The following anecdotes, newspaper clippings and other WPRU memorabilia from 1940-1949 are taken from the book WPRB's 50th Anniversary: A History of Princeton University Radio 1940-1990, edited by Adam M. Rosen '91.

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On May 21, 1941, the Saturday Evening Post ran a story called "Radiator-Pipe Broadcasters," which featured this picture of H. Grant Theis on the microphone (the same picture was used for a cover story in the Princeton Alumni Weekly). The article prompted letters to Theis from college students from around the country who were interested in starting their own radio stations. Theis received letters from Rutgers University, CalTech, Georgetown University, Northwestern University, University of Nebraska, University of Southern California, University of Florida, University of Colorado and others.

Says Theis about his photograph: This picture was taken in my room on the top floor of Pyne Hall which also doubled as studio and master control room for WPRU. It was mainly through the generous assistance of Dean Christian Gauss that I was able to persuade the Board of Trustees that we could technically couple the output of a transmitter to the high side of the University's p ower system without endangering anyone's life. Although I recruited engineering students for the class of 1943 to assist with this endeavor, I myself was enrolled in the Modern Language Department.

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Warren Fales '43 continues: I started out with the Daily Princetonian and, in early 1941, part of my news-writing assignment was to cover the new student-operated radio station, WPRU. I became more and more interested in the station's operations and even began to fill in as an announcer from time to time. My superiors at the Prince, pointing out that WPRU was a competitor to the newspaper, told me to make up my mind who I wanted to work for, so I finally quit the Prince.

Shafe (Lloyd Shaffer '43) and were both dissatisfied with the way the station was operating. For example, only broadcasting about five hours a day; something like 3:00 to 6:00 p.m., then a two-hour off-the-air to go to dinner, then back again from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. And not much push to gain more advertising accounts.

So, I recruited the Assistant Business Manager into our cabal and simply said that we should walk in and take over the station and run it the way we wanted to. And one day, with some trepidation, we did just that. We said we were taking over. I sat down and began to run the music program while Shafe moved into the engineer's seat. The staff didn't know what the hell to do about us, just stood and goggled until our new Business Manager ushered them out.

I announced to our listeners that, effective immediately, the station would broadcast from 2 p.m. to Midnight, with no supper break. All music, no talk, a 'Classical Music Hour' at 8:00 p.m. As staff members wandered in, we told them that the station was under new management and began to reschedule them. They were a bit puzzled but took it calmly.

After about two weeks of take-over, I was called into the Dean's office. Former management had finally decided to complain. The Dean asked me what the hell I thought I was doing, taking over an officially established student activity. I said I was taking a course in Social Psychology and that we had been studying coups d'etat in Europe and South America and I wanted to find out if it would work in a practical application. After staring at me for a minute, he said that if anyone could learn anything practical from a course in Social Psych, he was in favor. Then he laughed and said that he had listened to the station and really liked our all-music-almost-no-talk programming. So go ahead, but don't do anything that would give Princeton a bad name.

Officially, we went off the air at Midnight. But I did have to hit the books now and then, so I usually did my studying after Midnight. And, since I like to study to music, I used to sit there in the station, playing records, with the transmitter off. The war was on in Europe, and there were illegal 'freedom stations' all over the map. So, one night I made the sign-off announcement and mentioned that in a few minutes the new 'Princeton Freedom Station' would come on the air.

One night, I cut in at about 1:00 a.m. to say that I had missed dinner and would have to shut down the station for half an hour while I went to the Balt for a sandwich. The phone immediately rang and the caller said please don't shut down and we'll bring you a sandwich and something to drink. A couple of guys showed up with a galvanized iron bucket of Sea Breeze and two sandwiches. After my second drink, they asked if they could play a record they brought with them, a really great boogie woogie piece, they said. I carelessly said, 'Sure, go ahead,' and they put it on the turntable. It really was a great piece of boogie, but its title was 'You Always Push My Button But You Never Ring My Bell.'

The next day, I was called into the Dean's office and accused of playing dirty records. Actually, it was not a dirty record; the Dean just had a dirty mind. I asked him what he was doing up listening to the radio at two in the morning and he replied that students weren't the only people who had to catch up on their work late at night. And dammit, don't EVER play that kind of record again. I told him about the Sea Breeze and he imposed a no-drinking rule on WPRU. Then he complimented the station on its 'normal' programming, especially the Classical Music Hour.

Also, we persuaded one of the Public Opinion mavens at the Wilson School to have his students do a listenership survey for us. We came in with an 82% rating (remember, there was no TV in those days), and were stunned by the very high listenership among the faculty, at least those close enough to the power lines to get our signal...

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I well remember that WPRU was the excuse I used to get a car on campus. My brother, Chuck Nimick '44, still enrolled because of war disruption, had a red Jeep and couldn't get it on campus because in those days there were few permissions to even have a car in Princeton, but I worked a deal with him that if he'd lend me the Jeep, I'd get the permit and we could both use it.

Ostensibly, then, I had it to transport broadcast equipment to various events and scenes, and we did occasionally actually use it for that, but primarily, as I recall, it was a great way to get out toward Stockton for brews and burgers. Or even, can you believe it, just to get me, my roommates and entry-mates from Little Hall to the Street. - Reade Nimick '50

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The station was located in Theis's dormitory room, 433 Pyne Hall, on the third floor, and overlooking the massive railroad yards on the area now occupied by the McMillan Building complex and parking lots. The yards were used mainly by at least a dozen special trains that would come from New York and Philadelphia every Saturday morning during football season.

My dormitory room was located at 715 Pyne Hall, which was very convenient, sometimes too convenient. I remember once when I was studying for an important exam, Hank Theis came down to my room and pleaded with me to relieve him on the board. I eventually gave in. I don't recall how I did on the exam. One Sunday morning during this period, December 7, 1941, to be exact, I was climbing the stairs to the studio when I met a breathless student on the way down. He said, 'The Japs just bombed Pearl Harbor.' I proceeded to the studio and relayed the news to our radio audience.

During one summer, I constructed our first 'remote' broadcasting amplifier. The amplifier was used to broadcast remote events, including football games. At one game, in the broadcast booth at Palmer Stadium, we found our colleagues from NBC broadcasting the game on a nationwide hookup. At some point during the game, for a period of about five minutes, technicians from New Jersey Bell Telephone managed to get our audio line crossed with that of NBC, and we found ourselves gloriously broadcasting to the nation, while NBC was feeding only WPRU.

After Theis graduated, his dormitory was no longer available to us. We found new quarters in 1903 Hall, where we continued to broadcast during the 1942-43 academic year. I graduated in January 1943, and began a teaching career at Princeton in the Department of Electrical Engineering. At that time, Dean William Lippincott appointed me as Faculty Advisor to WPRU. By the end of that academic year, it became apparent that because of the war, we could not continue broadcasting. At that point, I became 'conservator' for the organization and its assets. Student interest in the station continued, however, during that period, and we resumed broadcasting after having been closed for about a year and a half.

For one reason or another, 1903 Hall was no longer suitable for our use. Wendall Hall '46 and I began the search for new quarters and, after reviewing many potential locations, settled on what was then known as 'LA Holder.' 'LA' stood for 'Library Annex.' The library stored books there that they did not have room for in the main library. They had just moved out. What had escaped out attention was that the reason they moved out was that flooding normally occurred during periods of heavy rainfall! Of course, we inherited the problem and had to contend with it for decades until, I believe, the University finally did something about it just a few years ago. - Jim Robinson '43

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I'm sure things are a bit more docile and mature at the station now than they were when we were being pursued by the FCC for violating landing frequencies at the Philadelphia Airport (Hardly strange: we were using a war surplus transmitter taken from a B-17, and hadn't quite gotten it to stabilize at our frequency). - Paul M. Rodda '47

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I drew the job of morning man in September of my freshman year, 1949. I had about an hour's instruction the day before my debut, all about how to turn the station on in the morning, etc. There was no separate engineer, I was the whole staff on duty.

I cajoled my three suite-mates to get up and listen to my debut (which was a three-hour stint that began at 6:00 a.m., as I recall). I showed up about a half-hour early (probably the earliest I had ever risen in my life!), turned on all the switches and gauges I had learned the previous day, selected the records I would play during the first hour, read over the FCC announcement that had to be read aloud at the beginning of the broadcasting day, cued up 'The Star Spangled Banner' (another obligatory item for station turn-on) and awaited the magic hour.

At 6:00, I played the national anthem, read the FCC announcement and launched into my three hours of recorded music, zippy banter, occasional new items (mostly read from that morning's Daily Princetonian) and frequent solo work on a Jew's harp (also called a mouth harp and a jaw harp). At the end of my three hours, I turned the station off again, there being a period of some hours before the station went on the air again.

I rushed back to my room and found my three suite-mates staring glumly at me. They hadn't heard a thing: the one switch I had forgotten was the one that turned the transmitter on. - Nelson Runger '53

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To read a decade-by-decade history of WPRB, click on the links below.

1940s - 1950s - 1960s - 1970s - 1980s - 1990s