The Catskill Chronicle

“Folk Plus,” with Angela Page airs every Saturday at 11 a.m. and is just one of the many programs available to WJFF listeners.

JEFFERSONVILLE – Sullivan County’s only public radio station, WJFF 90.5 FM, will celebrate its 20th anniversary on Saturday, Feb. 13 with a special 3-hour live broadcast and open house. Current and former radio personalities, local celebrities, listeners and supporters will gather at the station’s studios on Route 52 in Jeffersonville to reminisce about and acknowledge the many contributions WJFF has made to the quality of life in the region over the last two decades.

The celebratory broadcast will begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday morning and will continue until 1 p.m. Featured will be voices of past WJFF personalities, clips from former shows, excerpts from past musical and cultural events, and stories and testimonials from staff members and supporters. In addition, phone lines will be open for listeners to call in with their own recollections. The public is also invited to come to the studios and join the celebration in person. Refreshments — including tempting baked goods, coffee and tea, and birthday cake — will be offered.

WJFF/Radio Catskill had its start in 1986 when its founders, Anne Larsen and Malcolm Brown of Jeffersonville, held an organizational meeting at the former Jeffersonville Hotel. Over 80 interested persons attended, and after much organizing and hard work, the station received its public broadcast license in 1988.

A year later, volunteers built a studio building adjacent to Lake Jefferson on the property of Jeffersonville Hydroelectric, and on Feb. 12, 1990, WJFF began broadcasting 12 hours per day. Within a decade, it had become a 24-hour, full-service community radio station with a staff of three employees and over 60 volunteers, 1,400 dues-paying members and an annual budget of nearly $250,000. In addition, WJFF has the distinction of being the nation’s only hydroelectrically-powered radio station, run in part on renewable energy provided by Jeffersonville Hydroelectric Co.

Since its on-air debut, WJFF has offered listeners a broad variety of arts, cultural and community programming. As a National Public Radio affiliate member, the station has brought popular news programs like “Morning Edition” and “All things Considered” to listeners; it also offers alternative sources of information from Pacifica’s “Democracy Now” and “Free Speech Radio News.” Local news and information programming includes “Community Voices,” “Making Waves” and “WJFF Connections.” In addition, WJFF brings diversity to the airwaves by airing Spanish-language shows like “Panorama” and “Spanglish,” and presents the gay-and-lesbian perspective with “Outloud and Queer.” Other locally-produced shows cover a wide range of musical tastes, from “Folk Plus” to “Old Skool Sessions,” “Afternoon Classics” to “Stolen Moments.” Part of WJFF’s mission has been to broaden the horizons of its listeners, and the station has endeavored to do that for the past twenty years.

*Captions for photos –

Top right – Malcolm Brown points to the dam that provides power for WJFF radio in Jeffersonville, N.Y.

Top left – Hydro electricity is produced by directing water from Lake Jefferson into a pair of turbines, where the force of the moving water causes the turbine to spin.

Bottom right – Among the innovative programs that can be heard on WJFF each week is “Radio Revolution,” a program “produced by teens for teens.”