This month’s Community Radio Profile centers T Wimer, GM at WMMT in Whitesburg, Kentucky. T has been in radio for about 7 years in various positions and roles and has gained a lifetime of insight from their nearly three years in management at Possum Radio. I had an amazing conversation with T in which we talked about Appalachian identity, the future of community radio, and T’s current musical faves. Plus they’ve got a special treat for all Gen Z folks looking for deeper community connection (spoiler alert, it’s obsviously radio).

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Serah Mead: Please tell us who you are and how you came to be in radio. 

T Wimer:  I am T Wimer. I grew up in Southern Illinois, kind of right on the Ohio River. And you could say, socially I think it’s more like Western Kentucky than what people think of Illinois as.

I went to undergrad at Princeton in New Jersey. And I think I struggled my first two years, like a lot of people can at an institution like that. But then the summer after my sophomore year, I had a friend who was just like, “Hey, do you want to work this summer and get to do cool stuff at the radio station?” I had never really considered that. And I was like, “Absolutely!” I love music, and it was always a big part of me and the relationships that I was already building there. So I ended up working that summer at WPRB (shout out!) and I ended up working two and a half years there. And then I went to Chicago for a year-long fellowship. At that time, I thought to myself, “I’m really, honestly not sure about working in the nonprofit world anymore, and if I do continue, it’s gonna be in community radio.” As somebody whose base is in development, I think I just tend to be attracted more to grassroots fundraising. 

The job listing for the Development Coordinator at WMMT actually came up on the NFCB Job Board, way back in 2020, and I applied and got it. I was in that position for a year and then my boss decided to move on somewhere else, so I applied and I was selected for the role of GM.

SM: What was it about your experience at WPRB that made you inspired to take the skills that you had gained in nonprofit development and funnel them into community radio, of all the different types of Nonprofits that you could dive into?

TW: I think it’s a couple of things, but I would be silly not to mention – just straight up – one of the biggest reasons was Mike Lupica. He’s the Educational Advisor at WPRB and he was at WFMU before that and also WNYC. As an educational advisor he just absolutely fit the bill and represented that perfect blend of “WPRB is a haven for the culturally bizarre and the weirdos who are having a hard time finding a place to fit in!” Also, being able to talk about what we’re doing in these high conceptual terms about community and what things we place value on. 

[in my experience at Princeton] so much of what I was being taught to value in that institution was to value prestige, value reputation value… you know, the grand idea of networking, just for [the sake of] networking. And all these things left me feeling really empty and in my sophomore year, I started to panic. I thought, “I really don’t know what I’m gonna do after this, because none of these options sound great.” A lot of the kids I graduated with went on to do consulting work, or worked for Google or Facebook. I think you can see the very split value difference between something like that and community radio. 

And so Mike came into my life at the right time; the station came into my life at the right time. In a larger sense, Mike woke me up to this idea that another path was possible. And I think I kind of knew inside that that path was always possible, I just didn’t have anybody encouraging it for me. Then I got to the station, and all of a sudden, I’m surrounded by people who have been doing radio and DIY music and celebrating the avant-garde for 30 or 40 years, and people who just started doing radio alongside me. And so it was just this great soup of cultural plurality. I enjoyed it a lot. Being encouraged to be creatively self-determinant, and the opportunity to contribute to something larger than me, made me want to give that experience to somebody else, and then another somebody, and another. 

 

SM: In your experience, how have you witnessed or experienced WMMT being part of celebrating and perpetuating Appalachian culture and identity?

TW: Just to set the stage: I think Appalshop is very much in a moment where we are starting to ask ourselves, “As an organization, what does it mean to call something Appalachian? And who is Appalachian? And what experience is Appalachian?” 

The organization is continuing a tradition of expanding that definition a little bit. So, for example, Appalshop recently started the AppalHealth Oral History Project, which seeks to specifically document the African American health and medical experience, and cultural experience, here in the coal fields. So, it’s really interesting, because you’ll hear a lot about medical prejudice, but then you’ll also hear stories about the Klan rolling up in McRoberts and how Black residents felt about that. 

On our record label, June Appal Recordings, (which I’m technically also the steward of, as it’s under the WMMT umbrella), we’re actually putting out a No Options: Hip-Hop in Appalachia compilation, which we’re really excited about. It means a lot to me that that release is coming out on June Appal because people who perhaps have a very set idea of what Appalachian tradition is, will be like, “Oh, there’s no way that belongs on June Appal.” But really, when you pull back and look at the bigger picture of it, June Appal actually features a lot of roots rhythm and blues music right alongside traditional, old-time music, and bluegrass. So, I think that first and foremost, there’s already a precedent for that. And again, what are we calling tradition, and who contributes to what tradition is in the region? And if there is an Appalachian hip-hop artist who’s making Appalachian music – are they making mountain music? I think yes. 

That project was funded through an Appal Seed Grant, which was something that AppalShop did to stimulate external collaborations and projects and they wanted to put the album on June Apple. One thing that really piqued my interest was that the project is run by Dr. Ted Olson and Dr. Bill Turner who are both some of the preeminent scholars when talking about Appalachian culture, black Appalachian history, and ethnomusicology. Ted would talk about how hip-hop made elsewhere very much has a core, central, tenet of urban sounds, urban landscapes, and that kind of thing. “But what does it mean,” he would ask, “if you’re talking about hip-hop artists who might have spent most of their childhood in the backdrop of Appalachian sounds and scenery, mountains and bubbling streams?” Or perhaps a blend of both? And I thought that was so compelling! So, the compilation covers a lot of different artists, but there’s a couple of examples of how I think we’re starting to get back into that tradition of pushing the boundaries of what we’re representing, who we’re representing, and why we’re doing it.

So we push the boundaries a lot, but we still celebrate the core of our identity – we are also known as the Bluegrass Giant in the Mountains, so for example, I personally go over to Pound, VA to record a bluegrass venue every other week to broadcast on air. We still have an excellent group of DJs who play straight old-time and bluegrass programming, such as one of the station’s founders, Rich Kirby, who puts together an excellent old-time music show every Tuesday afternoon, Deep in Tradition, from 1-3pm. I personally feel like you won’t find another DJ who can speak better to the larger scene and the history in the music. 

And we find ways to play with the boundaries, too. In Fall 2022, we hosted a bluegrass and rap fusion show, with Laurel Hells Ramblers, a gothic bluegrass group from VA and NC, and Kaleb NFI, a rapper and community activist. We try to have enough familiarity for people who might think of themselves as having different values to come together and connect. 

I love this moment we’re in at WMMT where you can tune in on Monday evenings to hear Trappalachia, a trap metal show, directly after Calls from Home, our long-running show that connects incarcerated people to their loved ones, while also being able to catch a whole eight-hour bluegrass block on Thursday afternoons. I love that we can talk about traditional music and also air narratives from trans youths. I love that we have people from so many walks of life, and that we’ve been able to train up several people, young and older, who always wanted to work with audio and community media, but just didn’t know how to open the door. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SM: If you would be willing, I would love to zoom out for a second for folks that aren’t as familiar with the traditional or historically understood sense of what Appalachian/mountain music is. Why would having a hip-hop artist on an Appalachian music compilation raise questions? 

TW: Well, the thing is that I don’t actually think there’s that much of a disconnect. Right. But I think that there has definitely been an image of the “Appalachian tradition bearer” and music maker, particularly for white people, in terms of what that looks like. There are still some people here who are learning that, for example, the banjo actually has African origins. And so I think, just kind of breaking down this idea of, the white, traditional musician, and banjo/fiddle music set against the backdrop of poverty in these mountains, typically associated with coal or farming or mining. And while that’s definitely a major piece of what that tradition looks like, it’s more about challenging the “who.” It isn’t always that white male persona and they’re not always singing about coal mining or murder ballads. Sometimes they’re singing about slavery, sometimes they’re singing about their personal experience with racism, food ways or gendered labor. Sometimes it’s spirituality and faith. 

It’s also about challenging a lot of these notions of what Appalachian culture is that we already accept on a larger level, while also infusing it and complicating it – again, taking a deeper look at what it means.

SM: You may have already touched on this a little bit, but if there was one thing that you wish everyone knew about Appalachia as a concept or a place, what would it be? 

TW: I would say just in general, from my perspective, as somebody moving here who had never lived here and never had any kind of connection to the region: it’s a lot harder to make it “work” here than locals make it look. Locals make it look easy! And really what’s happening at that level is they have a deep sense of community and they’re tied in in a way that it takes someone like me, for example, years to build. 

And so there’s this myth that living in Appalachia is easier or that it’s cheaper. I think it might seem cheaper on paper. But for example, when I first moved here, one of the first things I was really shocked about was that I couldn’t drink the water, and that I had to have a water delivery service drop water off at my house. And that was a hidden expense that I had never thought about. 

When there’s a history of exploitation and being abandoned or forgotten about, at a governmental, industrial and societal level, I think the people here – whether or not they should have internalized all of that – have a sense of self reliance. Nobody else is going to do it; we can do it for ourselves. 

 

SM: Since becoming General Manager, what has surprised you about community radio? 

TW: Oh, man! Well… I think I had always known that there is a very strong network of community stations; I did not realize just how powerful and strong that community can be until we were hit by catastrophic flooding in 2022. We should be breaking ground in our new permanent studio space this week, but we’ve been in the Possum Den (a 2006 Winnebago) for two years. And it’s definitely been… an adventure. 

Everything, all the tech that we have in the Possum Den was donated by several stations and other organizations in service to public radio, such as the Station Services Manager at PRX, Chad Lampe; Mike Savage and WEKU in Richmond, KY; Lance Harper and KPCC in Southern California; and many, many more offers of help and guidance – more than we could handle or initially respond to. I just can’t say enough about how thankful I was and how reassuring it was to have the [NFCB] listserv; to have a plan, be able to share some language and graphics. And then getting this unexpected wave back of support! My employees and I thought, “maybe some stations will donate equipment to us.” We didn’t expect for all of the equipment to be donated. And we haven’t needed to purchase anything new for the Possum Den since we moved in. Now, we have purchased tons of equipment for the permanent studio and that’s waiting to be installed. But you know, just having that support in the first six months of our recovery was so massively helpful, because, as a station, there’s no way that we could have afforded to outfit the RV like it is now. So that really surprised me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SM: How long did WMMT go off the air after the flood?

TW: We were dark for 28 days. We knew we were up against the FCC. And then it took us about four or five months to get the RV where it needed to be so we could start rolling in DJs again.

 

SM: I have a two-part question: What advice would you give to a new GM who’s just stepping into the role? And where do you turn to for support when you need it?

TW: I’ve officially been general manager for almost two and a half years now, and before that, I spent about three months at WPRB in the Station Manager board position for a summer. I think overall, one thing I’ve had to start reminding myself of lately is that I’m in an industry, and I’m in a particular pocket of that industry, where most people in my position have likely been doing it for a decade or more, have had more managerial experience and just plain experience to have faith in and rely on when strategy is needed. You know? I can sometimes get really down on myself for not knowing everything and there’s a lot to know in this work! So I’ve been learning to say, “You know, some of these people have been doing it for 30 years. And you know, you can learn a lot in 30 years and you will learn a lot in 30 years and it’s okay to not know everything or to be able to recite FCC rules verbatim!” and giving myself the space to grow. 

So that’s kind of the trade-off of being in community radio where there’s all this knowledge and love for community radio, but also just on the other side of it, it can feel really daunting and really difficult to get into and feel like you’re saying something and that what you’re saying matters. 

And who do I go to for support? Mike! Every time it’s Mike (Lupica). I call and tell him everything. He has a very particular perspective on managing volunteers and, sometimes the snafu kinds of situations that we find ourselves in sometimes in community radio, if that makes sense. He’s able to say, “Listen, breathe, this is not the first time this is gonna happen to you, it will happen again. You just have to learn to deal with it.” And that’s a really helpful perspective to have from someone that I trust in that way. 

And otherwise, when it comes to particularly working in this community, not really having as much experience with it and kind of growing alongside it, it’s helpful to talk to other Shop employees who are able to help me understand what’s happening at a cultural exchange level. That’s always really helpful. 

 

SM: When you think about the future of community radio, specifically the horizons of the community-based broadcasting, what excites you the most?

TW: Oh, getting more young people interested in it! I think we all have different opinions on this. And I think older folks in general can have a pessimistic view of it, not everybody, but I think it’s very easy to talk to somebody who’s been in the industry for 30-40 years and hear them talk about younger generations in such a way where they think, “They don’t care about us at all!” I just don’t think that’s true. And I hope that I’m proof of that. I’m technically Gen Z, and by and large, what I see amongst people happening in my age range is a desire to return to more human-feeling art and content. They want to buy or trade zines, they want to listen to somebody’s curated music show… they may not always know where to go to get it, but they want it. 

I can’t tell you the number of times I get on social media, and I see a young person post about, “Oh, man, I wish there was a way that we could all share our favorite music with each other in real time and enjoy it together!” And I’m just like, “OH, do I have an idea for you!! I have the most exciting thing to share with you ever!” 

Right now, our youngest DJ is 15, about to turn 16 and he started when he was 13. I mean, just all of his friends listening to his show are coming in to DJ like they love it. I’m currently training a 19-year-old, and she’s telling all of her friends and they’re really into it. Seeing that happening gives me a lot of joy. Because I do know that it’s possible [to get young people more involved]. I think we just have to learn how to talk in the Gen Z language, we have to learn how to meet them and show them what we’re doing, because what we’re doing is worthwhile and cool and interesting. 

I think sometimes we do need to ask ourselves, “Are we doing this in the most interesting way? Are we doing this in a way that speaks to the language of the folks that we’re trying to reach?” I don’t want to venture at all as to what Gen Z cares about or doesn’t care about, because we’re not a monolith, but it’s more about learning what community media looks like. I remember when I learned about the telecoms act of ‘97, and I understood what that did to radio. My perspective massively shifted! You mean to tell me that there was a past where almost every community had a local station that was really in touch with what was going on and could speak to that?! And we don’t have that anymore. And that’s so frustrating, because gosh, I just can’t tell you the number of Gen Z folks that I meet that talk about how lonely they are and how atomized they feel from everything. And the antidote is not just community radio, but finding ways to be in community. But, I’m just gonna say it’s literally in the name: “community radio.” So find a way to get involved and be around other human beings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SM: Okay, easy question: What is spinning at the Wimer household? What are you listening to?

TW: Oh, that’s not as easy of a question as you think it is!

Right now I’m listening to SG Goodman. She was raised in Western Kentucky, like, near where I grew up, actually. And I saw her last year at Levitt AMP Whitesburg, and she’s really fun. Tyler Childers covered “Space and Time,” a song of hers. But her album from ‘22, Teeth Marks, is what I’ve been revisiting and I’m really enjoying it. 

And then I’ve also been listening to Galaxie 500. They’re not really active anymore, but they were kind of slowcore from the 1980s and early ‘90s. They’re putting out a collection of previously unreleased music of theirs and I’m just thrilled about it, because I’ve loved them for a long time.

 

SM: Is there anything else that you would like to share?

TW: Long live Possum Radio! Long live community radio! Both, and!