This Just In –WCHL is 70 years old and streaking on toward 100.
This week WCHL marked the completion of 70 years on the air in Chapel Hill. Small town radio stations come and go and in recent times it’s been mostly the latter, but WCHL (97.9 The Hill) has hit the sweet spot that has eluded so many others. That’s because WCHL is so much more than just a radio station. It is the heartbeat of the town.
In 1953 when WCHL began broadcasting on 1360 AM, Dean Smith was a basketball player for the University of Kansas, Woody Durham was in middle school and Ron Stutts was in elementary school.
The station has been through changes of ownership, format, physical location and, like any long-lasting business, personnel. What is fascinating, though, is that regardless of all those changes (some of which threatened its very existence), WCHL has endured and thrived in its irreplaceable role as this one, singular thing – Chapel Hill’s Hometown Radio Station.
When I came to Chapel Hill in 1978, I quickly became enamored with UNC basketball and before long I did what so many did during a game. I watched it on television with the sound off and listened to WCHL to hear Woody Durham call the game. To be out somewhere on a Saturday afternoon in January during a game was no hardship because I had WCHL’s coverage coming through my dashboard.
This was reminiscent for me of listening to the Red Sox on my transistor radio, growing up in Hartford, CT. Play-by-play announcers calling fast moving sports like this have an amazing ability to bring the texture of a game to the listener. It’s a special gift.
In the Spring of 2005, my son was recovering from knee surgery and I looked at the back of his leg late one Monday afternoon. It looked like a relief map of the Rocky Mountains. Concerned about a possible blood clot, I called the doctor’s office and asked if I could bring him in the next day to have this evaluated. The surgeon covering for our doctor advised us to get an ultrasound that evening … at the Durham County Hospital Emergency Room.
It was April 4, 2005 and there we sat in the ER, not watching UNC play Illinois in the NCAA Championship. As soon as the doc did Rob’s ultrasound (finding no problem) we streaked out of the ER to our car and got to the radio.
Once we had WCHL on Woody describing the scene, we were at ease. We heard almost the entire second half of the game on the way home.
Over these many years we have experienced many local weather emergencies. Our area seems particularly prone some years to ice storms and it is on these occasions that we all get to experience the true value of WCHL. Other outlets that are owned by big media companies are often delivering programming that is plugged into a computer located elsewhere, giving you some fine music, national news and regional weather and absolutely nothing about where there are trees down, traffic lights are out or grocery stores and pharmacies open. The staff has many stories of sleeping at the station for days during storms and there’s that one time that Stutts fell asleep at the mic from sheer exhaustion. Sooo many stories.
From the birth of rock and roll, civil rights, the space age, Watergate and oh-so-importantly- the Internet age, WCHL has grown and adapted with the times.
As newspapers have dwindled in importance and simply disappeared, Chapelboro.com has grown to become an important source of local news coverage that is accessible from all over the world. Because UNC fans are an ever-growing extended family with alumni continuing to root for the Heels to Beat Dook at this time every year, Chapelboro.com’s live streaming service and commentary about the games and the coaches keep the engagement alive.
WCHL wins NC Association of Broadcasters awards nearly every year, nearly alone in its category as a non-metro station. WCHL is a freight train success story packed into the appearance of a “Little Engine That Could.”
I’m so proud to write for Chapelboro.com and be on the air via WCHL, telling stories and following in the legendary footsteps of Charles Kuralt and so many others who began legendary careers on Chapel Hill’s hometown station – WCHL: Where Chapel Hill Listens.
Jean Bolduc is a freelance writer and the host of the Weekend Watercooler on 97.9 The Hill. She is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.
Readers can reach Jean via email – jean@penandinc.com and via Twitter @JeanBolduc
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