BELLOWS FALLS — Ten years ago, WOOL turned on its transmitter for the first time and unleashed one of the first low-power FM stations in the Northeast.
A decade later, the station broadcasts with full power and will celebrate its anniversary on Saturday, Aug. 15, with a block party at the Waypoint Center in Bellows Falls.
This local radio station will feature area artists with musical performances from Sunny Lowdown, Suzanne Waldren and the Mas Leo Band, Acoustic Sool, Peggy's Cue, and Charlie Brady and Joe Stacey.
All the musicians are donating their talents to the fundraising event and all proceeds benefit WOOL.
“It's been an interesting ride so far,” says president Bill Holtz, an area architect and President of Great Falls Community Broadcasting Company. “I've watched my daughter grow up in the time WOOL's been on the air.”
For many years Holtz and his daughter, the well-known area chanteuse, Rebecca Holtz, produced a weekly radio show together on WOOL.
Starting as a low-power FM station in 2005, WOOL graduated in 2014 to a full-power broadcast license, making it perhaps the most powerful independent community-owned station in Vermont and New Hampshire. Its broadcast studios are on an island in the Connecticut River and its antenna sits high atop New Hampshire's Fall Mountain.
Sustained by listener contributions and business underwriting, the all-volunteer organization continues to grow into maturity. Powered by the adjacent hydroelectric dam, Black Sheep Radio, as it's known, is heard throughout the mid-river valley.
The celebratory block party features a barbecue and a full cash bar sponsored by Popolo restaurant. There's a raffle for a high-value 10-speed bicycle and DJ Dickie Colo will privately sing you a song for a $10 donation to the station.