Source: The Xavierite
Alumni of Saint Xavier Student Media were welcomed back during Spirit Week to host their radio shows from when they were students and write guest columns for the Xavierite. In addition to the alumni takeover, the original location of WXAV 88.3 FM in the Warde Academic Center was recognized.
WXAV (formerly known as WXSC) was originally located in a phone booth outside of the Butler Reception Room. Chuck Floramo and Paul Phillips co-founded the station in 1978, when they “brought a microphone, cassette deck, and The Doobie Brothers to this ‘phone booth’” the commemorative plaque placed upon the original door notes.
Throughout the week, former WXAV DJs made their way back to the current station to host their former radio shows such as “Super Quiz” and the “Sumpalooza Radio Program”.
Terry Bonadonna started hosting “Super Quiz” when he was a student at Saint Xavier. The quiz show consisted of three rounds of questions, with the contestant getting the highest amount of points(out of 15 points) winning bragging rights for that show.
Bonadonna returned on Oct. 2 to host “Super Quiz” with three current Communication students serving as the contestants.
Kevin Kellam, Peter Kreten, and Chris “The Pooch” Puchmelter returned to host the “Sumpalooza Radio Program” on Oct. 3. Kreten stated that the show was originally started by Kellam when he was a community volunteer at WXAV in high school.
The show consisted of “us playing local music, underground college music. On-air segments such as Thumble Rumble, aka Thumb Wrestling on air” when it was originally aired, expressed Kreten.
The Xavierite also hosted alumni, who wrote articles for the print edition of the paper. Seven alumni returned to write for the Opinions, Features, and Sports sections.
Genevieve Buthod, a former Viewpoints (now known as Opinions) Editor for the paper, discussed how she found a family at Saint Xavier.
Buthod writes that she is grateful for the love that Bonadonnas have shared with her, saying “Genevieve Bonadonna is one of the most generous people I have ever met. When I started at the paper, she shared her knowledge and expertise with me. Not long after, she shared her friendship with me, and then she shared her family with me, too. I will always be grateful to her for that” in her article.
In the Sports section, Bonadonna’s article discusses his work at the ThunderBolts and how despite never actually being on the Xavierite’s staff he still found himself writing for the paper more often than not.
“Every Monday night, I could expect to see one editor or another amble down the hall to tell me that they were short that week and could use someone to fill space in the paper. I soon found my byline in the sports section almost every week, to the point that I wondered why exactly I wasn’t on the staff” he writes in the article.
The process of hosting the first annual alumni week began in July 2023, when Kreten came up with the idea to invite alumni to come back for Spirit Week.
He added, “I thought it would be fun for alums to come back and relive their WXAV days. For many of us, working at the radio stations was the definitive moment of our college lives, and getting the chance to relive it was something I knew the alums would want to experience again.”
Grace Van Cleave, the Editor-in-Chief of the Xavierite, emphasized that her favorite part of the week was being able to meet and talk to the alumni who wrote guest columns for the Xavierite.
“It was so cool to be able to meet people who did my job before me and hear stories from their time at SXU and realize the stories we cover and things we fight for, were covered and fought for by previous staff. It’s amazing to see how journalism stories permeate through time” Van Cleave stated.
Articles written by the Xavierite alumni can be found under the author “The Xavierite” on the Student Media website, sxustudentmedia.com.