Student Speak

Summer 2006

Name: Jennifer Quier
Class: Second year master's candidate
Major: Library and information science
Hometown: Stanardsville, Virginia

You're the project director of the McKissick Museum exhibit about the experience of four South Carolinians who served with Armed Forces Radio. How did the exhibit come about? The S.C. Broadcasters' Association asked the museum to transfer all of its recorded material in our archives to CD. One of the biggest collections is a show called Whitaker's Wax Works, which was originally done by a Charleston DJ named Jim Whitaker. He was trying to market the music show to other radio stations in the 1960s when the U.S. Army Reserve offered him studio time at Fort McPherson to produce the show for the reserves. Each of his shows starts with him appealing to high school seniors to join the reserves to fulfill their military obligation. When I heard the show it got me interested in the history of Armed Forces Radio and the fact that it was developed by soldiers for soldiers, and was used for recruiting and entertainment.

What was it about this subject that intrigued you enough to pursue an exhibit about it? At first the exhibit was just going to be about Whitaker and his career, because he also covered the Nixon-Kennedy debate as a radio broadcaster. But as I did more research I came across the names of three other South Carolinians who had served with Armed Forces Radio before coming home to continue their work in broadcasting. I wondered why radio was such an important thing to them that they would spend their entire careers dedicated to it.

Was it difficult to track down the four veterans featured in the exhibit? Not at all, and most of them were honored to be interviewed and happily donated items for the project. They were all really excited about it.

How do you feel about the exhibit now that it's up and ready for viewing? I'm excited, and ready to do another one. I like the idea of seeing something through from start to finish, and seeing a finished product come out of an idea.

Did you have fun working on it? Yes, I had a blast. I know the guys were pleased that somebody wanted to talk with them about their experiences and they totally shared with me everything about working with Armed Forces Radio. It was really awesome.

You've also been working with Saddler Taylor, chief curator of folk life and research with McKissick's Folk Life Resource Center in the digitization of the center's collections. What has that been like? I've been doing that since last December. I didn't know anything about sound equipment or even how to work with it. Saddler sat me down and went through the program and the software step-by-step that we use and now I feel really comfortable with it. There is so much material in our archives that is on reel-to-reel or cassette tape or records. Moving everything over to CD has been a good way to get it out there for people to hear. It's been a great experience.

How would you characterize the type of experience you've gotten working for McKissick as a student and how it will be of use to you when you graduate and pursue a career? Out of all the assistantships that I could have gotten I feel this is the one that is the most valuable. In addition to working with Saddler, when a museum exhibit goes up or comes down, everyone pitches in to help. The digitization project is the frontier of preservation, so in a way I'll feel like I'll have a leg up in the job market when I graduate.

Have you finalized any career plans yet? Not yet, but it's possible I'd like to do something involving digitization and preservation. I have a year and a half to go here and I'm also working on the museum studies certificate.

6/06