Communiqué
Member Spotlight: Doug and Valaria McCabe
< < Back toThe McCabes have been WOUB members since 1989
ATHENS, OH – Doug and Valaria McCabe moved back to southeast Ohio with their young family in 1987 so Doug could finish his undergraduate degree at Ohio University. But they received much more than that degree. They found a place to call home and discovered their love of WOUB radio.
“Our children were in grade school at the time,” said Valaria. “We didn’t have jobs or a guaranteed income. Moving back to Athens was a big leap of faith.”
Valaria started working for United Campus Ministries as a development officer but eventually decided to utilize her undergraduate education degree and become a substitute social studies teacher at Athens Middle School. In 1993, McCabe received her master’s degree in college student personnel. She became the executive director of the College of Education Society of Alumni and Friends and the director of teaching. Valaria retired in 2002.
Doug became the curator of manuscripts at the Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections at Ohio University’s Alden Library. In that role, he did a lot of work with two of the library’s best-known collections: the records of the old Athens Lunatic Asylum and the Cornelius Ryan collection. Ryan was a reporter and a leading chronicler of World War II.
Over the years, the McCabe’s moved from Athens to Logan and then to a remote location in the Hocking Hills. That’s when their love of WOUB went to the next level.
“We started listening to WOUB right away when we moved back to the region in 87,” said Doug. “But when we moved to the Hocking Hills, we were not able to get a television signal, and WOUB FM radio was the only media source we could pick up.”
The McCabes had WOUB FM on all day long, listening to the news and information programming during the day and the music and entertainment shows at night and on the weekends.
“We love Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! so much,” said Valaria. “When we were living out in the country, I would plan our Saturday brunch around that program.”
At the beginning of the pandemic, the McCabes moved to Lancaster. And even though they now have many other media options, they still listen to WOUB.
“It’s on in our kitchen and in our cars all the time,” said Doug. “WOUB is so important to this entire region. It’s really the only reliable source of news and educational programming available.”
“The media and information available in this region is limited,” said Valaria. “WOUB presents both sides of local and national issues, and that is so important.”