By Melissa Virzi, Lauren Gurry and Michell Yzaguirre
WTSR Executive Board Members
The 2010-2011 Executive Board of 91.3 WTSR, the College’s radio station, would like to formally thank you for your extensive coverage of the “Laugh in the Face of Cancer” comedy show.
Writing two articles related to the show was far more than we expected and are very grateful for the coverage provided, as WTSR has been working diligently to increase its presence on campus for the past two years. The WTSR Board of Directors got a kick out of The Signal Limelight about why 1990s Nickelodeon was superior, and we are honored to have been fodder for The Signal ’s editors during the editorial process.
With this being said, the current WTSR Executive Board – Melissa Virzi (Station Manager), Lauren Gurry (Operations Manager) and Michelle Yzaguirre (Program Manager) – and Board of Directors must admit we were slightly disappointed with some of the coverage in the article “Kel Mitchell headlines ‘Laugh in the Face of Cancer.’”
Although the article mentions that WTSR was the organization behind “Laugh in the Face of Cancer,” it also leads readers to believe Jason Cantor – the 2009-2010 Grants and Funding Director at WTSR – planned the event single-handedly, and that WTSR was merely his financial backing.
The fact of the matter is that although “Laugh in the Face of Cancer” was Jason’s idea and he wanted to honor his mother with the show, the entire WTSR Board of Directors put their blood, sweat and tears into the show for the entire semester, and Jason planned the event as part of his capacity as Grants and Funding Director.
Jason proposed “Laugh in the Face of Cancer” after the Board of Directors decided to cancel WTSR’s Concert Series, due to lack of interest in the campus community. The Board of Directors trusted that with Jason’s experience planning comedy shows, we would be fully capable of planning, promoting and executing a highly successful event in Kendall Hall.
The 2009-2010 Board of Directors – Darren Farinas, Lauren Gurry, Michelle Yzaguirre, Chris Payne, Melissa Virzi, Jon Irizarry, Melissa Radzimski, Diana Huang, Winston Moy and Jason Cantor – invested a lot personally and financially to the event, allocating nearly all of WTSR’s organizational funds for its planning and execution. Every member of the board was given tasks to plan, promote and find sponsorship for the event.
Darren Farinas, who was WTSR’s Station Manager for two years, worked very closely with Jason on “Laugh in the Face of Cancer,” becoming frazzled with stress more often than he’d like to admit. Diana Huang, the 2009-10 Public Relations Director worked relentlessly to promote the event to the campus community, and Winston Moy, WTSR’s Web Director, continuously posted information about “Laugh in the Face of Cancer” to wtsr.org.
Darren, Lauren and Michelle all individually admitted to having nightmares about “Laugh in the Face of Cancer” in the weeks preceding the event and were relieved when WTSR sold more than 700 tickets. Those tickets translate to an approximate $3,000 donation to the American Cancer Society. This success was the result of the hard work of our entire 2009-2010 Board of Directors, the 2010-2011 Board of Directors, WTSR staff volunteers and our advisor, Kevin Potucek.
