emerald
Vol. 82, No. 125
Eugene, Oregon 97403
Friday, April 3, 1981
Reader reaction mixed
Olum. Horton scold ‘Immorald’
By BILL MANNY
Of the Emerald
Acting University Pres. Paul Olum and
Lane County District Atorney Pat Horton
responded Thursday with distaste and
disdain to the April 1 “Oregon Daily
Immorald” edition of the Emerald.
During a morning press conference
with Olum, talk turned from his pending
appointment as University president to
the content and language of the yearly
April Fool’s edition.
"I thought it was disgraceful,” Olum
said. “My feelings were most negative.”
Olum characterized the “Immorald,”
as "infantile.” Horton, meanwhile, said
he was “appalled.”
Olum stressed "with particular fervor,”
that the University has no connection
with the Emerald, a newspaper indepen
dent since 1971. And that’s the way the
relationship should be, Olum said.
“We’re not concerned with trying to
control them,” Olum said. “We're con
f
cerned with the level of taste.”
He declined to say what he’d do if he
had some control, but said he plans to
write the editor and register his objec
tions. That letter appears on today’s
editorial page.
Olum characterized the edition's con
tent as being at "an abysmal level.”
When asked if the “Immorald” was an
indication of the declining quality of
student education, Olum said perhaps
“Immorald” reporters were "so busy
writing that stuff they never took any of
our courses.”
The content of that edition was pep
pered with four-letter words and "toilet
humor.” The edition lacked any
"redeeming value” or "quality or pur
pose,” he said, and the level of humor
was “like a 6-year-old boy who has just
discovered bathroom humor and words
about sex.”
Horton voiced his criticism and
request for an apology in a letter to the
Eugene Register-Guard. The district at
torney said he wanted the Emerald to
issue a “public apology” to football
coach Rich Brooks and himself.
A front-page “Immorald” story report
ed that Horton had been named the new
University president and his first official
act as president would be to shoot
Brooks.
“We can appreciate college humor as
well as satire directed at public officials
— but certainly not when it talks about
killing people,” Horton said.
Emerald managing editor Sally Hodg
kinson said the Immorald's stories were
clearly fiction and the Emerald would not
apologize. Editor Ken Sands said he
planned to write an editorial over the flap.
That flap extended to several angered
readers who were calling the paper s
advertisers Wednesday protesting their
advertising in the Emerald.
Many of those advertisers called the
Emerald Thursday, and several canceled
their advertising with the paper.
Olum said he was unsure what effect
the edition would have on the Legisla
ture, which soon will be considering
funding for higher education But he said
he didn't think legislators would blame all
students for what a few had done in an
April Fool's edition.
"It would be a horrible shame to pun
ish the University for the bad taste and
judgment of a few students.”
He said he would expect such an edi
tion to attack the University administra
tion, but Wednesday's edition had an
"utter lack of any style, wit, subtlety,
quality of any kind."
The flap made front-page headlines
and the local television and radio news.
The Emerald received mixed reader
reaction to the issue Several readers
wrote letters to the editor, and some
clipped pages from the "Immorald” and
sent them to the paper with unsigned
comments. One was a page clipped from
the "Immorald” — picturing a hand with
an extended middle finger. Posed the
anonymous submitter: “Is this your IQ?”
Photo by Erich Boekelheide
Program director John Podkin broadcasts from the station's modern control room
atop Villard Hall. . .
Photo courtesy University archives
a far cry from the station’s early facilities where veterans kept tuned the radio
communications skills they'd learned in World War II.
KWAX: a classic comes of aae
By PAUL TELLES
Ol the Emerald
Almost no one had an FM radio, but most every
one was excited when KWAX, the University's radio
station, signed on the air in April, 1951.
KWAX was prompted by the return of World War II
veterans who had radio experience and wanted to
keep their hands in communications during their
college careers.
With its broadcast area limited to the campus by
its 10-watt transmitter, the station was a rather
haphazard operation, usually going off the air during
University breaks.
But things have changed.
As KWAX prepares to celebrate its 30th birthday
Saturday night in the Gerlinger Alumni Lounge, the
station is operated by eight full-time staff with the help
of about 20 part-time volunteers.
The station will soon move its 400-watt transmit
ting facilities from Villard Hall to the KVAL tower on
Blanton Heights, a move that will increase the station’s
range by moving the antenna several thousand feet
above ground level
In its earliest incarnations, the station broadcast
“middle-of-the road" music programmed by the
student staffs, but the station now dedicates most of
its airtime to classical music.
After the burst of enthusiasm over the station s
inception, interest in radio on campus began to
subside as television, then a hot new medium, arrived.
Interest also was retarded by the FM broadcasting
that was available only to students living in specially
wired residence halls. Consequently, the station
plodded through the 1950s, attracting little attention.
In the 1960s, however, interest in the station revived
when Carl "Pop” Fisher donated a KUGN-FM trans
mitter, boosting the station’s power to 400 watts.
Shortly after the donation, the station was placed
in the jurisdiction of the now-defunct Division of
Broadcast Services because, wrote the Emerald,
"University officials began to realize that they had a
real radio station on their hands, a station that was
seen by some as the voice of the University.”
The administrative change provoked some rancor
among the student staff, which felt it had lost a
measure of control over the station. But the DBS was
primarily concerned with the television system and left
KWAX alone.
However, the station was not to be spared from
the turmoil prevalent in American society at the time.
Throughout the 1960s, students and University
officials continued to wrangle over student control of
the station. Rumors circulated of fist-fights and mar
ijuana-smoking in the studio. One student decided to
give free advertisements to his choice for Eugene
mayor.
One student began announcing on the air that
KWAX was the voice of "radio free Eugene ” Finally, in
1969 a student broadcast a four-letter word, prompt
ing a visit from several angry Federal Communications
Commission engineers.
The obscenity flap resulted in no FCC sanctions,
but the University responded by putting the station
under professional management.
Although few students who had run the
free-wheeling KWAX were satisfied by the com
promise, the controversy subsided The argument
became academic in the early 1970s when the station
joined the newly formed NPR, which requires member
stations to have professional staff and not be run as
educational facilities.
In 1970, the KWAX staff decided to stay on the air
during spring break and experiment with classical
music programming. The response was so over
whelming that the campus telephone operator asked
the station to stop soliciting comments
KWAX had reached its present form.