How WOMR was born

And how it survived 40 years

From “The Cape Cod Business Journal,” 1982; amazingly enough, I was there, and wrote this. Tom Conklin (fist raised), Paul Christo, and Carol D’Amico, three creators. For years to come, Tom held the station together.

*****

The second-hand on the round wall clock was sweeping toward 12, the big hand crawling there too. A crowd packed into a dark little ground-floor condo along Provincetown harbor, 333b Commercial Street, also known as the studio, counted down to the birth of a radio station. It was like New Year’s Eve except the little hand was edging toward 5 (pm) and the month was March.

Equinox to be exact, March 21, 1982, which suited the assembled hippies and ex-hippies just fine. So did the name of this new creation, concocted at Mojo and Kay’s dining room table in North Truro by Mark Primack, Arnie Manos, and Tom Conklin: Outer Most Radio, WOMR.

“Outermost” worked in ways both physical and metaphysical:

Physical because the station’s home was Provincetown, possible only because the Cape’s tip lay just outside two circular bullseyes created by the Federal Communication Commission, one centered in Boston and one in New Bedford/Providence. Within those overlapping rings no new radio licenses were allowed, but outside there was room for one.

A band of Ptown nonconformists figured that out. It took them five years to get an application approved, raising $40,000 mostly dimes and quarters at a time, finally buying a transmitter of 1000 watts – that ain’t much power – and putting enough volunteer DJs in place to broadcast 18 hours a day.

Metaphysical because the mission was to offer idiosyncratic opportunities to broadcast, relate, improvise, air music and perspectives weird or otherwise. There was a lot more leeway than any commercial radio station would ever dream of allowing, individuality celebrated, eclectic assumed.

By way of example:

On the first full day WOMR broadcast, it was decided that the station should impart some noontime news, you know, like a real radio station. So the DJ read a report that the space shuttle Columbia had lifted off successfully.

“And in other avian news,” he intoned, “red-winged blackbirds have returned to the Outer Cape.”

Five presidents, two executive directors (from left to right); Ira Wood, Bob Seay, Marcy Feller, Tina Lynde, John Braden, Bruce Bierhans, yours truly. Bob is a former ED, John’s been in that role for a decade, Marcy is the current board president. Photo by George Lynde

***

So began 40 years of WOMR, which has survived far longer than its founders might have expected, almost venerable, certainly ingrained, part of this community’s family like the eccentric relative you sometimes wonder about but always love.

Volunteerism tied WOMR together, and like most shoestring businesses the laces often seemed untied, frayed. In the early years common practice was for John Yingling, a successful Provincetown restaurateur and magnanimous character, one of the station’s founders, to co-sign a bank loan that kept cash trickling through the winter – the station had no assets or credit. Somehow seasonal “underwriting” and on-air pledge drives kept him from having to cover his personal guarantee — or at least he never said otherwise.

OMR has moved across the dial over time, from 91.9 to 92.1 with 91.3 as a repeater, adding watts, 24/7 unless the transmitter takes a vacation, now on-line too for “global streaming” coolness. It has moved physically three times as well, the third the charm in 2005.

The handsome Schoolhouse building on Commercial Street, built in 1844, lovingly restored by Howard “David” Davis in 1997, had enough room upstairs for a broadcast booth or two, offices, a community meeting room, a vinyl and CD library that in pre-online days was crucial. Davis liked the station’s personality so fashioned a friendly sale. There also was room for two prestigious art galleries on the first floor, rent-paying tenants who helped turn the station’s cash trickle into a reliable flow.

That kind of structure buttresses community non-profits, and keeps them alive.

Matty “Dread” Dunn; with Matty holding down the technical fort (among other things), WOMR has been a kind of community playground alongside another kind of community playground.

***

The station also staved off attempts to transition from a “community” station into a “public radio” station, meaning it does not affiliate with National Public Radio like WGBH and WBUR in Boston, or WCAI on the Cape. The wisdom that prevailed is that it’s better for the WORM (as dyslexic, humorous wags call it) to crawl along independently than broadcast a lot of great but not Cape-created programming.

That doesn’t stop the station from running Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now,” the most lefty of perspectives. It also can encourage a sense that sometimes the station becomes a glorified jukebox for the DJ of the hour, with introspection about whether that’s ambitious enough, whether there’s enough diversity, and whether — despite fine efforts like Ira Woods’ “The Lowdown” and Matty Dunn’s news roundups — there’s enough “spoken word.”

But it surely keeps things local, unpredictable. And WOMR is one of only a handful of independent stations (not under a university umbrella) to survive. The station remains volunteer-driven, three full-time staff supporting dozens of parading DJs. It’s hard to imagine a single description could suit them all, but here it is: Soulful.

Sheila House, vice president of the board. The 40th anniversary was catered by Oriana Conklin from East End Marketplace, daughter of founder Tom Conklin.

***

Old Testament readers know that the number 40 was used to connote a serious, symbolic amount of time passing; Noah’s ark bobbed on the flood for 40 days and 40 nights, Israelites freed from Egypt wandered the desert for 40 years before moving into the Promised Land.

So WOMR no longer can be called a start-up, even if it still feels pretty funky at any given moment. It has a Touch of Grey, as Deadheads would put it, evolving into an unlikely institution that from birth celebrated and defined a place where culture and counter-culture stream side by side.

So tip the hat, clink the glass, what the hell take a toke: To 40 more.

A Touch of Grey

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