HWS News
3 June 2025 • Alums Reunion Radio: The Class of '75 Brings the Beat Back
Spearheaded by alumni DJs, Reunion Radio will stream retro sounds – from Led Zeppelin to the Decemberists—across the Quad to celebrate classes ending in 0 and 5.
When the Class of 1975 arrives on campus this weekend to celebrate its 50th reunion, it will literally be a blast from the past.
That’s because the Hobart and William Smith radio station, WHWS 105.7 FM will fill the Quad with that era’s music, thanks to the efforts of John Clarkeson ’75, former student manager at the station, who is returning to enjoy his reunion year.
Clarkeson has dubbed the weekend-long broadcast Reunion Radio, and the needle drops shortly after 11 a.m. Thursday, when President Mark D. Gearan introduces it all.
The idea for Reunion Radio took shape in a meeting of the reunion planning committee, which included five or six WEOS alumni. [HWS radio, which was originally broadcast on WEOS, is now primarily heard on WHWS.] “It was decided that we’d try to bring WEOS back to the ‘free-form’ FM style of the ’60s and ’70s,” Clarkeson says.
Clarkeson worked on the project with classmate Zack Chaikin ’75, who played the latest LPs in the Tuesday 7-to-11 p.m. WEOS time slot during his HWS years, and later did a rock show on the internet. After Gearan, The Hermit comes on with his syndicated show “Stuck in the Psychedelic Era” from noon to 2 p.m. Then Clarkeson’s pre-produced playlists begin and run the rest of the weekend.
The reunion committee put together a list of recommended songs that Clarkeson followed, and he also got suggestions from other classmates and incorporates his favorite music. “I put together sets that I hope will be enjoyable to listen to. It’ll be more like listening to a turntable experience instead of a computer experience,” he says.
In assembling the playlists – which, he says, will include songs by Led Zeppelin, Crosby Stills and Nash, Jimi Hendrix, Leo Kotke, the Byrds, Bruce Springsteen (who played HWS twice during the Class of 75’s four years) “and one Beatles song” – Clarkeson says he thought back to the warm spring days on the Quad with speakers pointed out of Medbery Hall and beer flowing from kegs provided by a group known as the Brewdoggies. “My thought was, what’s going to sound good on a sunny day on the Quad?” Clarkeson says. “There will be speakers set up on the Quad and the campus will be, if you will, awash in the music of the day.”
Clarkeson emphasizes that none of this could have happened without the help of HWS Station Manager Greg Cotterill. Clarkeson also says he was aware in putting together the music that 1975 is not the only reunion class celebrating its return to HWS. “It’s all the classes that end in 0 and 5, I understand that,” Clarkeson says. “So we have music from other eras, too. Yes, we have the Decemberists on there.”
And he also promised that a few surprise guests might make appearances on the show at some point over the weekend. “But they’re a surprise, so we can’t tell you who they are. You’ll have to tune in.”
Learn more about Reunion.
Top: The WEOS radio studio seen in 1974.
