By Adam Button

Last week held the 81st annual IBS Conference and Award Ceremony. The Intercollegiate Broadcasting Systems is an organization that recognizes colleges’ efforts in the communication field, especially in radio but also in television and podcasting. Every year Thiel has been able to attend the event, usually held in New York City, but now over Zoom.

Through the week leading up to the award ceremony, posted Saturday on YouTube, there were many hour-long workshops on zoom hosted by actual professionals in the field of radio broadcasting. These zoom sessions allowed many college students ask questions and better understand the field from what cannot be said on air, to the social aspect of a radio station, to the legal FCC regulations everyone follows.

Instead of New York City, Thiel hosted their own IBS event on Saturday, the 8th of March. Made real by both Live Events club and WXTC. The event allowed all students to go to the Zoom sessions and gave normalcy in a time riddled with Covid.

This year, WXTC 88.1 FM went up for three awards. It is an honor to be a finalist at all since there were thousands of submissions. The categories they went up for were most innovative/creative show, best station contest/promotional event, and best giveaway. Unfortunately, Thiel did not win any awards but the event itself went without a hitch.