CityView Magazine

CityViewNC.com | 55 City Angel B efore the red on-air light flashes, Bill Ludden begins cutting the newspaper into pieces. He separates the local stories from the columns, weather, obituaries, even the horoscopes and advertisements. Ludden and another volunteer, Dee Boiselle, slide the articles into clear plastic protectors so they won't send crinkling noises over the airwaves. BY MARGARET FISHER Listeners like Era Mae Rickman are ready for their morning paper. No, they don't read it; they hear it. They are the blind, visually-impaired or disa- bled who cannot physically pick up the pages of a newspaper or magazine. So the Southeastern North Carolina Radio Reading Service does it for them. The free service is provided on a sub-frequency of WFSS 91.9 FM on the campus of Fayetteville State University. But Rickman already knows the ins and outs of the non-profit organization; she and her husband, Harold, founded the service, which took to the airwaves in January 1988. She served as chairwoman of the group's board of directors for 17 years and remains on the board to this day. She is also a listener. Listeners depend on volunteers like Boiselle and Ludden to do the reading. They take turns reading stories and columns of the newspaper. While one reads, the other takes a breather. Ludden retired from General Motors Corporation after 34 years and has lived in Fayetteville since 2000. He's been reading for the radio service since 2004. "I think it's a good community service," and not only that, he said, it's simply fun. About a dozen volunteers show up at various scheduled times throughout the week to read local newspapers, magazines and novels to as many as 1,200 listeners. Kimberly Durden is executive director of SENCRRS. But she didn't start out in that position. Seven years ago she saw a newspaper advertisement asking for volunteers. "I took that on and immediately fell in love with it," she said. When she was asked to step into the role of director, the avid reader took it on as a challenge. "For me, it's kind of personal," she said. "I've always had a heart for people." Now, she gets to meet the people who rely on the service – she delivers free radio receivers to new listeners. But Durden doesn't just drop them off and leave. She will stay and chat with people who sometimes have few, if any, visitors. When she delivered a receiver to one elderly listener, the woman confided, "This will be like having a friend talk to me." "When someone is blind, people think that they are sick," Durden said. "They don't want to come around." The service helps connect people to the community, she said. The radio service goes beyond what television and the Internet offer by providing in-depth local news and events. Although radio reading services are established in cities throughout the United States, including eight in North Carolina, each organization has come about through grassroots efforts. Rickman, a former public school teacher, learned about a reading service while living in Ohio. When she and her husband moved back to North Carolina, they began working on getting a similar program started in Fayetteville. Through numerous fundraisers and donations, the couple generated $20,000 and purchased 50 radios. The partnership with Fayetteville State University made their dream a reality. "I was so happy we got it started in 1988 because my husband died in September 1988 and he was so instrumental," Rickman said. The Rickmans remodeled a wing of the FSU telecommunications building. There, in tight quarters, a small staff and dedicated volunteers keep the dream alive. Harold Rickman would be proud to see it today. The service reaches about a 60- mile radius covering 10 counties, thanks to a signal broadcast from a remote site in Lee County. In the beginning, volunteers broadcast about 10 hours a week. Today, they've increased that to about 28 hours. The remainder of the time is provided by In Touch, a national reading service, so listeners are provided 24-hour coverage. "Blindness has no barriers," Durden said, "so we want to reach out as far as we can." CV THIS JUST IN

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