{"id":40802254169,"date":"2021-03-24T14:48:05","date_gmt":"2021-03-24T18:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/?p=40802254169"},"modified":"2021-04-07T16:42:46","modified_gmt":"2021-04-07T20:42:46","slug":"senior-sean-gerhard-wins-most-innovative-program-for-wmcx-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/senior-sean-gerhard-wins-most-innovative-program-for-wmcx-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Senior Sean Gerhard Wins “Most Innovative Program” for WMCX Show"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Senior communication major Sean Gerhard\u2019s Star Wars Show on WMCX was named \u201cMost Innovative\/Creative Program\u201d in the 2021 Intercollegiate Broadcast System (IBS) Media Awards. This was the 81st<\/sup> edition of the annual conference, which received more than 3,000 overall entries across all categories from colleges in the U.S. and around the globe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSean Gerhard’s IBS Conference win continues a long tradition of students taking elements learned in the classroom and putting those skills to practice as a member of WMCX,\u201d said Aaron Furgason, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Communication and adviser of WMCX. \u201cSean is an excellent example of such a student who embraces all of the opportunities available to Monmouth students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo be number one out of the entire country is an awesome feeling,\u201d Gerhard said. \u201cI worked hard for this and to see it pay off with an award like this makes it all worth it. I feel that I have accomplished a lot here at Monmouth in my four years, but this one is up there for what I am most proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gerhard, whose radio experience at Monmouth had previously consisted mostly of sports broadcasting, was eager to set himself apart when he came up with the idea for the Star Wars Show, a topic he is passionate about. Each week, the broadcast would highlight a different movie from the franchise, featuring music from that film and related topics discussed by Gerhard and occasionally special guests. The end of each episode was reserved for Star Wars news, which most often covered the newest episode of “The Mandalorian.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWMCX gave me the opportunity to express my creativity like no other club could have. I don’t know many other places where I can play Star Wars music and talk about Star Wars for two hours every week to a mass audience,\u201d said Gerhard. \u201cIt has been one of my favorite experiences in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furgason, who notes that Gerhard\u2019s win is the University\u2019s first in this very difficult category, added, \u201cMost Innovative\/Creative Program as a category is highly subjective and the professional judges have heard it all before. To be truly creative, one must take chances; Sean’s show featuring solely music from the Star Wars series fits that criteria perfectly and he produced an exceptional show. I am incredibly proud of Sean’s win and all of the other award nominees from Communication, WMCX, and World Languages.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gerhard credits the success of his Star Wars Show to the people who tune in every week, as well as faculty, his family, and friends. He is especially grateful to Furgason, who he calls \u201cone of the best professors I ever had the pleasure of having.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to his Star Wars show, which airs on Tuesdays from 6-8 p.m., Gerhard also serves as the station\u2019s sports director and was nominated by IBS for Best Men’s Basketball Play-By-Play. Gerhard was also the recipient of the Raymond J. Michelli Memorial Endowed Scholarship established by University trustee Thomas Michelli and his wife, Roseann. Named in honor of their son, Ray Michelli \u201900, who passed away in 2011, the scholarship is awarded to a Department of Communication major with an interest in sports announcing. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senior communication major Sean\u00a0Gerhard\u2019s Star Wars Show on WMCX was named \u201cMost Innovative\/Creative Program\u201d in the 2021 Intercollegiate Broadcast System (IBS) Media Awards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":40802254181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[417,444,1],"tags":[1555],"person":[793,1561,1549,1558,1552],"audience":[],"school":[62],"program":[],"class_list":["post-40802254169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-awards-publications-research","category-monmouth-now","category-uncategorized","tag-wmcx","person-afurgaso","person-roseann-michelli","person-sean-gerhard","person-thomas-michelli","person-wmcx","school-communication"],"squareimage":{"id":40802254181,"rendered":"\"Senior","original":{"url":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2021\/03\/SeanGerhard.png","width":992,"height":652}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802254169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40802254169"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802254169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40802268163,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802254169\/revisions\/40802268163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40802254181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40802254169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40802254169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40802254169"},{"taxonomy":"person","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/person?post=40802254169"},{"taxonomy":"audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/audience?post=40802254169"},{"taxonomy":"school","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/school?post=40802254169"},{"taxonomy":"program","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program?post=40802254169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}