The next time you’re listening to the radio on a Wednesday evening in the Concord area, turn your dial to 90.5 FM.
That’s where you’ll hear the smooth voice of one Ellis Clark – or Radio Ellis as his listeners know him by.
Clark is a sophomore at St. Paul’s School and since early last year, he has been manning the school’s radio station each and every Wednesday night when St. Paul’s is in session.
The exact time of his show is still being figured out for this year, but it will be a weekly hour-long spot running anywhere from 7:30 to 9 p.m.
And as Clark puts it, “you’ll know when Radio Ellis is happening.”
Clark is a connoisseur of knowledge, from pop culture to politics, and uses it to entertain his audience. When we stopped by the studio a few weeks ago for his first show of the year, he touched upon the Kim Kardashian robbery saga, the latest with Drake and Rihanna and of course, the upcoming presidential election.
“I really just want it to flow,” Clark said. “Sometimes I like to talk more.”
It’s not all talk. He tries to balance his hour-long show with half music and half talk. So he played the likes of Mariah Carey, Brittany Spears and JoJo. But there’s no rhyme or reason to his musical lineup.
“Typically I come up with a huge list of songs that I add to and delete from, and then pick from there,” Clark said. “Whatever I’m really feeling that day.”
One time when he lost a bet, Clark had to put an entire radio show together on the fly. It’s a good thing he has tons of music on both his laptop and phone – and will play just about anything.
“The show is theirs, but there are some constraints,” said advisor Derek Johnson. “They need to be careful of the words that go over the airwaves. But it’s a student radio station and you want it to be that way.”
For Clark, his interest in radio began as a kid.
“I grew up after cassettes and CDs, but before the auxiliary cord, so I grew up on the radio,” Clark said. “I loved the variety.”
But Clark isn’t the only St. Paul’s student manning the airwaves. Junior Regan Fisher is one part of the Two People on A Bicycle show that debuted and aired on Tuesdays last year, although it doesn’t have an official time slot moving forward. You’ll just have to listen in each night to catch it.
It’s a show that will play anything, from Lady Gaga to Spice Girls. Sometimes they even play live music.
“It’s not an opportunity you get every day – to be on the radio,” Fisher said.
They give shoutouts, even thought they don’t actually think anyone is listening besides their friends and parents. They sing along to songs, played a few classics for a Concord cabbie who gave them a ride and have even taken on-air calls. Really it’s just about anything to entertain themselves.
“It’s just the style of the show,” Fisher said. “I like it. It makes my day really fun.”
And they are just a few more hosts in a long line of St. Paul’s students to entertain the people of Concord, and beyond. The station has been operating since 1964, with its current digs in the basement of Memorial Hall. But when the new student center is completed, the station will have a brand new state of the art home.
Now you might be wondering, if there’s only a handful of shows each week, what is going on the rest of the other 23 hours per day? Is it just dead air? Luckily no, because it would be awfully hard to get people to even know there’s anything but nothingness on the airwaves.
If there isn’t a student DJ on the air, the station has a vast collection of songs, like thousands upon thousands, that are played at random. So don’t be surprised if one minute you hear country and the next is classic rock.
While most of you reading this live around here and can tune directly to 90.5, others outside of the area aren’t so lucky. But don’t worry, just go to wsps.sps.edu to listen online.
