ATHENS, Ohio — This month marks the five-year anniversary of The Summit FM’s first broadcast in Athens County, and the station is gearing up for a celebration.
The Summit FM’s Athens Anniversary Celebration will be hosted in Stewart at the Federal Valley Resource Center this Saturday, Nov. 7, and will feature live music from Scott Terry, frontman of Red Wanting Blue. Tickets to the event are free and can be reserved via Eventbrite.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the music will start at 7 p.m. Funds raised during the event will support The Summit FM’s instrument donation program.
“We are hosting this event just to celebrate and give a thank you to our donors and to everyone that has helped us along the way,” Tommy Bruno, the station’s general manager, told the Independent.
The Summit FM first began broadcasting in Athens County in 2021 after purchasing the 90.1 FM frequency.
“At the time, there was this religious broadcast that was consolidating their frequencies,” Bruno said. “There were two frequencies that became available, one in Marietta and one in Athens. We toured both towns, and there was just something special [about] Athens.”
Brad Savage, the program director and afternoon on-air host for The Summit FM, told the Independent that the music culture in Athens was an important factor in their decision.
“We knew that Athens was a really cool, eclectic, music-savvy type of town,” Savage told the Independent. “[Knowing] the format that we do on the station, it just seemed like a great opportunity to bring The Summit into Athens.”
A community-focused radio station
The Summit has long been concentrated on promoting musicians and music education in the Akron, Canton, and Youngstown area. That commitment has since expanded to include Athens County-based artists and educators.
The station highlights artists in several different formats, including interviewing artists, playing their songs on the radio, and highlighting, sponsoring, and broadcasting local music events.
One local artist The Summit FM has highlighted in recent years is Megan Bee. Bee is a singer-songwriter and one of The Summit FM’s many recurring featured artists.
“[The Summit FM played] my last two albums, and they play so many other local musicians,” Bee said. “A really big thing is that once a year they have an event called Three-Three-O-Day on March 30th, and they invited me up three years ago; I got to be part of two sold-out shows on the Kent stage.”
Bee encouraged other Southeast Ohio-based musicians to reach out to The Summit FM.
“Local Athens musicians, if you’re playing up in Northeast Ohio, you should stop in the station because [The Summit FM’s teams] really do want to meet you and support your music,” Bee said.
The Summit’s involvement in the community isn’t limited to what’s on the radio. The station quickly got involved in Ohio University’s Music Production and Recording Industry program, participating in and promoting the Music Industry Summit and Brick City Records.
Savage told the Independent that being involved in the Music Industry Summit has connected the station to local artists and events.
“One of the neat things that we do for the Music Industry Summit, each year we do an interview with the students who are running Brick City Records,” Savage said. “We [have] also become a sponsor of Porchfest, so we’re trying to help spotlight the neat stuff that’s happening in Athens.”
The Summit FM has also connected with K–12 music educators in Athens County, offering both tours and financial resources to their music programs.
Adam Remnant, the director of arts education at Stuart’s Opera House, told the Independent that The Summit FM gave Stuart’s youth program participants a behind-the-scenes tour of the station.
“[The directors of The Summit FM] led our students through an exercise where they got to hear new songs that they were considering playing on the radio,” Remnant said. “It was cool to tour the radio station and see how it works.”
In addition to Stuart’s Opera House, the team at The Summit FM has been working closely with Federal Valley Resource Center to help locals with a passion for music push past financial barriers.
Therese Lackey, the program director at the Federal Valley Resource Center, said that The Summit FM has been a critical partner in restoring instruments.
“We have about 250 instruments, which is a pretty large amount to be available for the public, especially for free,” Lackey told the Independent. “But not all of those instruments are in good working condition. We don’t have a very large budget at all for repairs, and when I was talking to the folks at The Summit FM, they said, ‘We can help you with that.’”
