WIUX alumni return, remember station history

In 2007, WIUX alumni realized a common interest among them: they all missed the house at 815 E. Eighth St. that served as a second Bloomington home during their college years.

After a 40-year anniversary celebration of campus radio in 2004 and WIUX’s alumni-funded switch from WIUS to FM radio in 2006, disc jockey and 1970 IU graduate Don Worsham planned a weekend event.

“We wanted to come back,” Worsham said.

Since then, IU alumni come back for a weekend at the station, replaying music and commercials from their time at IU and catching up with college friends. This year’s fifth annual reunion will be held this weekend Aug. 5 through 7.

For some alumni, like Worsham, the house at 815 E. Eighth St. is not the home they used to know.

Greg Barman was a sophomore at IU when the tragedy happened. A fire at the 617 E. Eighth St. station occurred Oct. 10, 1972, burning the station down.

Police never arrested anyone for the arson crime; however, Barman said he suspects it was an “inside job.”

“It affected us all,” Barman said. “It was our home away from home. A lot of us stood there after the fire, crying in the street.”

Twenty to 30 alumni will take off work this weekend to spend a few days reminiscing. They will play news coverage tapes from the fire as one of the weekend’s events.  

“A cookout, radio pool party, scavenger hunt — it’ll be a blast,” Barman said. “We are showing an appreciation of what an institution campus radio has been. It’s the soundtrack of students’ lives.”

Similar to many IU alumni, he uses what he learned at WIUS in all of his work. After his graduation in 1975, he worked as a disc jockey for two years and continued with radio news until the mid-1990s.

He currently works as a technical recruiter for an engineering firm in Denver and skis five peaks each winter and spring with his all-access chairlift pass.

“Plenty of students end up with a radio degree rather than their actual majors,” Barman said.

Worsham falls into this category with a business degree from the Kelley School of Business.

“I had a fair amount of hands-on broadcast in high school and college, but it’s an industry of business,” Worsham said.

He currently resides in Los Angeles where he just completed sound production on a comedy show featuring Patton Oswald and the NBC game show “It’s Worth What?”

His resume includes sound production for 14 of 15 seasons of “Judge Judy,” the annual “Miss America Pageant,” 25 years of the Grammys and seven of eight seasons of “Full House.”

“I loved the family togetherness of ‘Full House,’” he said. “I never felt like I had to apologize for any of the programming done on it.”

The family man and his deceased wife raised two children in California. His daughter suffered from a fatal asthma attack in 1999 while his wife battled breast cancer and sepsis until her death on Jan. 2, 2007.

“It’s part of life, and it is what it is,” Worsham said. “But some things you can help, which is why coming back to WIUX each year is so important to me.”