Wonderful 100: The History of NC State Campus Radio

According to a 1922 Technician article, the first radio station on campus was established on October 16, 1922, and was known by the call letters WLAC (“We Lead All Colleges”). The radio station was operated by George Cox, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at the college. In the 1921-1922 academic year, Professor Cox and his students developed a “radiotelephone transmitting apparatus” to begin broadcasting. On March 5, 1922, the first official broadcast was aired and the college became the site of one of the first broadcast stations in North Carolina and the third licensed station in the state. The success of WLAC was short-lived, however, and the radio station ceased broadcasting by the spring of 1923 due to a lack of funds and licensing.

NC State radio was revitalized in 1944 when a group of engineering students, led by Harris Wroton, established a radio station for on-campus listeners with the call letters WOLF (the mascot of NC State is the Wolfpack). A 1945 Technician article stated the station was broadcast from Wroton’s dorm room in Watauga Hall and experienced many technical difficulties. By 1946, the campus radio station, with the call letters WNCS, began broadcasting campus-wide Monday through Friday from 7:30pm and 11:30pm. Throughout its history, the radio station’s name changed several times and was known by the call letters WNCS (“The Voice of NC State College,” broadcasting on 570 AM) and WVWP (“VOICE of the WOLFPACK,” broadcasting on 580 AM). In 1958, the campus radio station officially changed its call letters from WVWP to WKNC.

The radio station experienced rapid growth and change in the 1960s and 1970s. To expand coverage beyond NC State, WKNC began making plans to move from an AM to FM radio band. On October 9, 1966, WKNC 88.1 FM was officially established after WKNC staff were granted a new FM transmitter and construction permit. The AM carrier station went off the air after the transition to FM radio, although the campus community requested the AM carrier station return due to popular demand. NC State launched WPAK-AM in 1968 as a second carrier current station to serve students on campus who did not have access to FM radios.

To accommodate the growing demand for broadcast and news coverage, student publications offices, including the Technician, Agromeck and WKNC-FM, moved to the new University Student Center (now the Talley Student Union) in 1972. Additionally, a tower for WKNC was built at the D.H. Hill Jr. Library, expanding reception of the station to 25 miles. 

The WKNC offices moved again in 1991 to the Student Center Annex (later renamed Witherspoon Student Center). In 1992, about 65 students from the campus organization Students for Students staged a sit-in at the WKNC offices in the Annex to protest the radio station’s discriminatory programming policies. The students protested the lack of African American music broadcast during the prime hours of the station’s programming. One of the groups organizers, Dawn Gordon, stated, “We want more prime time for our Afro-centric music and this sit-in was to make our presence known.” After several meetings between WKNC offices and Black student leaders, WKNC agreed to broadcast the segment “Magic 88,” an hour earlier to meet the demands of Students for Students. Magic 88 was later known as the “Underground,” and played a regular rotation of rap and R&B music for listeners. 

The campus radio station has broadcast many genres of music, provided campus sports coverage, and reported on current events for the local community. Today, WKNC radio continues to operate a student-run, non-commercial radio. The radio station is run 24/7/365, and it's 25,000-watt broadcast signal reaches listeners throughout the entire Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. WKNC offers programming of indie rock, electronic, hip-hop and metal, as well as focus on North Carolina music and coverage of women’s basketball and baseball games.

For more information about the history of campus radio and its current offerings, please refer to the WKNC website. To learn more about the history of radio at NC State, search the Special Collections Digital Collections website and online collections guides. Special Collections has numerous records related to radio broadcasting, including the North Carolina State University, Division of Student Affairs, Student Media Authority Records, the Office of the Chancellor, John William Harrelson Records, and the Division of Student Affairs, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Records.

If you have any questions or are interested in viewing Special Collections materials, please contact us at library_specialcollections@ncsu.edu or submit a request online. The Special Collections Research Center is open by appointment only. Appointments are available Monday–Friday, 9am–6pm and Saturday, 1pm–5pm. Requests for a Saturday appointment must be received no later than Tuesday of the same week.