The Bluebird Nightclub was crowded with over 200 people July 10, for the "WFHB Past and Present" commemorative concert. Memorabilia of WFHB's 50 years as Bloomington's community radio station decorated the venue's tables. It was intended as a walk down memory lane — an echo of the radio station's first fundraiser in 1975 at the same venue — but beneath the celebration lay uncertainty about the station's future.
July 18 Congress voted to approve the $9 billion Rescissions Act of 2025, which included $1.1 billion in cuts for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. For WFHB, this federal funding cut represents nearly a quarter of the station's budget.
"The difference is about $110,000, which is quite a stretch to just have a couple extra fund drives and expect the listeners to continue funding us at that level,” said Jar Turner, the station's general manager. “We really got no choice but to consider cuts."
The WFHB concept was first conceived in 1974 by Mark Hood, Jeffrey Morris and Craig Palmer. The first fundraiser for the station was held July 9, 1975, in the Bluebird, and raised over $700 — equivalent to about $4,200 in 2025.
Although the station recognizes the 1975 fundraiser as its origin, the first broadcast didn't occur until much later on January 4, 1993. The 18 years between were spent with the founders spending the time fighting for space on the radio dial, purchasing an acre of land for the future WFHB tower and obtaining construction permits.
Turner started volunteering at the station in 2013, about five years after he moved to Bloomington. Turner said it was the city’s strong music and arts scene that drew him in, but it took him until 2013 to find out about WFHB after a friend mentioned it to him.
"I was just like 'Wait, you can just do that?” Turner said. “‘There's a radio station where someone I know could just go and play music on the radio?' So that was intriguing."
He started out as a volunteer DJ and recording engineer, before moving into a part-time position doing operations tasks from 2013 to 2016. He became the general manager in August 2016, and that almost nine-year tenure makes him the longest running GM in the station's history.
"The first thing you'll notice is that there's no format for the station. It's not a country station, it's not a classic rock station, it's everything," Turner said. “So, it's whatever the programmer makes it.”
WFHB doesn’t rely on advertising revenue and predetermined playlists like commercial radio stations, and it produces unique programming that serves underrepresented communities. WFHB hosts the only dedicated weekly show to African American issues in Indiana, called "Bring It On," and also features “BloomingOUT,” the state's only weekly show dedicated to LGBTQ+ issues.
WFHB has no direct connection to NPR, like other local radio stations might, but is still being impacted by the bill targeting funding meant for NPR and PBS.
“There might be a syndicated program that is producing an NPR station that we air, but we have nothing to do with NPR," Turner said. “And that is not a dig to NPR. We're just caught in the crossfire”
The rescission package couldn't have come at a worse time for WFHB, which Turner says already runs on a shoestring budget that leaves almost no wiggle room to absorb a $110,000 hit.
"Unfortunately, we live pretty lean. You know, once in a while we'll have events or something like that, but we live pretty lean," Turner said. “And so, a lot of our fixed expenses are just that; they're fixed. We don't have any control over them. We can't reduce the light bill. I mean, we can turn the lights off a little bit, save some pennies here and there, but we can't do much about those fixed expenses.”
The station has grown during Turner's tenure, expanding from five staff members to eight, but the future for some of these positions is now in jeopardy. And when you can't cut the electric bill or rent, the only things left are people and programming.
Test of community
When word got out about the potential funding cuts, donations started pouring in from listeners who finally understood what was at stake.
"We had a lot of people turning up for WFHB, and you know we're riding a momentum right now. I think the question is like how we have to still adjust our sights because that momentum is not likely going to be enough to replace government funding," Turner said.
After the bill was passed, Turner still felt grateful for community members who reached out to Congress members to advocate on the behalf of public media. Because of Congress’ staggered funding approach, WFHB has time to figure out exactly what will happen in 2026 when the cuts hit.
“There will be some pain felt, but we'll do everything in our power to minimize disruptions to our core programming,” Turner said. “It's a tall order to ask our community to fill a gap that large all at once, but it's an opportunity and a good reminder that local support is where it all started. The event held at the Bluebird on July 10 to celebrate the first fundraiser for the station was a great display of that spirit. WFHB marches on.”
Turner thinks WFHB represents something increasingly rare in media, as algorithms and perfectionism overtake the human element.
"The simplicity of getting into your car, turning on the ignition, and the WFHB is just playing,” Turner said. “It's a fun ride. ‘What's going to be next? What is this person going to follow up this song with?’ And so, there's a mystique. There's still a magic about radio that I think people are drawn to.”
The politics of public radio
Adriane Pontecorvo has watched WFHB evolve since she started volunteering in 2011 as a music programmer and genre director. She'd never heard of community radio before stumbling across WFHB, but like Turner, she was immediately intrigued by the idea that regular people could just walk in and get on the air.
"When I first came to Bloomington, I was neither a student nor a 'townie,' and that's a hard place to be in a college town," Pontecorvo said. “WFHB welcomed me and gave me the tools to plug into a very multidimensional version of what South Central Indiana is: a place shaped by students, townies and everyone in between and beyond those labels.”
She had spent two months in Finland before moving to Bloomington, and the presence of Finnish music on WFHB caught her attention.
“When I first tuned in to WFHB, the very first track I heard was from Finnish band Frigg — not during a 'world music'-specific show, but just in the middle of the day, mixed in with a whole cross-genre array of music," Pontecorvo said. “It was a surreal moment for me at the time. Since then, I've heard countless stories from countless people that were just as remarkable as moments of connection.”
While her volunteer position at WFHB is safe from the budget cuts, she knows the reductions will ripple across everything the station does. CFB announced it would be shutting down in response to the package’s passing August 1. Congress issues the CFB’s funding two fiscal years in advance, with the recission package targeting 2026 and 2027 funding.
The rescission procedure within the congressional budget process began with the passing of the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which further defined if a president had the constitutional right to impound approved allocated finance. Recissions are one of two ways the 1974 act allows the president to legally disagree with funding — the other was deferral which the Supreme Court later found unconstitutional. The process allows the president to submit requests to cancel specific financial appropriations which haven’t yet been fulfilled. Congress has 45 days after the request is submitted to respond and vote on the bill, with this recent package passing on its last possible day. Turner describes the process as the president “clawing back” promised funding.
"To have it not only defunded but to have its funds for the next year rescinded after they have been promised is nothing short of authoritarianism, especially given how unpopular the rescission actually is with the general public — and how little taxpayer money it actually saves," Pontecorvo said. “In short, it's a disgraceful abuse of power that does not reflect what the U.S. Congress's constituents want. I'm furious about it.”
Development director Brooke Turpin joined the station in 2021, drawn by the opportunities that community radio offers.
“(Community radio) is a really good example of people power when people are like literally coming together and making things happen," Turpin said.
Turpin sees the funding fight as bigger than just one radio station's budget problems.
"This is a great moment for us to come together as a community and show our support and show our strength about making sure that community radio stays alive, that it stays strong," Turpin said. “You know, we represent the people's voice. And right now, it's really important everywhere for people to make sure that their voice is not being suppressed.”
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect the correct spelling of Turpin.
