed it, last week’s broadcast featured an exclusive interview with Steve Moses and another with Atlas Records.)
“Typically we do two interviews every week, and we’ll bring in people from either the campus or community, and they promote events or something cool that’s going on on campus, or if they have a neat story or something to tell like that, we’ll bring them in,” explained Noah Maciejewski, a sophomore audio/radio production major.
The current brains behind High Noon Friday are producers Lucy Bell and Rebecca D’Hilly alongside hosts Maciejewski and Lexi Ziccardi. Of course, there are the countless others who help out with streaming and producing segments, as well as featured guests and on-air talents who make the show exciting. For example, Dianna Hawryluk, who does the news and weather segments, and Chris Hoyt, who does the sports segment.
A great deal of work goes into creating High Noon each week, especially since each show has to be exactly one hour in length. Each Monday, the producers and hosts meet up to consider possible interviewees for the week, and throughout the week the script gets written based on the segments which are submitted to the producers.
“We try to write the script as soon as possible, because that’s where the timing comes in, and however many segments we end up getting, we literally write it out — to the minute — in the script, and cross our fingers and hope it makes it to one o’clock,” explained D’Hilly, who is a junior public relations major.
As for live interviews, Maciejewski and Ziccardi have their own tactics for making sure everything runs smoothly. They alternate turns speaking, and they keep a marker between them. If one host thinks of a good question, they grab the marker, and if a host is at a loss for words, they push the marker toward the other host.
Producers communicate with hosts through the window separating the control room and the interview room, using hand signals to let hosts know how much time is left in a segment, or to let them know they need to wrap up an interview. It’s a relatively stressful situation to witness, as producers need to keep their eye on the clock while always being aware of what’s going on, both in the interview room and the control room.
Variety content is created by students currently learning how to use audio software. In the past, segments were assigned weekly as a part of Laura Johnson’s — High Noon’s executive producer — Audio II class, but since she is currently on sabbatical, students in the Radio Programming and Production class are creating the content.
Still, students don’t have to be an audiophile to be a part of High Noon. Any content created can be submitted to the producers, who, in turn, decide which segments will be broadcast on the show. Segments can be just about anything, and Maciejewski describes them as “shows within a show,” or skits, if you will.
Madeline Eberhardt, a junior public relations major, has produced a segment for High Noon before, and she describes the experience as simple and rewarding.
“It’s just cool. It’s so easy to pick it up, and I really enjoy it, especially because I do a lot of stuff like that with people’s voices, and it’s stupid, but I love it,” she said.
Eberhardt plans on creating more content this semester, and she aspires to become a producer for High Noon in the future.
Tune in to High Noon Friday every Friday at 12:00 sharp, on 88.9-FM, “The Voice,” or stream online at fredoniaradio.com through 89.5, “The Inferno.”