The Penn Stater Magazine

Becoming a Penn Stater

December 17, 2009 at 8:00 pm Tina Hay Leave a comment

I didn’t grow up in a Penn State family—my uncle (Bill Wolfersberger ’49) went to Penn State, but he was the only one. My dad and oldest brother went to F&M; my mom, to Gettysburg; my sister started at Adelphi and finished at Pitt; my other brother went to RIT.

How I ended up at Penn State is a long story, but the short version is that I didn’t go to college right out of high school—I played around in radio for a while instead, moving up to State College at the age of 18 to be the all-night DJ on QWK Rock. From there I worked in radio journalism for a few years, and finally, at the age of 22, I decided, “OK, I’m ready to go to college now.” Since I was already living in State College, it just made sense to go to Penn State.

I mention this because the paths people take to Penn State can be pretty varied, and over the years I’ve heard some great stories about this. We’ve decided to turn that idea—How did you become a Penn Stater?—into a story, one of those articles where we collect your stories and print the best of them in the magazine. The details are here; we’d love to hear your tale, and maybe it’ll be one of the ones we use.

Tina Hay, editor

Entry filed under: State College, The Penn Stater magazine. Tags: QWK Rock.