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Among the radio waves, in between popular, rock, and country stations, lives Saint Leo University’s very own radio station.
The University began its journey to build a broadcast studio for the students and faculty on campus in 2015 when a rare opportunity presented itself: a window opened to file for a radio station. The University quickly filed for the ability of starting a station, as an opportunity like that may never have occurred again. Within eighteen months, a studio was built on main campus, and transmitters and antennas were in place so as not to interfere with other nearby stations. Saint Leo found a home among the radio waves on 92.7 fm.
The broadcast studio itself is passed every day by students and faculty alike. The station is located in the School of Business on the first floor in room 108, it is there that the content of the station is planned and aired. This content includes music, motivational programs, and prerecorded shows. The music played can be anything from oldies to top 40 hits. Motivational shows are all catered to students, and the great thing about the station is that it is commercial free. The prerecorded shows include anything from old 1930s comedy, to environmental topics, and a student created and controlled show called Night Ride.
Night Ride was originally created by freshman Cybersecurity major Jacob Diercks and a group of friends before he attended Saint Leo as a fun podcast based in Sarasota. When he and his friends went separate ways for college, they had to leave the show in the past. Or so he thought.
One Nov. day, Jacob and a gang of friends at Saint Leo, including Co-Host Danh Cooney, also a freshman Cybersecurity major, were talking and the idea of the radio show came up. They all agreed that it sounded like a pretty fun idea and decided to see if it was possible to bring it to the students of Saint Leo. And so it was that Jacob decided to resurrect Night Ride.
Night Ride is a show that is specifically for college students. Diercks and Cooney talk anything from local news, to technology. Every so often, they have special guests who can talk about topics, such as fashion, when they feel they aren’t qualified enough to do so. They sometimes fill their show with the latest hit music as well. Basically, anything that connects to the youth here on campus, they may speak of. Comedy plays a big part of their show as well to make the content they put out entertaining and fun.
The show not only entertains those here on campus, but is put out to inform them as well. They hope that students take advantage of the show.
“Because there really isn’t a news outlet for students, and the news outlets out there really aren’t centered toward college students… we decided to find local as well as national stories that would affect students,” said Diercks.
He has also noticed that since everyone pretty much walks around campus with their headphones on getting any information or news they put out lets them stay informed especially when they are walking to and from class. It also helps when it is hard to make time to read news. Their show puts information into a convenient audio form.
Night Ride is prerecorded on Thursdays and airs on Mondays at 6 p.m. The same episode is then rerun on Fridays at 6 p.m. Each show is an hour long. Both hosts hope for the show to become live so they can have more audience interactions, but for the time being they are content with going live on Instagram under the handle nightride92.7. They also hope to convert their hour long shows into podcasts that can be found through places like iTunes.
Until then, you can simply tune into their show on Mondays and Fridays. To tune into Saint Leo’s radio station, simply turn your radio dials to 92.7 or go online to live365.com and search for Saint Leo University Radio.
