It's so hard to imagine that WUMB will officially begin its 25th year on the FM airwaves on September 19th! It's been such an incredible journey, made all the better by the continuing support of tens of thousands of listeners and thousands of donors. It's been so great, that we've decided to have a year-long celebration with lots of specials events and activities both on-air and off.

• On September 19th beginning at 6am, we had a day-long reminiscence of the top songs from the WUMB Playlists over the past 25 years. Here's the link to this list of songs.

  

  WUMB Staff (photo left) in a rendition of "Happy Birthday" sung on Sept 19th at 3:17pm (the exact time we went on the air back in 1982).

  Listen to the staff singing the song here. Just afterwards, we played the first song ever heard on WUMB-FM. It was Jefferson Airplane's Embryonic Journey, written and performed by Jorma Kaukonen.

• What is your favorite memory of WUMB over the years? We'll post memories on a special page. Just send us an e-mail at wumb@umb.edu to include on the page. Please let us know if you would like your name and town included or if you would prefer to remain anonymous. You can find the current list of memories here.

• Check out the Boston Globe story about WUMB's 25th Anniversary here.

• Participate in the 25th Anniversary decal contest. Cling-on window decals with the WUMB 25th anniversary logo will be distributed through the Fall. We invite you to "show your WUMB Pride" by putting the decal in your car window, your home window, a store front, in the arms of a teddy bear sitting on your desk at work, or any other location that can be seen by the public. Take a picture and send it to us. We'll choose pictures to display on our website throughout the rest of our year-long celebration and, each month we'll select one or more to win a great WUMB prize! We'll have the decals our this weekend's Boston Folk Festival. But, if you would like a 25th Anniversary decal mailed to you, send us an e-mail at wumb@umb.edu with your name and address, and check back here in a few weeks about where to send your photos.

Bookmark this page and check back here from time to time for other 25th Anniversary events and activities. We'll plan a new one for each month over the next year.

Below is a list of several other ideas from staff, volunteers, listeners and UMass Boston faculty and staff about how to celebrate our 25th Anniversary. Many of these ideas have to be further developed, but it's a great starting place.

If you have other ideas, and -- more importantly -- if you want to volunteer to help produce any of these events and/or activities, let us know at wumb@umb.edu. Several of these ideas will take the time of lots of volunteers, over several months. It would be helpful if you put "25th Anniversary Feedback" in the email subject line. THANKS, for helping to be a part of WUMB's 25th Anniversary Celebration.

• 1) CALENDAR: Produce a 2008 WUMB calendar with staff pictures and bios as well as pictures throughout the 25 years of the station. We can use some of the old pictures from the last WUMB calendar produced several years ago as a "see how we have aged" page.
• 2) COFFEEHOUSE PARTICIPATION: Perhaps like was done for WUMB 20th Anniversary celebration, for each month of the season, visit a different coffeehouse each month thru June 2008. Bring along the WUMB van. Hand out WUMB goodies/logo items, door prize & balloons.
• 3) COMMUNITY SERVICE PROJECT: Develop some kind of community service project with the UMass Boston Golden Key Society that could help celebrate 25 years. Is there an organization that WUMB has supported in some way throughout all of these years?
• 4) CONCERT: Hold a spring benefit concert at Sanders or Somerville Theater. Have a full-color program book with an article and pictures of the history of the station at this event where ads are solicited or congratulations messages presented from other folk organizations.
• 5) HISTORY-ON-THE-WEB: Put an oral or written history of station on web with past managers, employees, volunteers and artists adding to it.
• 6) LIBRARY EXHIBIT: Create an exhibit of past logos and station-related art, along with various memorabilia (old program guides, old staff members, recordings of old programs and home-grown specials, a series of station related mugs or tee shirts, etc.) The display could be set up in the Healey Library or the Campus Center for viewing and then changed once or twice during the year.
• 7) SCAVENGER HUNT: Send teams out with digital cameras (maybe could get them donated and used as prizes, as well) to document each team's ability to follow cryptic clues to folk-related locations either around town (like the original Club 47 location, now just another store front, or the location of the old Purple Unicorn Coffeehouse, now a Chinese restaurant) or to find pre-secreted objects on campus, especially things kept by specific University personnel to be delivered to teams that can find them and ask appropriately for the items. The items could also be pieces of a large puzzle which, when put together at the end of the game, create either a pictorial representation meaningful to WUMB listeners, or a de-cryptable message or final clue to a grand prize or opportunity.
• 8) STAFF REUNION: Hold a reunion of all past and present station staff.
• 9) TEE-SHIRT: Create a 25th anniversary t-shirt to be sold on the web.
• 10) TRIVIA TENTS: Produce a series of folk trivia on stand-up table tents, to be distributed to area coffeehouses and coffee shops that promotes folk music and WUMB.