The Times-Mail from Bedford, Indiana • 39

November 8, 1987 Section Sunday Herald-Times a Fund-raising goal is $90,000 this year By Linda Thomas Sunday Herald Times A not-for-profit broadcast corporation, WFIU derives its operating funds from a number of sources, one of which is listener contributions made during the stations annual fund drive, which got under way Saturday and will run through Nov. 15. With a fund-raising goal of $90,000 set for this years campaign, the public radio station will once again ask listeners for support. Last years efforts resulted in the stations surpassing its goal of $86,000 by about $4,000, according to William Kroll, station general manager, who is optimistic that the same success can be had this year. Though the station derives a large portion of its money from the Indiana University General Fund for salaries, facilities and general expenses, and also obtains money from the federal government such as a $27,740 matching grant that will be used to purchase a new FM transmitter Whos Marge Gravit? just an ardent music lover 4 BA- A source, each one, of music in Bloomington.

The judges ruled. James Aikman's Sonata for Violin and Piano, Sigurdur Flosa-sons In Memoriam, and David Greenbergs Cape Union Medley were the best of the crop, they said. Aikman, Flosason, and Greenberg. Sources of music in Bloomington. It was a coming together Friday evening as WFIU invited an audience to its studios and broadcast the results of the 1987 Carmichael Competition.

Aikman had Joshua Bell and IU music school dean Charles Webb as his performers. Flosason, known as Big Sig over at Jake's, brought his Bebop Boys to give performance life to his new work. And Greenberg joined Metamora to that could be operative in the spring. Other monies come from listener and local business support. Local businesses underwrite many of the stations shows, with a $3,000 annual underwriting fee paying for the 260 annual program days of "All Things Considered" and a $500 underwriting contribution paying for 52 annual program days of For-traits in Blue among such forms of support.

While corporate contributions help finance individual shows, money from citizens helps polish the station. And, though Kroll said only one public radio listener in 10 contributes money, Bloomington listeners and local businesses are generous in their support of WFIU. Contributions from such sources help provide funds for the purchase of equipment, records and compact discs that give the station what development director Richard Bishop termed its margin of excellence. The promotional concept follows a James Bond theme and includes a certain Agent Gravit in its cast of personalities. Married to former Indiana University French professor Francis Gravit, the real-life music identification wizard said she has become well-versed in music through years of listening it.

"I have no musical training, she said, "Im just a good learner. I really listen to music, its not just background noise, Ether Game" is a good way of learning more about music. Gravit also attributes her success on "Ether Game to her long life and extensive exposure to music, which began in the early-1920s when she lived near Washington, D.C., and has continued with the help of WFIU since her arrival in Bloomington in 1948. js i George Walker William Kroll I I as defined by Kroll, is to reflect the universitys rich musical environment. I try to tell my staff that what we have to do is make certain that anything we produce is in keeping with Indiana University and the fact that it has one of the most prominent schools of music in the world, the 62-year-old general manager said.

Besides nationally syndicated shows, WFIU also offers its listeners many locally produced programs, ranging from Walkers early morning news and classical music show and Opera Theater stage director Ross Allens Sunday Opera to Bishops mainstream jazz and American popular song show, After Glow and Joe Bournes more musically diverse historical jazz overview, Just You and Me. Bourne, 41, arrived at the Bloomington station nearly three years ago with a background in commercial and public radio in Louisville, that spanned disc jockey jobs for classical, jazz and rock and roll oldies shows. At WFIU, he replaced jazz programmer Michael Bourne, who had left for a job in New York City. Because of programming similarities, a host of same-name jokes such as "Bourne again and re-Bourne came right away, recalled the stations newer Bourne. At WFIU, Bourne has found the flexibility he sought.

I really wanted to get back into a wider music choice In most radio, youre under pressure to play what is hot or is the latest thing, said the southern Indiana native. Working from the stations collection of some 5,000 jazz albums, Bourne can develop shows that satisfy his desire to educate and entertain his audience and to pass on his own love for the musical genre. I am now an announcer, a collector of jazz recordings, and a researcher and I can choose my own music; and the number of jobs where that can be done in radio of any style of music is proportionately small Now I can share the music that I love very much with listeners and share my emotional response to the music and guide them without their knowing it to other similar music they might enjoy, he said. Whether sharing favorite music with listeners or informing them about community issues, the programmers task on WFIU is one that hearkens back to the definition of educational radio to inform and enlighten the radio audience. Said Walker: WFIU is interested in offering its listeners intelligence, and for everything put on, there is a good deal of thought put into its creation and its presentation.

Looking back over his years at WFIU, Bishop said the stations image has changed. We used to call ourselves an alternative to commercial radio, the 48-year-old Gross Point, native said, but were not any more; were too established now. We werent taken seriously in the 1950s, but now were a presence in the community and in 18 counties." With a broadcast radius of some 41 miles, WFIU claims listeners in the southern Indianapolis, Columbus and Seymour areas. And, as viewed by Bourne, the stations role in all communities it reaches is to educate its listeners. WFIU provides a service people cant hear anywhere else in town.

And without being overtly educational, we do educate people as to the limitless possibilities of music and I hope we encourage people to make their own choices about the kind of music they want to surround themselves with, he said. 'I Music beat By Peter Jacobi I i Composers. Surely a source of music in Bloomington. The station asked for judges in the competitions three categories of entries: Fred Fox, Juan Grrego-Salas, Joshua Bell and Don Glass in the classical area; Dave Baker, Dominic Spera and Joe Bourne in jazz; the folk group Metamora and George Walker in traditional. By Linda Thomas Sunday Herald-Times When WFIU signed on the air in October 1950, it was housed in a Quonset hut-like structure just south of the Jordan River on Seventh Street.

The hut no longer exists, but Indiana Universitys public radio station has become a permanent part of the community. Now 37 years old, WFIU was once what jazz programmer and station development director Richard Bishop described as a laboratory station for IU students. Bishop, who got his start with the station in the late-1950s while an undergraduate at IU, has watched the station mature. We bristled when our colleagues at the Indiana Daily Student called us a laboratory station," he1 recalled, but indeed thats what we were. Though from birth an educational radio station, WFIUs character in its early days reflected the larger national character of public radio, which didnt really develop on a national level until the late 1960s.

We always have been classically oriented, Bishop said of WFIU, "but we were unsophisticated and there were no national ties. William Kroll, general manager of WFIU and WTIU, had similar observations about the early days of the radio station. Kroll joined the operation in 1955 as a technical and operation supervisor and became general manager of WFIU and public television station WTIU in 1980. He said there was little structure to programming on WFIU in the 1950s. Programming on the station, which broadcast from 1:30 to 10:15 p.m., was created almost exclusively by students and, excepting United Press wire reports, was of local nature.

The programmers, Kroll said, produced shows using many of their own records and the musical selections were not as heavily weighed toward classical compositions as they are today. In 1963, when WFIU moved into its current home in the Radio-Television building just south of the IU Arboretum, the stations modern-day character began to develop. This maturation process was aided by the birth of National Public Radio in 1970, and the ensuant growth of a supportive network of public radio stations across the country. (WFIU) really changed format when the national thrust began, said Bishop. National Public Radio changed a lot of what we do now.

All Things Considered started up and changed the face of educational radio. It provided a first-class format for the dissemination of news and feature stories and formalized ties between public radio stations. Now on the air daily from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m., the station employs 13 full-time workers and hires about 25 part-time student announcers per semester. Competition for an announcing position is stiff, with 50 or 60 applicants for every one person hired.

And, according to George Walker, the stations chief announcer and host of the Morning Show since 1977, two-thirds of those hired are students in the School of Music, while the remaining one-third are literature and language students. Were looking for somebody who sounds nice in terms of voice, is personable and intelligent and is able to one minute introduce a Handel concerto grosso and the next minute tell you the weather and read an IU score, Walker explained. The stations use of music students, and its emphasis on classical music, is in keeping with its broadcast mission, which, By Linda Thomaa Sunday Herald Times Bloomington resident Marjorie Gravit may be WFIUs most dedicated listener. She also may be the pubic radio stations most well-known listener, at least to those who tune in to the weekly name-that-song program, Ether Game." Gravit, 80, is locally renowned as one of the most frequently correct callers on the radio show, which airs every Tuesday at 10 p.m. She is known not only to WFIU staff members, whom she said she calls regularly for a good yak, but to community members as well, some of whom formed a Marge Gravit Fan Club last year.

One of the ways in which WFIU has recognized Gravit is in a light-hearted promotional tape for Ether Game produced by staff member J. Mark Scearce. Dick Bishop Ti t-t A joe Bourne Hoagy Carmichael Competition a coming together play his. Sources all of music in Bloomington. It was a coming together.

The studio was all spiffied up. A cyclo-rama, blue, with swirls of white served as backdrop to the warmly lit musical proceedings. Five cameras were strategically placed around the room. Cameras? For radio? News flash: what some of us witnessed the studio and the rest of you heard on the radio we'll all be able to see on WTIU probably on New Year's Eve. The radio document of the event will also become a television document, I liked the idea of the competition.

Its the sort of happening that a university and a umvensty station should make happen. I liked the way the competition was planned Call it a coming together. Call it a coming together of the various sources that supply our town with music. Call it stardusting, too. The it started with a man named Hoagy Carmichael, born in 1899 in Bloomington, the Carmichael who died in 15oi as citizen of the world.

His ties to the city and his musical contributions to multi-millions of people everywhere inspired the "it," a competition, the 1987 Hoagy Carmichael Competition, sponsored by WFIU. WFIU. Surely a source of music in Bloomington, choice music day after day after day after day. The call from WFIU was for composers, local ones, to submit new compositions. Eighty-seven of them did.

and run; those calk'd in to take part are professionals. Now, here are my reactions to program and content. I know youve all been wait ing, pantingly. Vic Di Geronimo and Lewis Ricci pul together a program of pace and style, witt just enough but not too much sentimenl about the man being honored and with i minimum of congratulatory ceremony Memories of Hoagy were lively rather thar leaden, because the mans own words were the refreshing tmat. And then there wa music.

Appropriately, there was Stardust course, at start and finish, lovingly player see Competition, page D3 4.