Keith Olbermann and his “Large” Donation to WVBR.
WVBR(FM), an independent commercial radio station operated by Cornell University students, will move to a new location on East Buffalo Street in the Collegetown neighborhood of Ithaca, N.Y. in the fall of 2013.
The naming rights to the new facility were purchased through a gift by Keith Olbermann, ’79 made to WVBR’s $935,000 Capital Campaign. Olbermann requested that the studio be named for both his late father Theodore and WVBR colleague and former program director Glenn Corneliess. Corneliess passed away in 1996.
Olbermann presented his gift at a recent WVBR dinner in New York, with alumni and the Corneliess family in attendance.
“Everything I have began at WVBR, and I’m honored to help future generations of broadcasters who’ll be able to gratefully say the same thing. It’s also an honor to be again be able to pay tribute to my late friend Glenn Corneliess,” Olbermann said. “I’m sure Glenn would’ve objected to the ordering of our names until I told him that this precludes any chance anybody will ever think there was a guy named ‘Corneliess Olbermann.’”
The Cornell Media Guild, which owns and operates WVBR, purchased the former Crossroads Life Center in December.
The station has been operating out of rented space at the nearby New York Holstein Association Building on Mitchell Street since 2000, when it was forced to move from its previous location on Linden Avenue. The greater distance from Cornell’s campus made it difficult to attract students, and so relocation became a priority as the Media Guild sought to ensure WVBR’s future as a radio station and multimedia outlet.