Author Archive

PROFILE: No Sophomore Slump for Kayden Manning

A hush fell over the entire Gathering Place. An exasperated crowd waited in anticipation as the called chose another numbered ball. “B7,” he said. As the number of excited faces grew, they were all squashed when the tall, brunette girl in the back yelled “BINGO!” Thus ended sophomore Kayden Manning’s favorite activity on campus, Bingo.

“Crap! I was so close,”  she said. “I only won once this time!” The prize she was referring to was a free meal from McDonald’s. “That’s more than you came with!” her roommate, Megan McGregor, said, “You complain like this every time.”

Manning lives in Vernon, Vt., with her parents, Norma and Wayne, and her three siblings: Helen, 16, Ethan, 14, and Abigail, 13. She is a 19-year-old International Leadership Studies major, with a minor in Asian Studies. In her free time, she said she likes to sleep and do anything that has to do with music. She is in the Women’s Choir and plays clarinet in the Symphonic Wind Ensemble. She also volunteers at Betsy Mills, in a classroom with 3- and 4-year olds. “The little girls always want me to braid their hair,” she said” but sometimes they try to braid mine and it hurts.”

Manning’s most memorable moment from college so far was a rafting trip her freshman year. “It was a real bonding experience for me and my roommate. We met our first friend, Nicole Holstein, there and all got thrown into a “Class 4” rapid. She said if she could change anything about Marietta, she would move it closer to Vermont. “I want to be able to go home more often,” she added.

The biggest difference between Vermont and Ohio, she said, is the ideological diversity. “Like, there are actually Republicans here,” she quipped. She also said that the seasons are a little bit different in Ohio. “How it can snow and be sunny and 50 degrees in the same day is beyond me,” she concluded.

EDITOR’S NOTE:  This article is by Joe Dillon, a Media Writing Two student at Marietta College.  If you are interested in writing for Writing on the Mall, send an e-mail to Patrick_H@writingonthemall.net.

98.5 Provides Diverse Listening Opportunities

It’s Tuesday night. Maybe you’re working on homework and need a little background music. Maybe you’re avoiding homework and need a distraction. Your iTunes playlist is overplayed and Pandora can’t seem to get your musical style just right. So what do you do? Perhaps turning to the good old radio is the way to go.

Senior Danette Curiale, of Cleveland, Ohio, and junior Alissa Bambarger, of Conneaut, Ohio, recently started broadcasting their own hip-hop radio show on Marietta College’s own WCMO 98.5 FM. The duo’s show, Hip Hop Hour to the Second Power, runs from 7-9 p.m. every Tuesday.

“We both like hip-hop a lot,” Curiale said, “We pick songs that are popular and that we like.” They are happy to take requests, both girls said, and they will play any suggestions they get, as long as they fit into the show’s genre.

Bambarger, who goes by “A-Bam” on the show, said her favorite aspect of doing the show is getting to play the kind of music she likes because there aren’t really stations around here that play it. “I never thought I’d have a radio show,” Curiale, better known as “D-Money,” said, “It’s different. That’s what I like.” Neither thinks having a show is very hard, the most difficult thing for both is finding edited versions of the songs they want to play. During the course of the show, they also have to break for campus and community announcements, as well as play public service announcements.

Curiale and Bambarger heard about an opening for a show through their sorority sister, Amy Hayes, who has had a show for the past two years. “We just had to e-mail the station manager and fill out some paperwork with a basic idea and timeslot. It was really simple,” Curiale commented. Now they grace the airwaves for your enjoyment on those boring Tuesday nights, so take a break and tune in.

This article was written by Joe Dillon, a student taking Media Writing Two at Marietta College.  Look for more articles from the class to appear on Writing on the Mall in the coming weeks.  If you are interested in writing for Writing on the Mall, please e-mail patrick_h at writingonthemall dot net.