Away from the clear glass paneling and radio switchboards in Memorial Hall, Wilbur Herrington took a seat in his office chair.

Thirty-five years ago, Herrington flipped the switch on WUOG. In a bittersweet coincidence, the station’s 35th anniversary also marks his retirement.

“I haven’t made up my mind definitely,” he said, considering his past retirement attempts. “This doesn’t mean I’m not coming up here once in a while.”

A week ago, Herrington may not have had the choice – a case of severe back pain netted a trip to the hospital. Fortunately, he recovered for this week’s operations meeting.

“We see Wilbur once a week and he tells us stories,” said Kevan Williams, who works alongside Robby Powell as operations director at the station.

“Wilbur keeps us going,” Powell agreed.

It took little to get Herrington going from there.

“Not bragging, stating a fact: I graduated with a 97.4 average at one time because I had a lot of background in radio,” Herrington said, elaborating on his schooling in New Jersey and Louisiana. “I completed nine months of active duty in WWII, got my FCC license, been in it ever since.”

Herrington comically considered his first engineering responsibilities, recalling the words of former University President Fred Davidson.

“‘One key to that transmitter room. One key that you’re gonna carry,’” he quoted. “That was the time that students were rising up, Kent State, Ohio State, things like that. And [Davidson] said, ‘I don’t want that to happen here. If something like that were to happen in your place, cut it off so the students couldn’t do anything.’”

For the most part, Herrington remembers a peaceful atmosphere atop Memorial Hall.

“The only problem we ever had that I can remember was two former guys that worked here came up and come into the station – pistols on their side – said they were takin’ over the station,” he said.

“They were sheriff’s deputies,” Powell said.

“Yeah, they were sheriff’s deputies from the county,” Herrington recalled. “Came down the stairs and fired a couple of shots outside Memorial Hall here. Well, they had some story cooked up for why they used those bullets, but I didn’t believe it. [The sheriff] fired both of them – judge gave [them] probation.”

Imparting his own educational wisdom, Herrington said, “A professor said to a class down in New Orleans, ‘When you people go out and get your FCC license, as far as they’re concerned you can operate a station, but you don’t know a thing in the world right now about how a transmitter works.’”

How long did it take him to figure that out?

“Not long,” he said, grinning.

As the prospect of his retirement looms, Herrington has amassed more memories than he could possibly recall.

“Last three years, it’s been real nice. I enjoy working with these people. It’s been one of my biggest joys,” he said. “And to sit in your office and have a student come back who graduated several years before [and say] ‘you taught me more than anybody else in school.’ That really gets to you. That’s the greatest feeling in the world you can have.”

And, of course, he always has the opinions of others on his retirement.

“My wife says I need to keep on working. I asked her why and she said ‘to keep you out of my hair for one day a week,’” he said with a laugh. “You can go and print that, I don’t care. I’ll give it to her to read.”