"[Sewanee] helped me learn how to deal with people and develop relationships—and that's been a blessing to me over my career."
Bill McElveen, C’72, P’10, thought he knew what to expect when he stepped onto Sewanee’s campus as a freshman—even though he hadn’t visited the University prior to enrolling. “I’d seen a thousand pictures,” he says. “But I wasn’t really prepared for the grandeur and the beauty of the place. It was overwhelming.”
More than five decades later, McElveen still has a reverence for the Sewanee experience. For over a dozen years, he has served as class chair, and in 2022 he chaired his class’s 50th reunion committee, leading the charge to secure approximately $275,000 for the Class of 1972 Scholarship, an endowed, need-based scholarship fund. McElveen describes his involvement with the committee as “a wonderful journey” that rekindled friendships while generating opportunities for students who might not otherwise be able to attend Sewanee.
McElveen grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, and now works there as regional president and chief compliance officer for Alpha Media, a multimedia company that operates 207 radio stations across 22 states. While at Sewanee, he founded WUTS-FM, the University’s radio station, which operated for 47 years. McElveen came to the Mountain with a solid background in radio broadcasting—his father worked in television and radio management, and at age 15, McElveen landed a job at Columbia’s WNOK-FM. “I had started hanging around the station, doing anything they needed. And at some point, they finally said, ‘OK, kid, we’ll put you on the payroll at $1.10 an hour.’” Within a few months, an older colleague helped McElveen transition from doing odd jobs to serving as a newscaster. “I spent a summer learning how to lose my long Southern drawl, and then they put me on the air.”
At Sewanee, McElveen majored in English and particularly enjoyed classes with Professor of English and former trustee William T. “Willie” Cocke, C’51, who passed away in 2018. “There’s just something about him that was special, and for some reason, he took a liking to me.” Outside the classroom, McElveen served as president of Kappa Alpha Order and, as a freshman, wrote for The Sewanee Purple—but, he says, most of his attention was devoted to WUTS. “It was near and dear to my heart.”
Getting the radio station on the air was “a four-year effort,” as McElveen describes it. First, he had to convince Vice-Chancellor Edward McCrady that Sewanee needed WUTS, and that the station wouldn’t function as a mouthpiece for Vietnam War protests. McCrady gave his approval but tasked McElveen with raising funds for radio equipment, including a transmitter and antenna. “I started trying to raise the money toward the end of my freshman year,” McElveen says. “I met with Arthur Ben Chitty, C’35, H’88, P’68, P’77, who was working in the development office back then, and he started helping me. We would write letters to every foundation that ever existed.”
After two and a half years of boots-on-the-ground fundraising, McElveen and Chitty secured all of the required funding. WUTS went live on April 1 of McElveen’s senior year. Recruiting student deejays wasn’t a problem, he recalls. “All of a sudden, the whole Sewanee Purple staff wanted instead to work at WUTS.”
(left to right) son, Earle McElveen; wife, Katie
McElveen; and daughter, Kiki McCaslin, C'10
McElveen continued to financially support WUTS for decades after his graduation, and he says it came as a sad surprise when the University relinquished the station’s license to the Federal Communications Commission in 2020. “Once you’ve mailed in your license, it’s a permanent deal,” he says. “You can’t get it back.”
Despite frustration over the loss, McElveen has maintained strong ties with the University. “I can’t hold it against the school that I love so much.” With his English degree in hand in 1972, he returned to Columbia and took a job in sales at WNOK. He was quickly promoted to manager and set about improving the station’s ratings. At the time, WNOK played what McElveen pointedly refers to as “beautiful music”—easy-listening tunes by artists such as Frank Sinatra and Perry Como. “I went to the ownership group and said, ‘This station needs to be Top 40, not ‘beautiful music.’ They looked at me like I had three heads.”
Not without hesitation, WNOK’s owners agreed to flip the station—and, within a year, it went from last in the ratings to number one. McElveen was 24 years old and “riding a rocket ship,” he says. “It had the highest ratings of any FM station in America for three years in a row.”
Multiple career successes followed, including executive positions at broadcasting companies across the South. In 1996, McElveen became the youngest-ever inductee into the South Carolina Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame. More recently, he experienced a serendipitous professional highlight—developing a friendship with Motown legend Martha Reeves, who gained fame as lead singer of Martha and the Vandellas. “She came to Columbia to do a benefit concert, and I met her there,” he says. “Then, the next day, we were on a flight together. She said, ‘If you ever come to Detroit, I’ll take you on a tour of the Motown Museum.’” A few years later, McElveen was able to take her up on the offer. “It was one of the most memorable days of my life.”
When Associate Vice President for Advancement Terri Griggs Williams, C’81, approached McElveen about leading the Class of 1972 50th reunion committee, McElveen says, it was an easy role to accept. “It seemed like a natural progression from being class chair all these years.” The committee unanimously decided to raise funds for a scholarship and created a plan for reaching out to classmates. “We started with a list of classmates who had given [to Sewanee] and might be in a position to step up their giving for the 50th reunion,” McElveen says. After emailing or calling this group, the committee reached out to classmates who hadn’t given frequently but were financially capable of providing consistent support. They then contacted a long list of classmates who had never given. Reaching the committee’s fundraising goal was a sizable but rewarding undertaking, McElveen says. “A lot of [Class of 1972] friendships that were either non-existent or lukewarm were totally rekindled as a result of the committee and/or the reunion.”
Williams describes the efforts of McElveen and his fellow committee members as “an amazing and meaningful display of their loyalty to Sewanee—and a great extension of the leadership they showed during their time as students.” She notes that the committee included many alumni who are longstanding University benefactors. “Philanthropy is not new to this group, but they truly raised the bar for their milestone reunion.”
Though McElveen’s English major didn’t include any broadcasting or management courses, he says his undergraduate years equipped him with valuable career skills. “Sewanee taught me how to think. That sounds ridiculous, but I give Sewanee more credit for that than for anything.” He also says the University strengthened his networking abilities. “It helped me learn how to deal with people and develop relationships—and that’s been a blessing to me over my career.”
Two years out from his 50th reunion fundraising experience, McElveen continues to push for Sewanee alumni to contribute to the University. “Giving has never been more important,” he says. “I’m seeing so many small liberal arts colleges that don’t have [a strong] endowment close or come close to closing.” He adds that even though Sewanee’s endowment is healthy, it needs to continue increasing. “I hope everyone will realize that and continue supporting Sewanee to their greatest ability.”
