WRPS (88.3 FM) is a

high school radio High school radio are radio stations located at high schools and usually operated by its students with faculty supervision. The oldest extant high school AM radio station is AM 1450 KBPS in Portland, Oregon. Portland radio station KBPS, first li ...

station

licensed A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

to serve

Rockland, Massachusetts Rockland is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 17,803 at the 2020 census. As of December 31, 2009, there were 11,809 registered voters in the community. History Rockland was a part of territory given to ...

. The station is owned by Rockland Public Schools and operated by the staff and students of Rockland High School. It airs a combination

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

/Hot AC

music format An audio format is a medium for sound recording and reproduction. The term is applied to both the physical recording media and the recording formats of the audio content—in computer science it is often limited to the audio file format, but its ...

in Stereo. The station was assigned the WRPS call letters by the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

(FCC), and began operations in February 1974.

Alumni

In 1980, Boston broadcaster Fred B. Cole hosted a show every weekday afternoon playing

big band A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s ...

records from his personal collection. Also in 1980, Dave Stewart of

WCBS-FM WCBS-FM (101.1 FM) is a radio station offering a classic hits format licensed to New York City and is owned and operated by Audacy, Inc. The station's studios are in the combined Audacy facility in the Hudson Square neighborhood in lower Man ...

(101.1), New York City began his career at WRPS while attending Junior High School in Rockland. He had been the late-night host at

WPLJ WPLJ (95.5 FM) is a non-commercial Christian adult contemporary music radio station licensed to New York City. It is owned by the Educational Media Foundation (EMF) and broadcasts EMF's flagship programming service, K-Love. WPLJ's transmi ...

(95.5) since 1989 until 2011. He is now the overnight host on 'CBS-FM (101.1) in New York. In 1981 7th grader Kevin Keleher, mentored by Cole, began his tenure at WRPS. Kevin worked closely with Dave Stewart, Cole, and station manager Steve Budd to form a broadcast team. While Stewart went on to Emerson and the "bright lights of Broadway", Kevin left WRPS is 1984 and went on to perform in Boston rock bands in the 1990s. He hosted a Sunday morning Blues radio program "Blues Hangover", in 2003, on WBOR 91.1 FM in Brunswick, Maine. In 1991 Jamin with Bill and Sean premiered as the #1 show on the air. In 2003, James " Couzy" Anderson, a future TV broadcaster currently serving in the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...

began announcing

Play-by-play In sports broadcasting, a sports commentator (also known as sports announcer or sportscaster) provides a real-time commentary of a game or event, usually during a live broadcast, traditionally delivered in the historical present tense. Radio was ...

for the Rockland High School football team, which began a tenure of over 1,000 hours of announcing, 200 plus games and hosted a

sports talk show Sports radio (or sports talk radio) is a radio format devoted entirely to discussion and broadcasting of sporting events. A widespread programming genre that has a narrow audience appeal, sports radio is characterized by an often- boisterous on-ai ...

weekly until graduation in 2007 .There was a famous show called Jamin with Bill & Shawn that aired in the early 1990s. Eventually Shawn graduated in 1991 and it became Jamin with Bill without Shawn.

References

External links

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Rockland Public Schools
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December 1987 WRPS aircheck and notes
RPS High school radio stations in the United States Mass media in Plymouth County, Massachusetts Rockland, Massachusetts Radio stations established in 1974 1974 establishments in Massachusetts {{Massachusetts-radio-station-stub