Celebrating 10 Years of Community Radio with WYRZ

Fans of Brownsburg’s local FM radio station WYRZ might be surprised to learn the station’s team will celebrate its 10th anniversary in 2025.

It all started with a young boy’s love for radio.

“I’ve been interested in radio since I was 5 years old,” said Shane Ray, executive director of the Hendricks County Educational Media Corporation. “We had a friend on the radio back in the days of turntables and way before digital. I always liked it. I thought it was just fascinating.”

Ray took audio-visual classes in school, worked for the local radio station in high school, and eventually joined a corporate-owned station. Ray learned his passion for the local, community-centric radio station there, but it wasn’t until many years later when the opportunity for a station in his hometown became available.

“My wife and I moved to Brownsburg and we would go to chamber luncheons and other business functions in the county,” he said. “WKLU was in Brownsburg at the time. It was sold and moved to Indianapolis and people were talking about it. They missed their local station so I used my experience and said, ‘Let’s see what we can do.’”

He purchased some hobby equipment, picked up a small AM signal and began doing what he had learned many years before: reporting on the high school basketball games, interviewing town council members and highlighting nonprofits in the area.

Members of the community praised the AM station, but also expressed a desire for an FM station they could pick up while traveling in the car and around the local community. On the AM station, listeners could only access it from a half-mile away.

“I couldn’t do anything about that until the FCC opened up some channels, but the biggest thing was, they only opened it up to nonprofits,” Ray said. “So we started a nonprofit and got things rolling. It was a big boost for the station. You could hear it all over the county, up to Zionsville and the west side of Indianapolis.”

They were already reaching out to local high schools and colleges, offering internships.

“Within our first year of being on air, we had a Brownsburg High School student,” Ray said. “Since then they’ve mostly come from Brownsburg, but we’ve had Avon High School students and Tri-West students.”

Passing on his passion for radio is important to Ray, and he takes care to give each intern the full experience. It’s not uncommon for a student to walk in and say they don’t want to be on the air, and that they’re interested in production, journalism or another related field.

“I always tell them, ‘That’s great,’ but you’re going to have the history of radio, FCC requirements, and a broad understanding of all the departments that make a radio work, from sales to technology,” Ray said. “We’re cramming a lot of information into their heads, but hopefully when they decide what they want to do, they have a full understanding.”

Staff at the station have seen some success from previous interns. Some have gone on to work as news anchors, producers, radio hosts and more.

Looking back, Ray is grateful for the various opportunities that have come along over the years.

“I feel like it’s a lot of smaller things that make the station,” he said. “Just getting on the air was a great day. I remember flipping the switch, turning the power on and telling Hendricks County, ‘This is your radio station; this is for you.’”

He’s interviewed Charlie Daniels, Ted Danson, Mike Pence and others, but it might be the local ties that mean a little more.

“I love to hear the success stories,” he said. “We’ve done a story about a local author, and she updates us on the book and has another one coming out. We promote our nonprofits who have nowhere else to go to run this information for free. That’s what it’s all about. That’s what we’ve been trying to do all along.”

The nonprofit station is primarily operated by volunteers, and there have been many by Ray’s side from the beginning.

“I would be a fish out of water if I didn’t have Brian Scott on the team,” he said. “He’s the morning guy and handles a lot of the technical problems. He’s a large part of why the station runs as smoothly as it does. Bruce Quinn was the former owner of WKLU and still helps advise us on equipment changes and FCC recommendations. My wife, Theresa, helps keep everything straight on the business side of things, and we’ve had numerous adult volunteers that have asked for a time slot. Rarely do we say, ‘We don’t have a spot for you.’”

They’ve also had many sponsors and supporters over the years.

It’s difficult to raise funds when they don’t need material items like food for a food pantry or clothing for a local clothes closet. Yet, the station has to replace equipment from time to time, and royalty fees for playing music aren’t decreasing any time soon.

Ray said to name just one or two sponsors would be unfair, but three or four larger sponsors keep the transmitter humming. Many more sponsor news casts, weather and more.

“We had a lightning storm come through not too long ago that knocked us off the air,” Ray said. “The Hendricks County Community Foundation came to our rescue. We really want to thank the sponsors and the community for standing behind us all of these years as we continue to grow. They’ve stayed with us and we’re appreciative.”

He knows he won’t be able to operate the station forever, but also knows that allowing the station to drift off or dissolve completely isn’t an option. Hopefully someone will come along, take the reins and continue with the mission he started.

“I believe the airwaves are so crowded right now, if we were to shut down, there would be no way to get back in,” he said. “We’re kind of grandfathered in since we got our license in 2015. People say, ‘Why don’t you sell it?’ but you can’t sell a nonprofit. You just have to find the right person to take hold of it and keep it going.”

For many years Ray kept his old timecard from a previous employer on display at the radio station. It served as a reminder to make his dream a reality.

“You have to make this successful or you’re going back to punching the clock,” he said. “It was very motivating. This is a dream come true for me. It’s a passion and I don’t ever want to see it go away. We want to give people something they can’t get anywhere else – the local news, the local information, the local celebrations. It’s a void we’re trying to fill.”

For more information, email Ray directly at shane@wyrz.org.