“W” is for WIS Radio and Television. WIS Radio and Television stations in Columbia played an influential role in the development of South Carolina’s broadcast media-being among the state’s pioneer commercial broadcasters and locating their studios in the capital city. The last station in the country to be granted a three-letter call sign, WIS Radio signed on the air on the evening of July 10, 1930, from a one-room studio in Columbia’s Jefferson Hotel. The call sign initials stood for “Wonderful Iodine State.” In 1931 the station was acquired by Liberty Life Corporation. In 1953, WIS was awarded a license to operate a commercial television station—the only VHF channel in central South Carolina. Its first broadcast was on November 7, 1953—a live telecast of a USC football game in Columbia. In 1987, an ownership change of WIS Radio led to a call sign change to WVOC. WIS Television continues to telecast on its original channel, Channel 10.
Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.