WMUL wins several awards at convention

WMUL-FM, Marshall University’s public broadcast radio station, won multiple awards in the 2017-18 Pinnacle National Awards Convention.

Award winners were announced at the 97th annual College Media Association National College Media Convention in Louisville, Kentucky, from Oct. 25 to Oct. 28, with WMUL-FM being recognized with awards in three different categories.

The station won second place for four-year station of the year in the organizational category and took home two awards in the individual categories for “best radio promo/PSA” and “best radio sportscast.”

The second-place finish in four-year station of the year comes just one year after WMUL-FM won first place in the category last year.

Chuck G. Bailey, the radio station’s faculty manager, said in a press release that he is proud of his students and grateful for the station to get recognized in the organizational category in consecutive years.

“The individual Pinnacle awards are a tribute to the outstanding creativity and production skills that our broadcast students possess,” Bailey said.

The station’s two individual awards came with just six possible categories to place in, and helped it tally the most total awards won at the convention, tying with Husson University’s WHSN and Hofstra University’s WRHU-FM with three.

Spencer DuPuis, WMUL-FM’s sports director, said he loves to see the station enjoy successes such as these awards.

“(Winning awards) instills a culture of success inside of me in knowing that everything I do is held to a higher bar,” DuPuis said. “When I go off into my career, I’ll have better work because of how high the bar is here and how much critiquing I can get here.”

DuPuis also said success at prominent conventions such as the CMA National Convention is a testament to the hard work students such as himself put into the station, and it helps the station recruit for the future- an important goal for the station.

“When you get these awards, it helps bring more people in,” DuPuis said. “They walk down the hallway and see that we got first place and second place the next year and it’s amazing.”

The honors won by the station add on to the over 1500 awards won since 1985, when Bailey began with the radio station.

Derek Gilbert can be contacted at [email protected].