Elizabeth Kim is a music director for WUOG 90.5 FM, UGA’s alternative, student-run radio station that is more than 50 years old.

Q: What do you love most about your job as music director?

I think just the tradition of everything, in being a part of the history, is something that hit me hard last semester. There’s so many people that have crossed through here. And we’re one of the last physical stations where we use CDs and records. Like, we do play stuff off of YouTube a lot. But just the fact that we still carry CDs is kind of strange to some of our promoters. So I do have to, like, keep burning CDs and everything. That can suck sometimes, but it’s better than giving up our tradition. We had our 51st anniversary last year.

Q: What kind of impact do you see that this organization has on the music community in Athens?

First of all, I think that it was really kind of a mover in the early days of the music scene. Then also, I’m really trying to push doing album reviews. And I know that our local music staff do album reviews and put them on our website, so that those artists get some promo and whatnot. And with Live in the Lobby, that’s like really exciting. A lot of people have their first show on WUOG as artists. So that’s really exciting, to just kind of give people that opportunity, or have local artists be our No. 1 artists played that week. We are just focusing on getting names out there. And you know, we’re a nonprofit, so people don’t have to pay us to get played on the radio.

Q: When discovering talent to put on the radio, are there usually a lot of submissions or does it require a little bit of digging?

So it’s not as much digging as us going out and finding stuff. We get a lot of submissions. But I would say that the way that at least I find most of my music is we are in contact with promoters from different labels. They send us their stuff or who they’re promoting and pushing. Most of the time, it’s pretty good stuff that still, you know, meets our philosophy. Every now and then there will be something that I find and I’m like, “OK, I want to put that on air.” People mainly come to us, which I guess makes things easier. For the most part.

Q: How would you describe in one sentence the music that is played here?

You never know what you’re gonna get.

Comments trimmed for length and clarity.

Macy Linder is a public relations major covering local music.