By Tanquarae McCadney

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WRFL Director of Music Mary Clark, a media arts and studies senior, is stepping down from her position in preparation of graduating in May.

According to WRFL Media Adviser Ben Allen, her last day is Nov. 20. Former WRFL Assistant Programming Director Aryana Misaghi will be taking Mary’s place as music director.

“Although the staff is continuing on as it always does, we’ll certainly miss Mary being in the office, staring down a stack of new CDs and inspiring everyone in this ongoing, never ending work to keep WRFL the coolest music zone on campus,”Allen said.

Clark has been training Misaghi with taking on the responsibilities of managing the reviewing of all new music coming in to the station, which can exceed 70 pieces a week.

Her responsibilities also include adding music to their playbox, managing the work of the station’s genre playbox directors, communicating with labels and distributors, and taking care of reporting charts to their College Music Journal.

“I’ve been transitioning into becoming the director of music for the past couple of weeks or so and Mary’s been helping me along the way,” Misaghi said. “It’s been good to have her around.”

Licensed on Oct. 18, 1987, WRFL has served UK 24 hours a day, seven days a week since March 1988. WRFL is an independently operated, student educational radio station broadcasted out of White Hall Classroom Building’s basement. It can be found on 88.1 FM.

Clark started volunteering at WRFL early in high school, doing simple tasks like making posters for concerts. During her senior year of high school, Clark began training as a DJ. She got her first director position during her freshman year at UK, and she was promoted to the Director of Music position during her sophomore year.

During her childhood, Clark would frequent WRFL with her father John Clark, who co-hosts and produces both the Finner and Clark Expedition and the Phantom Power Double Hour radio shows. At 13, Mary read her first public service announcement on air.

For Clark, another memorable facet of WRFL is the station’s library. The WRFL library is made up of their music collection of LPs, CDs and records attached to reviews.

“There’s something magical about the fact that the numerous CD reviews I’ve written during my time at the station will remain an artifact in our library forever,” Clark said. “You can look through our library and find CD reviews that were written in the first years the station existed, 1988 and beyond. I love knowing that my thoughts and opinions will be left behind for people to discover years later.

“If I can help even just one person find a band that impacts their life positively that they might not have otherwise discovered, then I’ve accomplished what I wanted to do.”