Two Northern Michigan University students have embarked on a project to research, write and record a new “U.P. History Moment” radio series. Each episode, roughly four minutes in length, is broadcast twice weekly on WNMU-FM Public Radio 90. The students are using the resources of the Central U.P. and NMU Archives to select topics and develop content.
“The goal is to have each history moment circle back to one of our archival collections as much as possible,” said Erin O'Toole, a senior history major from Fenton, Mich. “My brainstorming sessions included a lot of scrolling through our database looking for potential topics and talking to my fellow student assistants and patrons. Another massive consideration is the narrative value of a collection. We chose to feature pieces that had engaging stories in addition to historical value. We also had the help of the U.P. History class for generating scripts that cover more general themes, such as the U.P. and the Cold War.
“My favorite aspect of History as a field of study is the extraction of stories from hard facts. The U.P. History Moment was a unique opportunity to exercise the creative aspect of storytelling along with the traditional analysis. Learning about U.P. history as its own topic, rather than a subsection of a larger history, has been refreshing. I found that I learned so much more about the people and culture of the Upper Peninsula than ever before.”
The theme hits even closer to home for Marquette native and junior history major Elijah Croschere. He said most of the radio scripts are based on interesting collections discovered in the archives, or fascinating stories from the students' own research.
“The most fulfilling part of this project for me is getting to share this history with others,” he added. “As a self-styled storyteller, history is something I hold in very high regard. Oftentimes, the the most intriguing stories you'll find are things that really happened not so long ago. Getting to put bundles of that fascinating history together and present them to the public is very fulfilling work.”
Marcus Robyns, NMU's university archivist, explained how the idea for the student-produced segments first surfaced. He said it was partly to fill a programming void created by the loss of a similar segment.
“For a few years, the Historical Society of Michigan used to produce a regular four-minute or so radio spot they called the ‘Michigan History Moment,'” Robyns said. “I found out last summer they stopped because it was too much work. But the radio station still has a collection and kept replaying them. My wife suggested we replace the reruns with a ‘U.P. History Moment' instead. I thought it was a great idea, so we created a student-driven production that's focused more specifically on the region the radio station covers.”
Hans Ahlstrom of Public Radio 90 is guiding the student assistants in recording their respective segments in the studio. The “U.P. History Moment” airs at 8:30 a.m. Wednesdays and replay at 5:35 p.m. Sundays.