Kent County High’s WKHS Radio Has Been Spinning the Hits for More Than 50 Years

Chris Singleton’s career in radio got its accidental start in 1983, during his junior year at Kent County High School. He was in class when the school’s radio station, on air at the time, began having issues with the intercom system between its studios and put out an SOS, asking if anyone in the vo-tech electronics program could come to the rescue.

“Today, they call it the ‘Digital Electronics,’ but then they referred to it as Radio and TV Repair. You graduate, and you’re expected to work in a TV repair shop, back when they had those things,” recalls Singleton, Kent County High class of ’84, with a smile, sitting in WKHS’s main studio.

“A component in the power supply, a thing called a diode, which converts AC to DC voltage, went bad. I still remember. And I robbed one out of a television set, because we had tons of TV sets. I said, ‘I think this will work,’ and I popped it in and sure enough, it came right on. Once I fixed the intercom, I was like, ‘Oh, this is a real radio station.’”

Singleton, pictured above with students Lynden Saunders and Adrean Johnson, was, is, right. WKHS, 90.5 on your FM dial, is not just some small, in-house-only school station. Founded in 1974—Elton John’s “Rocket Man” was the first song they ever played—it remains one of the most powerful high school stations in the country and the only high school station in the state.

For those unfamiliar, its 17,500-watt signal stretches from the Eastern Shore to Southern Maryland to Baltimore and Wilmington. For his part, Singleton did not take a job at a radio and TV repair shop after graduation, instead earning a degree in Electronics Engineering Technology from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.

In the middle of a successful career, mostly in Washington, D.C. commercial radio, he took on the duties of station engineer three decades ago, a part-time role. He became WKHS’s full-time station manager and student instructor in 2008.

The facilities, which include a greeting area and multiple production rooms, are almost entirely supported by donations, local business sponsorships, and spring and fall fundraising drives. A secondary studio, it’s hoped, will soon start hosting musicians and bands—think NPR’s Tiny Desk concerts or World Café out of Philadelphia’s WXPN, whose 24-hour programming WKHS sometimes shares to fill out its eclectic mix of student-read news, student-led music hours, and evening DJ shows, hosted by volunteer adults in the community.

“Oh my God, I loved being a DJ when I was a student,” says alum Sam Sessa, the director of events and community engagement for WTMD and WYPR, and former host of “Baltimore Hit Parade.” “I had the cringiest host name. I was ‘DJ Sam the Man, on the air on WKHS.’ I was so full of myself. My intro song was Eminem’s ‘My Name Is.’”

Cringy alias or not, the experience got Sessa his first professional gig and changed his career when WTMD called and asked the former Baltimore Sun music and features reporter if he’d be interested in hosting a show.

Of course, he also still tunes in to his alma mater’s signal. “Have you listened when the kids are reading the news?” he asks. “It’s really hard to read the news out loud, and getting that experience is something you keep your whole life, but it’s tough, man. It’s really tough. They’re so endearing. You’re listening to them read the latest sports and news and you’re rooting for them.”

Singleton notes the station receives more emails and phone calls from the Baltimore area, Harford County, and Western Shore than from the Eastern Shore because of the higher population density on this side of the Bay. But he adds WKHS is more tight-knit family than corporate media entity. (Sometimes even a literal family; Sessa’s mother preceded him as a WKHS DJ and Singleton’s son currently has a show.)

The broader station community includes not just past and present students, but the local adult DJs and longtime listeners, most of whom reside relatively close to its powerful signal.

“One listener in Caroline County, which is south of us, not too far down the road, called in about a year ago and said, ‘I want a portion of my estate in my will to go toward the station because that’s how committed I am to it,’” Singleton shares, adding the man has been tuning in since WKHS’s infancy. “He said, ‘Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a terminal disease or anything. It may not happen right away, but I’m meeting with my lawyer to do this, and I’d like to know, are there any legal issues on your end to consider?’

“We talked through that, and I thought it was just a wonderful gesture. And, I’m genuinely happy to report, he still calls in from time to time with song requests.”