William and Patricia Smullin

The Smullin Digital Media Lab will replace the existing broadcast computer lab in Allen Hall. The lab will be renovated with a $50,000 pledge from broadcasting executive Patsy Smullin, who announced the gift 65 years after her father launched a company starting the first radio and television stations north of San Francisco.

Smullinis making the pledge through the William B. and Patricia D. Smullin Foundation on behalf of her parents: her mother Rusty, who lives in Medford, and her father Bill, who died in 1995. The room will combine a computer lab for teaching video-edi ting skills with an electronic-media newsroom.

Currently, the electronic media computer lab houses classes on reporting for electronic media and advanced TV news. The room is wired into the School's video network, which means students could broadcast from there. The plan includes tearing down a wall between the main room and former editing suites, which were relocated in the new electronic media center. The renovation will provide space for a newsroom, a mini-studio, and 16 computer stations for editing video, audio, text and graphics, said Dean Tim Gleason.

"For them, it was just a necessary and wonderful part of life to give students the opportunity to learn."

"Patsy Smullin's generous gift will enable our students and faculty to work and learn in a top-notch facility that reflects our School's commitment to the highest standards in journalism education and practice," he said.
The new lab will be an era away from what was cutting-edge technology when Bill Smullin began his broadcast career. It was 1932, the heart of the Depression. Smullin had grown up on a farm at the base of Mt. Hood, where his parents homesteaded. He had been a reporter for both The Oregonian in Portland and The World in Coos Bay.

In 1932, the 25-year-old saw radio as the new wave of communication.Smullin opened KIEM radio station in the old Vance Hotel in downtown Eureka, Calif. It was in the seedy part of town because that's all he could afford. Local "ladies of th e night" made most of the music requests then, and Smullin got many people their first radios to build up listenership.

"Just as it was difficult to sell television advertising in the early '50s when no one owned a TV set, it was also difficult to sell radio advertising in the early '30s when not everyone owned a radio. All of this was very, very, very new," said his daughter Patsy. "He certainly had to buy radios for a lot of people so they'd give it a try."

Patsy Smullin

The youngest of five children, she remembers hearing how hard her father worked to get this new communication medium off the ground in his area. "He started with one employee -- himself," she said. "And he did it all himself: newsma n, on-air personality, salesman, engineer."

In 1953, he started Oregon's first VHF television station, now NBC-affiliate KOBI, in Medford. The company he founded, California-Oregon Broadcasting Inc. (COBI), is now the oldest independent broadcasting company in the Western states and second oldest in the country. COBI also started the first cable system north of San Francisco.

Today, the small broadcaster owns four television stations in Oregon and cable systems in central and eastern Oregon. Two of the stations are in Eugene -- KEVU and the local Fox Network affiliate, KLSR-TV.

Three years ago -- the same year Bill Smullin died -- the company sold its three California TV stations in preparation for going digital.

Patsy Smullin said the lab renovation continues her parents' tradition of furthering the education of would-be broadcasters by giving financial contributions and their own time. "For them, it was just a necessary and wonderful part of life to give students the opportunity to learn," she said.

Smullin worked for her father's broadcasting company during the summers while she was enrolled at Oregon State University. She sold cable subscriptions door-to-door. In 1972, she earned a bachelor's degree in the humanities, with an emphasi s in communications and psychology.

After graduating, she went to work as office manager of COBI's Southern Oregon Cable TV in Medford and later became vice president. Southern Oregon Cable was subsequently sold. Today, she is president, CEO and co-owner of Medford-based COBI. She also is a member of the University of Oregon Journalism Advancement Council. And she hopes the new lab will enhance the education electronic-media students are getting.

"I think that the University of Oregon is making major contributions to those who want to be involved in the communications business," she said.