WIUX Pure Student Radio took home a variety of awards after being nominated in 17 categories as part of the 77th annual Intercollegiate Broadcasting Systems awards.
IBS announced the winners during its national conference Saturday in New York City.
WIUX took home top honors in four categories — “Best News Interview” for junior Justice Eiden’s TEDx, “Best Comedy Program” for “Radio Ha Ha,” “Best Giveaway Item” and “Best Chief Engineer,” awarded to sophomore Nick Kinney.
Senior Collin Thomas, WIUX’s production director, who was nominated in the category of “Best Production Director,” said there is a lot of excitement at WIUX following the weekend.
“The IBS conference is always a great opportunity for the people in our organization to be recognized for the awesome work they do with WIUX and for the community,” Thomas said in an email. “It was a fantastic experience to go out to New York and stand up with the best people in college radio, and we’re all really proud to have been able to represent WIUX on that stage.”
Senior Annie Skertic, public relations director for WIUX, was one of four WIUX staffers who appeared on a panel during the conference.
Skertic said not only is it an honor to be nominated for the large-scale awards but to have the opportunity to celebrate the skills of the people who work at the station.
“We just started doing IBS a couple of years ago, so it’s awesome this quickly we’ve been able to be recognized for so many awards,” Skertic said. “It speaks to how creative and talented so many people involved in WIUX are.”
Skertic said it was a cool experience to particpate in a panel during her first time at IBS.
“It’s really cool for WIUX to not just to be recognized but to get to present on panels and talk to other students who are involved in student radio,” Skertic said. “They would give us ideas for our station, and that way we don’t just get WIUX’s name out there, but we also meet other students, learn from them and talk about cool stuff we can integrate into our station.”
Last year, the station brought home awards in “Best Public Service Promo,” “Best Website” and “Best College Station.” The station received nominations in the latter two categories for the second year in a row.
Thomas said he is optimistic about the station’s future as the staff continues to grow and celebrate victories such as this.
“Those nominations and wins that we came home with show how talented our staff members are and how important they are to our organization’s success, so it’s great to see them get that acknowledgement from IBS,” Thomas said. “I’m already looking forward to how we can build on this momentum and carry it over to next year.”
Meeting students working in similar situations across the country is a strong reason to continue to produce winning content, Skertic said. After the conference, WIUX staff met to a have a round table discussion on how to further improve, in areas including marketing and event programming.
“IBS serves as a motivator to keep putting out unique, interesting content and to keep being able to reach out and connect with other stations all over the country,” Skertic said. “It’s just a really awesome opportunity to get inside the bubble of WIUX and see all the different opportunities and ideas we can come up with in the future.”
