WMKP Radio was a non-commercial, freeform, online student radio station that intermittently served Penn State’s Greater Allegheny campus from 2003-2023, broadcasting from the James “Jay” M. Weitzel, Jr. ’74 radio booth in the Student Community Center. Following years of inactivity, WMKP Radio was resurrected in 2015 as a streaming internet radio station (wmkpradio.org) that typically broadcasted on weekdays from 12-6pm throughout the school year. WMKP Radio was forced to go off the air due to logistical challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and a combination of factors have since made it unfeasible to resume regular operations. Consequently, we are officially signing off and ending an era of student radio that began on our campus (formerly Penn State McKeesport) in April, 1971. A more comprehensive history of student radio on our campus has yet to be written but it will be posted on the WMKP Radio in the near future, along with archival photos and images from the past five decades.
There are currently plans to covert the WMKP Radio’s former home – the James “Jay” M. Weitzel, Jr. ’74 Radio Booth – into a podcast production studio that will keep the spirit of student radio alive at Penn State Greater Allegheny. Updates about that project will be posted on the WMKP Radio website.
Yours in Radio,
Zack Furness, Associate Professor of Communications
WMKP Radio General Manager, 2015-2023