Dave Baseler’s Centennial Adventures
When I was a Junior at Wheaton College, for special credit, I agreed to record every single Centennial event and produce an audio yearbook – ‘Centennial in Sound.’ Under the auspices of WETN (before FM), I traveled all over campus and Chicagoland with my faithful Magnecorder reel-to-reel tape recorder, along with a microphone and mike stand, plus yards of microphone and power cables and boxes of tape. I don’t remember what the recorder weighed, but it was so heavy I finally put wheels on it!
By spring, I had recorded 175 miles of 1/4″ audio tape. I edited all that down (with razor blades cutting out pieces of tape) to fit on two sides of a long-play record. My great friend, George Toles (B.A. 1961) and I wrote the script and George did the voice-over. Ed Hollatz (G.S. 1955) and Richard Gehrig approved everything, and we found a local company to press the records.
What did I get out of it? Two things: an A on the project, and a bad case of mono! But it was a great experience.
To hear a portion of the recording, click on the arrow below.
The story of this project is discussed on page 103 of my book, The Stories of My Life.