Gorski was a transfer student from St. Clair County Community College and heard about a committee meeting to start a new student FM station at Western Michigan University. WIDR had been around since 1952, but did not become an FM station until 1975. The meeting was called to find management staff, so Gorski mentioned that he had experience as the station manager at WSGR-FM in Port Huron, Michigan. Before the evening was over he had been elected the first station manager of WIDR.
“Being the first station manager was an honor and a huge responsibility,” Gorski said. “The station’s programming was an immediate hit with the students and the community. We had a talented on-air staff and some really creative management. Within a very short time we were one of the top student stations in the state and the record companies took notice.”
Within the first year, Gorski and his WIDR team launched two major community events; an indoor winter music festival at a hotel ballroom in downtown Kalamazoo, and a springtime outdoor music festival called Kite-Flight. Both were largely successful, the former of the two being at full capacity.
Gorski also worked as a board operator and announcer at WMUK as well as a Television Services student aide. While working for Television Services, Gorski was involved in a project that required photographing the movement of vocal cords; something he credits as one of the stranger projects he was involved with.
Upon graduating, Gorski took on a position at a small college in northwest Illinois where he ran the television studio and taught Introduction to Mass Communication and Basic Television Production. In 1980, Gorski was hired by College of Dupage to work in Television Production Services. Two years later he took a break from the college to pursue other interests, including starting his own production and consulting business, and then returned to the college to join Audio, Radio and Television Services; now known as Multimedia Services. Gorski has since been employed with DuPage for 22 years.
While Gorski has seen much success since leaving WMU, he still fondly remembers his time as WIDR’s first FM station manager.
“As we were the first crew, it was wonderful to have such a creative staff, a very talented program director, a top-notch engineer, a creative music director, and dedicated on-air staff,” Gorski said. “Without them, the station would not be what it is today.”
Learn more about WIDR by visiting widrfm.org.
Posted by Stan Sulewski