A column by Erasmus Baxter
It was a different time. State budget cuts were wracking higher education and the C lot was being ravished by the “windshield wiper bandits.” Here is a sampling of events from the days of 1995.
That time a bunch of UW students wanted to come to Western
With state budget cuts affecting public colleges, the University of Washington decided to cut back some of its majors, including its Environmental Science and Communications departments. This meant that students who had intended to major in those areas were at a dead end. Departments at Western received a series of phone calls from UW students trying to get into their major. Unfortunately for them they were already pretty selective and influx of people made it even harder to join the majors. Who’s more selective now UW?!
Savage Love Strikes Campus
Seattle-based, nationally known sex advice columnist, and gay man Dan Savage spoke to a full house on campus dressed entirely on drag. This led to the headline “7-foot Drag Queen Savages Western.” This also led to a controversy as posters for the event featured his well-known tag line that included a slur directed towards gay people.
Optimism
Asked at the beginning of 1995 what he thought the new year would hold, a student said: “There’s gonna be a world crackdown on pollution.” Little did he realize how wrong he could be.
2-0-sickness in Bellingham
If you’ve ever met a person, or rapper, from Seattle you know they may be a little too proud of their 206 area code. You might not know that until 1995 Bellingham also had the same area code. Take that Macklemore!
The Plague
Speaking of sickness, for several weeks in February Western was struck by a measles outbreak. 12 students were infected and many events were cancelled as result. A clinic was set up in the Carver gymnasium, but many events could not be attended unless you had proof of getting your two measles shots. Just to be safe, the music department canceled all performances, opting to create recordings instead.
Free Speech Fights
Several issues of free speech arose in 1995. First, several posters created by the AS for events were rejected from being put up in the residence halls due to offensive band names. One of the bands, called 7 Year Bitch, had some choice words about the refusal.
In addition, someone posing as campus security called the AS office coordinating a sexual health education campaign and told them that they had to remove their poster with the word “erection”, because it was offensive.
In Bellingham, the owners of a newsstand were arrested for selling a magazine that purported to satirize the mindset of rapists using graphic terms and imagery. The situation started when someone wrote to the Western Front to complaining about seeing it and the newsstands owners responded by wrapping the paper in chains and placing a copy of the first amendment next to it. The case eventually ended in 1996 with their complete acquittal.
KUGS embraces the new era
KUGS did two ground-breaking things in 1995. First, they started live broadcasting Western’s basketball games. Second, the joined the internet.
KUGS was only the second radio station in the entire country to start livestreaming their broadcast online. Their promotions director pointed out that, for the time being KUGS had the largest broadcast range of any station in the world. Take that iHeart Radio!
As well as an online broadcast, the KUGS website featured a livestream of their fish tank for audience’s viewing pleasure. Listeners responded from as far away as France and Australia with the first person from each country or state to respond receiving a free T-shirt. A T-shirt winner in Brooklyn was excited to wear her new T-shirt since nobody else knew who KUGS was. Brooklyn never changes.
