Staff members of the Wayne State College student radio station, 91.9 The CAT, said they are proud that they have been able to update the music played in the station significantly over the last few months.

“We get roughly 200 to 300 songs a week from an online subscription,” said Emmalee Scheibe, radio station music director. “Student Senate has been generous enough to support us with our music library renovation.”

The Student Senate funding allows the station to contract with an online service known as Primecuts, which provides a wide selection of music to the station each week.

“I have to listen to everything that is sent to us, to make sure it’s appropriate for our target audience,” said Scheibe.

In October, KWSC 91.9 FM began its 47th year on campus. Throughout the years, working at the station has been part of the mass communication curriculum.

“It’s great to see that our amount of listeners has increased over the past year,” said Taylor Clark, radio station program director.

Another main project for 91.9 The CAT this month is the 23rd annual Turkey Drop, Nov. 16.

“Right now we are in the depths of planning for the Turkey Drop,” said Michael Marek, professor in the Communication Arts Department. “For over two decades the radio station has been staging this fun event on the Thursday before Thanksgiving.”

The Turkey Drop is well known on campus as a fun tradition commemorating Thanksgiving.

“You may be aware of the TV situation comedy from years ago, ‘WKRP in Cincinnati,’” said Marek. “An episode of that show inspired this event, where we take old unwanted things — not live turkeys, not real turkeys — but we take them on top of the fire escape of Neihardt Hall and we throw them off onto a bulls-eye on the ground below and we have trophies for things like whoever has the biggest splat and longest hang time.”

The event has been a project of the radio station since its beginning. This year, it is co-sponsored by The Wayne Stater and WSCTV6.

Marek said the event is a fun way of commemorating Thanksgiving, but it is also an important learning experience for students because they learn through the process of planning, executing and broadcasting this event live.

The mass communication faculty encourage students to leave school with a broad range of media skills.

“Today radio stations are doing video on their websites, there are newspapers that are doing play-by-play streaming audio on their websites,” Marek said.

“We do our best here at the radio station within the student context of the radio station to make it feel like a professional station,” said Marek. “With scheduled shifts and required production, we do as much as we can to make it feel like a professional environment so that when the students get to the right point in their learning, they’re ready to start interviewing for jobs like that.”