For the third time in four years the Cerritos College radio station WPMD “Where People Make a Difference” was honored by the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System, as one of America’s top college radio stations. Although the station hasn’t won that prestigious award yet, it has won other awards including “Best Public Affairs Program.”

This year, for the second year in a row, WPMD sent club president Jessie J. Mendoza, “DJ Tism”, to the IBS awards that were held March 3-5 at the Hotel Pennsylvania in Manhattan to represent the station.

“The feeling of being back in New York was unbelievable,” Mendoza said.

He continued by saying he was extremely honored to represent WPMD again, but also nervous because the station wasn’t only going up against community colleges, but also universities nationwide. He finished his statement by saying he is tremendously proud of WPMD, not only for being nominated multiple times for “Best Community College Station in America” but for what it is today as a station and club.

The other nomination WPMD received this year was “Best Liner/Sweeper,” which in short is a pre-recorded sample used by radio stations as segues between songs that give listeners a brief station identifier or promo. It generally lasts 20 seconds or less and Sami Taylor was nominated for that award. Although she didn’t win, she went to the IBS awards as well to represent WPMD and brought back another trophy that is proudly displayed in the station.

As far back as the early 70’s WPMD, formally known as KCEB radio, has been giving students at Cerritos College the opportunity to broadcast live and emulate what it would be like to host a live show over the airwaves.

The former KCEB radio station was basically a wire run from what is now their supply closet and broadcast in the Student Center. It changed to WPMD in the late 90’s when it was given the AM call letters for an information station. The call letters the FCC gave them were “WPMD956” and all they could broadcast was weather, traffic and rudimentary topics like that.

When Bill Gates gave Cerritos College money to become a Microsoft school, that donation gave WPMD the opportunity to be an online, Internet radio station.

Even though the Internet radio station is now gone, the radio station has kept its call letters which have become part of their heritage, according to Casey Piotrowski, head faculty member at the station.

Although the “Radio, TV and Broadcasting” degree has been eliminated from the list of Associate Arts Degrees you can earn from Cerritos College, the radio station which is now a club, has never thrived as much as it is now, said Piotrowski.

“We have somewhere around 40 members in our club and we’re on the air live about 25 hours a week, some days we’re on the air live from 7 in the morning until 10 at night,” said Piotrowski.

He also stated that they have live air people most of the day, every day, and they have people recording shows for broadcasts later in the day.

“I am amazed how much involvement we have in the station. This is probably the most we have ever had, if not, it’s close. This spring has been amazing,” Piotrowski continued. “Currently there are multiple ways people from all over the world can listen to WPMD that weren’t available even a couple of years ago.”

The club members at WPMD know and recognize the hard work every member has put into the station, especially the long hours and dedicated work of Piotrowski.

Mendoza said when he first started at WPMD over three years ago, he didn’t know anything about radio or the logistics behind being on air. He tributes a lot of his success and passion to Piotrowski, by saying he made it very easy to jump in and learn the craft and the fundamentals. He also credits former president Gildardo Aquino “DJ Demo”, for taking him under his wing and teaching him what he knew.

Mendoza then progressed and crafted his own style, but said that based on those two individuals and their influence he now has a career in radio outside the WPMD station. He works at Mega 96.3, La Raza 97.9 and an on-air mixer for 93.5 KDAY, all stations based out of LA.

He has branched out and not only has his “Spinning Out of Control” show that airs live every Thursday from 3-5 pm at the WPMD station. Also has another “Spinning Out of Control” show that he does for Wild One Radio, which is another online radio station.

When talking about his show “Spinning Out of Control”, Mendoza said that he added another member “who spiced things up and gave it a little more character.” His show is an open format and since two out of the three members have DJ experience they decided to do something that was never done before; add turntables and a mixer so they could broadcast every mix live on the air.

Former president and now known professionally as DJ Demo at 93.5 KDAY in Los Angeles said he was involved with WPMD from day one at Cerritos College in 2011.

“Wow, a lot has changed, the boards have gone digital with the recordings and everything is keyed to the laptop. The music has changed, just like life, things change, it’s about just keeping up,” DJ Demo said.

He was also there in 2014 when Cerritos College was first nominated as “Best Community College Radio Station.” He was nominated for best liner/sweeper in the same year and was honored as one of the top three in the nation.

DJ Demo also pays tribute to Piotrowski and another professor at Cerritos College, Craig Breit, by saying there is a lot of freedom at WPMD to be creative, to be who you want to be, to experiment with different types of genres and different types of radio copy.

DJ Demo concluded by saying “WPMD gave me the opportunity to do what I want. I’ve always wanted to be on radio since I was in high school. WPMD gave me the skills and opened doors to where I am at right now. The skills I learned here [at WPMD] lead me to do commercials, to mix them and do the liners. Everything I do at KDAY, I learned here at WPMD. This was the foundation for me in radio, to go on and succeed.”

DJ Demo isn’t the only person to come out of Cerritos College to be successful because of WPMD. If you walk into the station on campus there are pictures on the walls of multiple, once every day students, who all had a common dream of becoming a radio DJ, radio personality, or working in some capacity at a broadcasting station. The only commonality these students had is a dream and the courage to join the club and become part of what Piotrowski, Breit and WPMD give to each one of their students.

WPMD isn’t just letters they were given, but judging by the recognition, awards they have received and success of their former students, it really is a place “Where People Make a Difference.”