Radio station founder had newspaper roots
To the editor:
The trouble with getting your information from Wikipedia is that it not always correct. This should be particularly embarrassing for the Star-Herald since the founder of WEGP was not, as Wikipedia asserts, an engineer with WAGM-TV, he was the publisher of the local weekly newspaper.
The erroneous entry on WEGP’s Wikipedia page says:
“WEGP went on the air in 1960 and was started by Edward G. Perrier. WEGP gets its name from its founder’s initials. At the time, Mr. Perrier was the Engineer for WAGM-TV . When Mr. Perrier decided to start WEGP, WAGM-TV was looking for a way to carry its signal into the Houlton area. In an effort to assist WAGM in broadening their signal range, Mr. Perrier searched for and found land (an old horse pasture) in Presque Isle, Maine. He performed all the required testing and design and presented it to WAGM. WAGM changed hands and the new owners were not interested in using Mr. Perrier’s ideas. Mr. Perrier and “Skippy” Carroll (it is believed) decided to put WEGP on the air making WEGP one of the original radio stations in Aroostook County.”
The station was indeed founded by Edward G. Perrier and went on the air June 24, 1960. Mr. Perrier, however, was not the engineer for WAGM-TV. He was the owner and publisher of the weekly newspaper, the Presque Isle Star-Herald. Mr. Perrier owned and operated WEGP until the fall of 1964 when the FCC approved the sale of the station to Frank “Skippy” Carroll.
I knew Mr. Perrier. His general manager, Ted Coffin, hired me as an announcer shortly after the station went on the air, and I worked there when the studios were in a trailer at the transmitter site and later at studios on Main Street in the same building where the Star-Herald was located in those days.
To say that WEGP was one of the original radio stations in Aroostook County is a bit of an exaggeration since WAGM, Presque Isle’s first radio station, started in 1931. The owners of WAGM opened WABM (now WHOU) in Houlton in 1950, and WFST in Caribou, owned by the Northern Broadcasting Corporation, went on the air in 1956.
I’ve shared this information with Wikipedia, but their editorial process is so arcane, it’s unlikely that the inaccuracies will be corrected — unless the new owners take the trouble to find out the facts and do it themselves.
Dan Everett
Arlington, Mass.
