Music

Sense of Place: Athens wouldn't be the same without this college radio station

XPN | By Raina Douris,

Published May 8, 2024 at 1:57 PM EDT

WUOG music directors Mal Holmes (left) and Elizabeth Kim.

The University of Georgia dominates the city of Athens, Ga. Before you even get to the campus, you're greeted by the bright red of the UGA Bulldogs everywhere you turn, and fresh-faced, bright-eyed students roam the streets.

It's clear Athens is a college town and a sports town, but Athens is also a music town. Inside the imposing Tate Student Center on UGA's campus, tucked behind a long Starbucks line, is a radio station with a long legacy of getting the music made in Athens out to the wider world. WUOG 90.5, UGA's student-run radio station, first signed on in 1972, and in 1980, they were the first radio station to ever broadcast what would become Athens' biggest band, R.E.M.

Today, the World Cafe team is kicking off our brand new Sense of Place: Athens series with a visit to WUOG, where current music directors Elizabeth Kim and Mal Holmes share some of the music that makes Athens special.

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. The web story was created by Miguel Perez. Our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.

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Music World Cafe

Raina Douris

Raina Douris, an award-winning radio personality from Toronto, Ontario, comes to World Cafe from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), where she was host and writer for the daily live, national morning program Mornings on CBC Music. She was also involved with Canada's highest music honors: hosting the Polaris Music Prize Gala from 2017 to 2019, as well as serving on the jury for both that award and the Juno Awards. Douris has also served as guest host and interviewer for various CBC Music and CBC Radio programs, and red carpet host and interviewer for the Juno Awards and Canadian Country Music Association Awards, as well as a panelist for such renowned CBC programs as Metro Morning, q and CBC News.

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Kimberly Junod

World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).

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